Apple Releases Safari Beta for Windows

Umm... yay?

Published on June 12, 2007 By Zoomba In WinCustomize News

Yesterday, at the keynote for the Apple World Wide Developer Conference, CEO Steve Jobs announced that the next version of the previously Apple-only web browser, Safari, would be making its way to the Windows world. In fact, upon the end of the keynote when the newly redesigned Apple.com was launched, you could download a beta of Safari 3. It looks like Apple is hoping to take the browser world by storm like it did with the music player/store software market with iTunes. However, there are many questions over whether or not yet another browser will make much of a splash in a market already crowded by larger-name players.

Yesterday, approximately 1.14% of our visitors were using Safari, as opposed to a 0.25% most days previous.

It is worth noting that we do not currently support Safari on WinCustomize, so if you're running the beta and you're getting flaky display problems, or submission forms aren't working, please just switch back to your standard PC browser. Safari is considered beta so it may not function properly.

If you've been using Safari for the past day now, what are your thoughts on it? Will it take the place of Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera on your system?

Comments (Page 2)

JesseJ

on Jun 12, 2007

It's funny that all these people are getting all bent out of shape over a BETA, NOT a FINAL PRODUCT. BETA clearly means IN TESTING, NOT PERFECT.

Zoomba

on Jun 12, 2007

When you say you don't support Safari on Wincustomize, you should go on to say that you don't support Opera and Firefox either, and that you only support Internet Explorer.

We actually do support Firefox.

Tsumana

on Jun 12, 2007

Yeah, I was about to say that Firefox loads the site perfectly for me.

Anyway, I seem to be in the minority but I quite like Safari, but it's not too usable for me. Every time that little popup thing appears asking me to save a password or add a bookmark the thing crashes on me.

I miss some features too, specifically, session restore. Like a lot of people I'll probably use it for testing for now and see how it is when the beta phase is done.

Nimbin

on Jun 12, 2007

safari, while it is a capable browser it is nothing to write home about, the text is way to small even though this can be adjusted, the look reminds me of computer interfaces ala windows 98. it is slow to load, pages load slowly, i dont know where apple got the idea that it is the worlds fastest browser because even IE7 is faster on loading pages than safari. firefox and opera put it to shame, maybe once it gets out of beta and into final release stage this may have improved but until then i will stick with what i have. all in all not a bad effort but in a windows enviroment it still has a very long way to go. i guess if you are using apple o/s then this would be acceptable but out in the big bad world it is totally unacceptable. better luck next time stevie baby

LittleBearJason

on Jun 12, 2007

Know whats funny.... I had to open IE to get to this page. I was able to browse the WC main page with Safari. When I clicked on the link for this article .. guess what? Safari Crashes. HAHAH. Someone already took a bite out of the Apple.

nicksick

on Jun 12, 2007

And a BIG gripe for me, is how unlike IE7 (and firefox? i dont know), you cannot set it to always open new links in a new tab in the same window. So if a website has an A tag with a target set to a new window, i get an actual NEW WINDOW, which kinda defeats the purpose of tabbed browsing.

I am pretty sure Firefox has the ability to use just one window. I've used it since.. before version 1 and I rarely ever have two Firefox windows open. Tabs ftw.

Jafo

on Jun 12, 2007

When you say you don't support Safari on Wincustomize, you should go on to say that you don't support Opera and Firefox either, and that you only support Internet Explorer.

Six years ago, at the dawn of Wincustomize.com I for one spent many hours uploading to the galleries, helping T-Man with Opera compatibility testing....

messiah1

on Jun 12, 2007

Wow, when I read this earlier today, I was going to dl the browser and give it a spin, now that I've had time to read through all these posts, none of which were here earlier when I made that decision, I think I'll stay away and keep using my trusty IE7. Thanks to those of you who posted your troubles with Safari here.

StephanA

on Jun 12, 2007

'Day One' for Safari for Windows Becomes Zero-Day Nightmare
By Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews
June 12, 2007, 11:20 AM

"It took security engineers perhaps less than two hours yesterday to introduce Apple's surprise entry in the field of Windows browsers to the big, cruel world of exploits and vulnerabilities, following its introduction yesterday morning at WWDC. As a result, much of the clout Safari had received as the secure browsing alternative to Internet Explorer and Firefox -- as long as it was on a Macintosh -- was burned off like fire to a flash fuse."

Good Luck!

elvee

on Jun 12, 2007

I use FF on WC and everything works fine....except one thing....The Photo management app for Personal Photo Galleries is not FF friendly. To get around that, I use the IE Tab Extention.

After reading some posts, I think I will wait to try Safari.

George Rogers Jr

on Jun 12, 2007

I agree with JesseJ to somewhat of a degree, but by having THIS MANY problems posted here concerning this release you have to wonder if they tested it at all on a loaded Windows PC??? It's too bad because by having Safari in the mix it just adds more competition; pushing existing browser development & innovations that much further.

Zoomba

on Jun 12, 2007

Well, it is a beta afterall. I don't think it's reasonable to expect stability and perfection.

Astyanax

on Jun 12, 2007

Uhhm... wow?

Open IE7, go to Internet Options. Once the options window opens under the General Tab look for Tabs near the lower middle - Click Settings. In the middle of the new Window you will see "When a Pop-up is encountered" - You want to select Always open pop-ups in a new tab.

Aquamonkey

on Jun 13, 2007

Hang on a sec, wasn't numnuts Jobs saying a week or so ago that he and the other inmates at (cr)apple wouldn't program for Windows if that had any choice???

I don't like the look of this POC I expect my apps to use the same (or very similar) interface as the OS.

Dangerousdaze

on Jun 13, 2007

Attempting to force the look and feel of your own operating system onto your products running on a *different* operating system is an extremely poor design decision in my book. It just illustrates that you have a fundamental inability to separate form from function.

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