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PC Magazine review gives Apple’s Safari 3.1 for Windows 4 out of 5 stars
Monday, March 24, 2008 - 10:39 AM EST

"Designers and photographers—or just any users who want truly accurate colors in their browser images, will be pleased with [Apple's Safari 3.1 for Windows] browser. For color correction, Safari honors Web images' ICC profile. Font rendering also takes advantage of Apple's design technology chops. You get a choice of four font-smoothing options, with suggestion for what works best on CRTs and flat panels. The fonts do, indeed, look nice and Mac-like," Michael Muchmore reports for PC Magazine.

"Safari 3.1 passes the Acid2 browser test from the Web Standards Project with flying colors. The test evaluates compliance with HTML and CSS standards. In addition, the Windows and Mac versions both score a 75, the highest score I've seen, on Acid3, which tests DOM2, XHTML 1.0, and some CSS3 compliance. By comparison, Firefox 2 gets only a 53, while Internet Explorer 7 earns a measly 12 points. Sadly, the old standards leader, Opera, gets to about 40 and then promptly crashes—the only browser I've tested that crashes the test," Muchmore reports.

"In a couple of days' use of the new browser, I wasn't able to crash it once. I ran it on Windows XP SP2, Vista, and Mac OS X Leopard without incident," Muchmore reports.

"Safari's Private Browsing option will appeal to many, and it's a feature I haven't seen in other browsers. When you activate it, nothing from your current session is saved—no cookies, cached pages, or form entries. This is much better than the choice other browsers make to delete all private data. It lets you keep cookies and form entries you want, like log-ins for other sites you use," Muchmore reports.

"Safari doesn't support ActiveX, saving you from the fear of downloading nasty code but preventing you from the pleasure of using sites that require it. Since the Mac can't run ActiveX, it didn't make sense for Apple to build support for it into the Windows browser. The company believes you shouldn't need a Windows PC to use any Web site," Muchmore reports.

MacDailyNews Take: Define "pleasure." Imagine the unmitigated gall of believing that the Web shouldn't be proprietary and require an inferior PC running a substandard browser!

"If you use a Mac at home but a PC at work, Safari for Windows offers a way for your at-work Web to feel more familiar and comfortable. The browser also boasts some industry-leading speed and standards support, and has a few clever browsing tricks up its sleeve as well. You'll still need to keep old Firefox or Internet Explorer for the occasional site that doesn't play well with the newcomer, but for most everyday browsing, Safari will get the job done elegantly and swiftly," Muchmore reports.

Full review, 4 out of 5 stars, here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Island Girl" for the heads up.]

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Mar 24, 08 - 09:42 am Comment from: Name

Firefox has a wealth of plugins safari doesn't though.

Anyway, anything that gets people to stop using internet explorer is good in my opinion.

Mar 24, 08 - 09:48 am Comment from: JAYGEE

Maybe Apple should have a plugin store for Safari, so developers can make 3rd party plugins for Safari, like they can with Firefox?

Mar 24, 08 - 09:51 am Comment from: J Allard

99% of Firefox's plug-ins are amateurish shit and the remaining 1% mostly try (and fail) to replicate what Safari already offers.

A few of Firefox's plug-ins are unique, but they hardly offer enough to deny myself the speed and elegance of Safari.

Mar 24, 08 - 09:52 am Comment from: ChrissyOne

"If you use a Mac at home but a PC at work, Safari for Windows offers a way for your at-work Web to feel more familiar and comfortable."

...and reprogram your brain to produce serotonin when your eyes see those sweet, soothing buttons and gradated silver bezel. After a time, when you launch Internet Explorer, you will feel the urge to loudly bark like a Rottweiler.

Mar 24, 08 - 09:58 am Comment from: TowerTone

"feel the urge to loudly bark like a Rottweiler."

I once had a girlfriend that did that sometimes.
Matter of fact, it was when she was on all fours.....

Mar 24, 08 - 09:59 am Comment from: ken1w

Plug-ins? I don't need no stink'in plug-ins!

Mar 24, 08 - 09:59 am Comment from: HMCIV

@ChrissyOne

Serotonin? Awww...I only got chocolate & jellybeans in my Easter Basket. :(

Mar 24, 08 - 10:00 am Comment from: Grigori

I'm slowly warming up to Safari after years of Opera use; never had much love for Firefox, though I'd take it in a heartbeat over IE. C1 makes Safari sound so sensual, so alluring...

Mar 24, 08 - 10:00 am Comment from: Cubert

I've never understood Opera. Who in the world in today's age would pay for a browser? If it can do "Kristen"-like things to me, then I'll plunk down the change, otherwise, meh.

Mar 24, 08 - 10:03 am Comment from: Cubert

I switched to Safari for the first time with this release. I don't plan on going back to Firefox any time soon. Safari 3.1 is just plain freakin' fast!

Mar 24, 08 - 10:06 am Comment from: AL

My biggest issue with Safari is that Citrix does not work right with it. I always get a error and something about Netscape. I have to use Firefox when I have remotely log in. I wish Apple and Citrix would fix that annoying problem.

Mar 24, 08 - 10:12 am Comment from: Raymond from DC

"If you use a Mac at home but a PC at work, Safari for Windows offers a way for your at-work Web to feel more familiar and comfortable." Unfortunately, if you work for an organization like the government agency I recently left, you won't be *allowed* to run Safari, or indeed any browser other than IE, on your PC. I couldn't even get sanction to run Firefox on Windows servers.

But I'm done with them. I run what I deem best.

Mar 24, 08 - 10:13 am Comment from: DLMeyer

MDN, yeah ... "the pleasure of using sites that require it". Just because you don't like the proprietary nature of it and just because it could allow you to be infested with who knows what sort of nastiness, this doesn't mean there are no "good", "useful", "valuable", "enjoyable" sites out there that made the mistake of incorporating it. And, we don't get to use them. A minor loss, for most, that will be rectified when IE usage drops below the 50% level and coders say "Oh, that could be a problem".

Mar 24, 08 - 10:14 am Comment from: Rich Apple person

The beta of the new version of Firefox is a lot faster than Safari

Mar 24, 08 - 10:19 am Comment from: Sarasota

Name - Firefox has a wealth of plugins safari doesn't though.

Check out http://www.pimpmysafari.com for a start.

Mar 24, 08 - 10:22 am Comment from: M.X.N.T.4.1.

I've been using my mac for nearly 4 years no and I've not noticed one single occasion when I've not been able to use a site because it needed ActiveX. Am I missing something? Is there a whole segment of the internet I'm missing out on? If I weren't into technology and kept up on browsers then I wouldn't even have a clue what ActiveX is.

Mar 24, 08 - 10:43 am Comment from: coolfactor

@ Rich Apple person:

Please provide evidence.

@ M.X.N.T.4.1:

I agree. I spend all day surfin' the net and haven't ever run into a site (that was important to me) that was crippled by ActiveX.

Mar 24, 08 - 10:46 am Comment from: Kevin J. Weise

@ M.X.N.T.4.1:

Don't worry, all you're missing out on is porn. You're a better person for not knowing what you're missing.

OK, everyone else, let's have the devastating and very personal comeback. I'm ready for it (I think).

Mar 24, 08 - 10:49 am Comment from: Jesus

I can't log into my .mac or gmail accounts behind my work proxy with Safari. Works just fine in Firefox.

After I enter my .mac or gmail username and password, Safari tells my I need to enter my proxy username and password.. when I do, Safari then says it can't display the page.

Strange.

Mar 24, 08 - 10:51 am Comment from: Jubei

I like Safari a lot. Renders site beautifully and fonts looks great. The only problem I have so far is that animated gifs runs like slow motion. Flash keeps crashing it. Other than that, it works great.

Mar 24, 08 - 10:59 am Comment from: Rich Apple person

I am running Max OSX Leopard on an iMac (2.8/4 MB's RAM). I have ultra high speed internet connection (10 Mbs) via Airport and cable modem. Right now the beta of Firefox loads pages 40% faster than Safari.

Mar 24, 08 - 11:07 am Comment from: Uncle Al

I know of one business and one non-profit that use websites that just won't work with Safari. It makes me crazy, but I got them to get one dedicated Mini with Parallels, and warned them to use the peecee side with Exploder only to access their required site. So far, so good.

Mar 24, 08 - 11:39 am Comment from: Name

JAYGEE said

"Maybe Apple should have a plugin store for Safari, so developers can make 3rd party plugins for Safari, like they can with Firefox?"

Apple needs to do this in my opinion. If I could find freeware plugins for safari to replace the functionality of all my firefox plugins then I would dump firefox (Unless 3.0 turns out to be really good).

J Allard said

"99% of Firefox's plug-ins are very useful and unique and the remaining 1% replicate what Safari already offers perfectly."

I fixed your statement for accuracy J Allard

Sarasota said

"Check out http://www.pimpmysafari.com for a start."

I don't like paying for stuff I can get for free though (half of those plugins are basically payware/shareware alternatives for firefox plugins).

Mar 24, 08 - 11:41 am Comment from: Macaday

Apple and Safari - making Windows more bearable...

wink

Mar 24, 08 - 11:50 am Comment from: Macaday

Sorry, but can someone please tell me what all these plug-ins for Firefox are that are so indispensable?

And does 'Rich' sometimes equal a bit stupid?

Mar 24, 08 - 11:55 am Comment from: KingMel

I use the FireFTP plug-in. It could use some improvements in its user interface, but it works well for my purposes.

Mar 24, 08 - 11:59 am Comment from: Cubert

@AL,
Have you tried activating the developer menu and run Safari as another browser (IE for example)?

Mar 24, 08 - 12:01 pm Comment from: tmsruge

I agree with a couple of the above posts. I have yet to run into a site I wanted to visit so badly that didn't really work with Safari.

The ones that don't work are highly specialized only for their target audience, i.e. corporations...

So i don't get what the fuzz is all about..

http://tmsruge.com

Mar 24, 08 - 12:14 pm Comment from: Name

Macaday said
"Sorry, but can someone please tell me what all these plug-ins for Firefox are that are so indispensable?"

Here are some that I use very frequently. There are ways I can get safari to some of the things 1 or two of these plugins do, but not in one click (not as quickly or easily).

Torbutton
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2275

download helper (safari does something similar but download helper is more flexible)
http://www.downloadhelper.net/

Tinyurl Creator

img tag

Tab Mix Plus

Duplicate Tab

Linky

SwitchProxy

(for some reason macdaily isn't letting me post a lot of links).

Even if you don't find any of these useful keep in mind there are literally thousands of different add ons out there for firefox (all of them free). I like being able to customize my browser. Safari needs something similar, because it would make more people willing to switch in my opinion.

Mar 24, 08 - 12:25 pm Comment from: HotinPlaya

My wife is not real savy with any computers, though she is starting to feel comfortable on the MacBook we bought for her.

The window PC she has at work (her job requires very little computer work, just checking email and having internet access) is very difficult for her, I sent her an email with the DL link for windows safari, walked her through down loading it, but I could not instruct her on how to make it default , with out being there, so I told her to ask the IT guy to do it for her.

He flipped, said safari was not compatible with windows, said it was for Apple computers, and by down loading it she could have infected the entire system with a virus, he deleted it, and reported her for making an un authorized change to her computer.

I am going to have her email this article to the dumb shit!

Mar 24, 08 - 12:53 pm Comment from: OBill-Wan Kenobi

@ HotinPlaya:

Never, I repeat, NEVER get corporate IT involved. Think of them as the technological equivalent to the Hitler Youth. All they do is freak out and tattle. They are useless and worthless and more often than not, unbelievably stupid.

Mar 24, 08 - 01:04 pm Comment from: cliff

The new version of Safari for the PC kept shutting down on me after a few minutes of use. Same old problems. Firefox is much more stable. I disagree with the review.

Mar 24, 08 - 01:35 pm Comment from: clyde

Maybe its just me, but I think that opera for mac is faster, bar graphs be damned.

Mar 24, 08 - 02:13 pm Comment from: standardmess

@Name:

That's a good list–thanks! I just wanted to add that some of those functions are doable with one click using OS X's oft-neglected Services menu. For instance, there is a TinyURL service out there on the web somewhere (I once downloaded it). Of course, this is not an option for Windows users.

Also, while you used to have to buy Opera, it's been a free download for a few years now.

Mar 24, 08 - 02:53 pm Comment from: AL

@Cubert,

The problem is the Citrix Javacrap version that Safari uses is not compatible with the Certificate that most places use. It is on many discussion boards if you Google Safari and Citrix.

Have to use the Citrix standalone version. Safari does not let you easily default to send the .ica files to it.

AL

Mar 24, 08 - 03:39 pm Comment from: EdOfTheMountain

I thought Firefox 1.0 was buggy as compared to IE6.0 a few years ago. Safari is 10x worse.

Safari displays http://www.apple.com/startpage/ about 10 seconds then decides it has better things to do and it closes. No exception or error message.

This is my Windows software development machine:
XP Pro with SP3 (release candidate)

-Ed

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1452713&tstart=45

Mar 24, 08 - 06:00 pm Comment from: zek

If you try surfing with firefox plugins cslite (cookie management) adblock plus and noscript (the most important one) for a few days, going back to an ad-bloated mess is unacceptable, regardless of other considerations. Even the pay-for script blocking safari plug-ins are nowhere near as functional nor as easy to use as noscript.

Mar 24, 08 - 10:27 pm Comment from: @M.X.N.T.4.1.

IF you work for a company That uses Outlook Webmail Access like me, then you must use I.E for the Active X otherwise you lack the functionality that you really need. I have folders for different people. My Boss has his own folder. I can't see without Microsoft Browser . In fact for some of us that work for Corps like mine and Work in the field can't survive without Windows as much as some of us might want to.

Mar 25, 08 - 08:13 am Comment from: NerdimusPrime

My only quibble with Safari on Windows so far is that I can't maintain separate proxy settings from IE. I use two different proxies on two different browsers at work: IE to test websites through the official corporate proxy, and Flock through a private channel for unrestricted browsing. Going to the proxy settings in Safari brings up the IE config page. Is there any way around this?

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