Web Browsers are Awesome.

So I've messed around a bit with Apple's new Safari 4 release. Since I'm a poor college student and, at risk of sounding cocky, more than a little hardware-savvy, I can't bring myself to pay the Apple Tax (anywhere from $200 to $900, last I looked), so I don't own anything with OS X on it. So this means I downloaded the Windows version and ran it on my Vista machine.

Now, I tried Safari when it first was released for windows. I like Webkit, but I do not like this browser. It was bloated and slow (I'm assuming this is from the porting of GUI libraries, but don't quote me on that), the fonts were ass ugly, and the whole experience was totally off.

Contrast this to the first time I tried Google Chrome. I am fascinated by that browser; although I understand that it technically uses more resources, the sheer responsiveness of it was mind-blowing to me. I also loved its down-to-basics UI design and how it made interesting use of Aero effects and animations. I'm honestly eagerly awaiting the Linux versions so I can see if they do anything as interesting with that. If it weren't for the total lack of some addons that I find essential (Script killing, some sort of bookmark synchronizer), I would be using this browser by default.

Now, the reason I compare these two browsers is because, for it's version 4, Apple seems to have made the decision to make Safari a clone of Google Chrome. Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of things Chrome did, and Apple cloned them fairly well, but I always get a little irritated when I can spot an obvious rip-off; even Firefox tends to try and lead in different areas. But when you look at the way the widgets have been styled, and especially at how the tabs are handled (Aero effects and all), you can see Chrome almost everywhere in Safari 4.

Anyhow, with that said, Safari 4 is ok despite everything. I still found it a bit slow; Apple claims that it's the fastest existing browser (Apparently Chrome doesn't exist now that they've ripped it off), but this seems to only apply to actual rendering speed, which I admit seemed pretty fast. I guess all of the overhead was in the rest of the browser itself. Also, it looks like they fixed whatever was funky with the font rendering.

All in all, I give Safari 4 for Windows a 7/10. I would probably use it if it were forced upon me without a whole lot of complaint.