Tuesday, November 6, 2007

The Fastest Internet Browser

Apple Safari is faster than Internet Explorer and Mozilla, a testing firm says.


Surfing with Apple Safari

A testing firm says that Apple is faster than Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and Firefox - proof to what Apple said in June when it released the new beta version.

The testing firm has tried to download a webpage off a busy server using Apple's Safari, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Firefox, and timed the results. Based on the tests, Apple's Safari is faster than Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 by 1.6 seconds, and Firefox by 1.2 seconds -- way slower than what Apple is currently advertising: 2x faster than Internet Explorer












However, the test is not conclusive. The firm has tested the browsers by downloading on a busy server - a huge no-no when testing for speed. This will result in bad data as busy servers may respond quicker or slower depending on the load. What they should have used is a local, dedicated testing server, to avoid interference with the data.

Apple has released a public version of Safari 3 on their website, available for both Mac and Windows.

I have tested the new Safari, and I must say it is faster than Internet Explorer 6 and 7. Loading Safari is comparable to Internet Explorer, but loading the page is faster - probably because it uses the progressive technique of loading pictures rather than displaying the image once the download is complete, a technique used by Internet Explorer. Using progressive loading, a blurry avatar or the image is displayed first, and later refined as the whole image is downloaded completely.

Other cool stuff is the tabbed browsing of Safari, and the ability to customize the toolbar (with cool movement animations). Safari for Windows uses manifests from Apple, meaning, the checkbox, option button, buttons, and checkboxes look like the ones on a Mac. Also, the ability to resize a text box is pretty neat. That way, if you want to see your entire text inside one, just drag and resize.

But the biggest drawback is that it does not display all pages correctly, especially the ones with Flash content. Adobe has not yet released a Flash player for Safari for Windows at the time of this writing. Since this version is also a beta, crashes are often.

You can find the latest version here and download the beta here.

Story:
Copyright 2007 by Sonicsoft Corporation
All Rights Reserved
Image: Apple Website

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