Apple releases Safari 4.0.3
Apple Tuesday afternoon released a new update to its Safari browser, bringing a handful of minor fixes to the application.
The program is available for download direct from Apple or via Software Update on OS X. The update is said to include:
Stability improvements for Web pages that use the HTML 5 video tag.
A fix for an issue that prevented some users from logging into iWork.com.
A fix for an issue that could cause web content to be displayed in grayscale instead of color.
The previous update to Safari, 4.0.2, was released in early July. It reduced crashes related to Nitro, the custom JavaScript engine key to Safari's improved speed. It also rolled in unnamed compatibility and security fixes.
The program is available for download direct from Apple or via Software Update on OS X. The update is said to include:
Stability improvements for Web pages that use the HTML 5 video tag.
A fix for an issue that prevented some users from logging into iWork.com.
A fix for an issue that could cause web content to be displayed in grayscale instead of color.
The previous update to Safari, 4.0.2, was released in early July. It reduced crashes related to Nitro, the custom JavaScript engine key to Safari's improved speed. It also rolled in unnamed compatibility and security fixes.
Comments
I do like what I see in Safari 4, although I currently prefer Google Chrome.
I'm a "casual" Apple Fan Boi, so bear with me if this has already been addressed ad nauseum in other threads, but does Apple have a particular strategy in the web browser market? Are they trying to gain market share there, or have they pretty much conceded that battle to IE, FireFox, and now Chrome?
I do like what I see in Safari 4, although I currently prefer Google Chrome.
I dunno, I guess it's like IE8 for Windows 7. You'll get the lazy folks who don't know any better to use the included browser, but most power users will go for the better-featured browser (Chrome, Firefox, Opera).
I just bought my first Mac (a 13" MacBook Pro) a couple of weeks ago after being with a PC for the past 15 years. I tried giving Safari a try, but ended up going right back to Firefox 3.5 (and all of my lovely extensions). It works great in OS X.
Any ideas?
Safari 4 is slower than Safari 3. It is supposed to faster but it is not. I thought it was because of PowerPC in my G5, but after I got a Mac Pro, same thing continues. Taker longer to load pages than Safari 3.
Any ideas?
I love using Safari. Problem is that's it's pretty much useless for corporate sites. Well just about any site that uses active-x, sharepoint or gov sites. Tends to break or lose functionality with most .net and .asp sites. Gotta use IE on Windows. It's why Macs are not good for corporate use.
I agree wholeheartedly with both comments. Safari 4 is an instance where Apple went backwards in terms of quality of experience. They should have left 3.0 well enough alone.
I hope 10.6 doesn't end up likewise........ (at this point, as a lay user who's very happy with 10.5.X, it's not even that obvious to me I should care).
Safari 4 is slower than Safari 3. It is supposed to faster but it is not. I thought it was because of PowerPC in my G5, but after I got a Mac Pro, same thing continues. Taker longer to load pages than Safari 3.
Any ideas?
Did you try emptying the cache?
Go to OpenDNS.org and put those numbers in your Network/Airport or Ethernet/Advanced.../DNS.
Turn IPv6 to off.
Repair permissions.
I love using Safari. Problem is that's it's pretty much useless for corporate sites. Well just about any site that uses active-x, sharepoint or gov sites. Tends to break or lose functionality with most .net and .asp sites. Gotta use IE on Windows. It's why Macs are not good for corporate use.
This is the fault of the people writing the website, not Apple, Safari, of Firefox. Microsoft's tools create websites that purposely only work on Windows with IE, and are not written in standard HTML. Active-X is evil (difficult to secure, etc) and shouldn't be used by anyone for anything.
Personally, I use both Safari and Firefox -- usually if one has an issue, the other will work. They each have their strengths. Thank goodness for AdBlock -- available now for Safari too!
I'm a "casual" Apple Fan Boi, so bear with me if this has already been addressed ad nauseum in other threads, but does Apple have a particular strategy in the web browser market? Are they trying to gain market share there, or have they pretty much conceded that battle to IE, FireFox, and now Chrome?...
I think they will take more market share as it comes (and they are currently gaining market share faster than any other browser), but the main purpose is to push Internet standards.
Judged that way, they are the most successful browser on the planet as that's exactly the effect Safari has had on the market.
Safari 4 is slower than Safari 3. It is supposed to faster but it is not. I thought it was because of PowerPC in my G5, but after I got a Mac Pro, same thing continues. Taker longer to load pages than Safari 3. ...
I don't know what your particular problem is, but Safari 4 is definitely *not* "slower than Safari 3." Check out Apple support as it just shouldn't be that way.
Safari 4 is slower than Safari 3. It is supposed to faster but it is not. I thought it was because of PowerPC in my G5, but after I got a Mac Pro, same thing continues. Taker longer to load pages than Safari 3.
Any ideas?
I'm convinced there are or where bugs in Safari that caused the problems you describe. However I haven't seen that behaviour lately so maybe the last OS / Safari update fixed the issue. Generally when this was happening I could fire up Firefox and get right to the site in question. Sometimes I had to abend Safari too.
So what ever the bug was it didn't impact Firefox. Generally though I use Firefox as my backup browser as Safari is really growing on me.
Part of that attachment to Safari is it's integration into the iPhone and the associated syncing. It is surprising how useful this combo has become. A few other things in Safari are growing on me also. In general I like it's transparent nature.
For your issue though do upgrade everything and see what happens. There are other options I haven't tried above that might help but at this point it seems snappy.
Dave
This is the fault of the people writing the website, not Apple, Safari, of Firefox. Microsoft's tools create websites that purposely only work on Windows with IE, and are not written in standard HTML. Active-X is evil (difficult to secure, etc) and shouldn't be used by anyone for anything.
Personally, I use both Safari and Firefox -- usually if one has an issue, the other will work. They each have their strengths. Thank goodness for AdBlock -- available now for Safari too!
Well I've gone through this discussion before. It's all well and good to blame Microsoft for disrupting the true purposes of the internet or web/internet based information access. It doesn't solve the problem. No matter how we want, Microsoft owns 90% of the planet computer use. So we can cry foul all we want, but until governments wake up to the fact that this only feeds the monopoly, Apple and others needs to make their browsers Microsoft compliant. Oh yeah, Governments are to blame also for allowing and even endorsing this IE/Windows only for the Web/Internet access.
I agree wholeheartedly with both comments. Safari 4 is an instance where Apple went backwards in terms of quality of experience. They should have left 3.0 well enough alone.
I hope 10.6 doesn't end up likewise........ (at this point, as a lay user who's very happy with 10.5.X, it's not even that obvious to me I should care).
I'm surprised at how experience varies among people. To me, Safari 4 is so much faster (snappier ?) than 3 in every aspect and I also prefer it to Firefox. I'm really looking forward to the 64-bit Safari 4 in Snow Leopard.
I think they will take more market share as it comes (and they are currently gaining market share faster than any other browser), but the main purpose is to push Internet standards.
Judged that way, they are the most successful browser on the planet as that's exactly the effect Safari has had on the market.
That is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. That's like saying "Mercedes introduced us to airbags, ABS, electronic stability control, and radar cruise control for passenger vehicles -- Mercedes is the most successul automaker on the planet."
I dunno, I guess it's like IE8 for Windows 7. You'll get the lazy folks who don't know any better to use the included browser, but most power users will go for the better-featured browser (Chrome, Firefox, Opera).
I just bought my first Mac (a 13" MacBook Pro) a couple of weeks ago after being with a PC for the past 15 years. I tried giving Safari a try, but ended up going right back to Firefox 3.5 (and all of my lovely extensions). It works great in OS X.
What would you know? I'm a Safari user and well versed in technology. I think Firefox is overrated and is slower in every way to Safari. Most of Firefox's plugins are useless and the few that I would use are in Safari. Safari still displays web pages better. This is not even mentioning that Firefox still can't use the Services menu. As for Camino & Opera I don't even think most people care about them much anymore.
The only browser I would take a second look at is Chrome. The builds of Chromium of blazing fast and the I like the unified address bar. The address bar isn't that big of a deal though since I've already done that to Safari using keywurl.
As for some other users on this thread Safari 4 is incredibly fast. It is neck and neck in terms of speed with Chromium. If Safari is slow for you then you are doing something to slow it down. There have been tests from tons of sites that have it as fast as Chrome. The main difference is that Chromium is way faster than Safari loading up. Chromium doesn't even bounce in the dock.
That is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. That's like saying "Mercedes introduced us to airbags, ABS, electronic stability control, and radar cruise control for passenger vehicles -- Mercedes is the most successul automaker on the planet."
I don't think the original poster's point is quite that ridiculous.
I think what he means is that once upon a time Mac users were severely disadvantaged because the world was dominated so much by IE and Microsoft deliberately broke standards in order to keep things that way. Mac users were marginalized on the Internet because of it. This situation still exists to some extent but not anywhere near as much as previously.
His assertion that Safari has been successful because it has promoted open standards is correct. The Internet is a much easier place for Mac users to live now because of alternate browsers like Safari and firefox and the standards they are pushing.
I'm surprised at how experience varies among people. To me, Safari 4 is so much faster (snappier ?) than 3 in every aspect and I also prefer it to Firefox. I'm really looking forward to the 64-bit Safari 4 in Snow Leopard.
Yes Safari 4 is a big improvement but the problem that the one poster described was very real and still may be real. I've seen the issue myself. Given all of that I still start it up in preference to all other browsers. Mostly due to that overall intergration with the Apple way.
I also share your desire with respect to 64 bit Safari. That should be impressive if any of the prerelease comments are accurate. SL is only a few weeks away at worst, I'm hoping it lives up to it's performance goals.
Did you try emptying the cache?
Go to OpenDNS.org and put those numbers in your Network/Airport or Ethernet/Advanced.../DNS.
Turn IPv6 to off.
Repair permissions.
I can tell you don't frequent Slashdot. You'd be crucified for suggesting OpenDNS, which returns invalid NXDOMAIN response to invalid domain requests. Most people recommend using Level 3 DNS servers.
4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3
4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5
4.2.2.6
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/08...-DNS-Hijacking
Safari on OS X, for me, is fine. It's when it's on XP that I have slowdown issues or page rendering issues. So, I use Chrome for XP instead.
I love using Safari. Problem is that's it's pretty much useless for corporate sites. Well just about any site that uses active-x, sharepoint or gov sites. Tends to break or lose functionality with most .net and .asp sites. Gotta use IE on Windows. It's why Macs are not good for corporate use.
MS Internet Explorer is the worse browser ever created. It is STILL not standards compliant when it comes to CSS2 or CSS3. I'm so tired of having to create stylesheets full of hacks just to make sites look right in IE. I don't have to do that with any other browser.
To those who wonder why Apple bothers: I think it is because Apple needs it as their Webkit development shell. Steve's always looking where things *will be* in a few years time and JS/html-5 for most things could be where it's at. Chrome and FF are fine browsers but they're pretty much working towards the same goals as Safari. I see MS IE as the Lennie Small of the internet, the big retard that dreams of "living off the fatta' the lan'" (and looking after rabbits?) forever more.
PS: I've found SafariBlock does a great job of reducing the clutter on most commercial pages.