Cupertino (CA) – We know that Apple isn’t especially modest when announcing new products, and that is certainly the case with its brand new Safari 4 browser, now officially released in public beta moving the previous Safari 3 version to an additional link click for download. The company claims Safari 4's Javascript engine is 30 times faster than Microsoft’s IE7, and three times faster than Firefox 3. But while there are lots of new features, Apple missed putting more focus on security, which has been heavily criticized in the past.


Safari 4 has been available as a beta browser for some time, though Safari 3 was the browser download of choice. With today's official public beta announcement, the main Safari download page takes you to the Safari 4 download link. Users wanting Safari 3 must click an additional link to reach that download page, now considered a historical release.

It has been clear Apple's serious about playing a much more important role in the browser market with this new version. And if speed and features are as important to users as it is generally believed, then Safari 4 should have a good shot at increasing its market share.

Apple said that its new Nitro JavaScript engine (based on WebKit) runs JavaScripts up to 4.2 times faster than its Safari 3 predecessor, 30 times faster than IE7 and three times faster than Firefox 3, at least according to Apple. Safari 4 was the first browser to pass the Acid3 web compatibility test with a perfect score a few months back while still in beta. And now it is the first final version of a browser to support this functionality.

Apple has added several new features to Safari. The hefty 25.5 MB package (excluding Quicktime) now includes a new preview of frequently visited pages called Top Sites, a full history search (Opera has had this for some time), Cover Flow -- to flip through the web history and bookmarks, as well as improved tabbed browsing.

Safari 4 also includes HTML 5 support for offline technologies that enable web-based applications to store information locally without an active always-on Internet connection. According to Apple, it is the first browser to support advanced CSS Effects which provide "highly polished web graphics using reflections, gradients and precision masks."

"Apple created Safari to bring innovation, speed and open standards back into web browsers, and today it takes another big step forward," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Safari 4 is the fastest and most efficient browser for Mac and Windows, with great integration of HTML 5 and CSS 3 web standards that enables the next generation of interactive web applications."

TG Daily was a bit surprised to see that the initial announcement of Safari 4 did not mention any security enhancements which the browser so desperately needs. Among the leading browsers, Safari has been criticized as having the weakest security features, and those that are available are not transparent enough.

Despite the fact that Safari 4 Beta has made waves because of its speed, the browser’s market share has been just 0.01% until yesterday, according to Net Applications. Safari’s overall market share has been on a decline since the beginning of the month. While Safari reached a high of 9.90% in early February, current highs are around 9.5% (on weekends) and around 7.5% (during the week).


UPDATED:  February 24, 2009 - 10:44am
This release today was originally reported by TG Daily as an official Safari 4 release, and not a public beta. This has been changed in the article's language to reflect the public beta status of Safari 4.