If it is not because of the benchmark result that confirm Safari 4 is faster than Firefox and the rest of web browser, I’m probably still not using full version Safari browser. I do use Safari, but only on Iphone.
But before that, there is something I want to show you. This post was initially drafted in Wordpress using Safari 4 beta, but I was hit by 1 bug when I attempt to create link using Wordpress’s add/edit link feature. The lightbox JavaScript covered the whole page including the windows where I suppose to add the URL. It stay there with nothing I can do except close that page. Quite disappointing.
Let’s forget that. Despite that unwanted bug (or probably my computer setup, I’ve no idea), there are 150 features that you can try it out although normal user like me won’t probably use 100% of them. As this is Apple’s product, you can expect the minimalistic but excellent user interface, beauty, tough and etc.
Back to the real reason of this post which is about the benchmark, Safari 4 and the rest of its rival were fared against each other in rendering Javascript using SunSpider. The result put the Safari 4 beta on the top of the list (smaller the better) with IE7 on distant last position.
1) Safari 4 (Total time: 910ms)
2) Mozilla Minefield 3.2a1 (1,136ms)
3) Google Chrome (1,177ms)
4) Firefox 3 (3,250ms)
5) Opera 9.6 (4,076ms)
6) Internet Explorer 8 (5,839ms)
7) Internet Explorer 7 (39,026ms)
The milliseconds gap between them is hardly can be noticed by human eye, but since the point of the benchmark is to show who is the fastest, it still a win for Safari 4. But the result is critical figure to the web browser developer, as a selling point to compete for bigger chunk of web browser market.
It still early to say if I’ll start using Safari frequently. I have IE, Firefox, Flock, Avant and Chrome on this computer and Safari 4 is just another addition to my web browser collection. I end up with Firefox and Chrome, and Safari might be next.
Apple fan might have downloaded it once it is released, but for anybody else, you can try it here.
