14 DAY TRIAL // On June 11 2007, Apple Chief Executive Officer announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco that the Cupertino-based company was going to make its default Mac OS X browser, Safari 3 available for both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista and Windows XP. On the official Safari 3 Public Beta page, Apple offers a list of 12 reasons why users will fall in love with the browser.
According to Apple, Safari offers "blazing performance" in the context in which "performance will vary based on system configuration, network connection, and other factors." Users will apparently also love the Bookmarks, Pop-up Blocking, Inline Find, Tabbed Browsing, Built-in RSS, SnapBack, Forms AutoFill, Resizable Text Fields, Private Browsing, Security and Elegant User Interface.
Well, the first and foremost reason why you should stay away from Safari 3 is the fact that the browser is a beta. Mozilla for example offers Gran Paradiso Alpha 5, a testing milestone for Firefox 3. But Mozilla has enough responsibility to advise users not to deploy Gran Paradiso Alpha 5 except in testing scenarios. Apple does not. Furthermore, the Cupertino-based company also praised the fact that a beta product, thus inherently full of bugs and vulnerabilities, was downloaded in excess of a million times.
Second, Safari 3 security is not what it was applauded to be. Instead of a browser secure from day one, Safari offered eight security vulnerabilities just on the first day. Apple then subsequently released an update patching three Critical security flaws in the browser. The graphical user interface is the third reason. Apple needs to fall in line. Developing a product for Windows Vista means offering a user interface designed to integrate seamlessly with the operating system's style, not an alien look after a forced transition from Mac OS X with clunky font rendering.
The fourth reason is the complete lack of customization capabilities. Have you taken a look at the plug-in download page? Adobe Flash Player, Java, Real Player, Windows Media Player, QuickTime and Adobe Reader. Yes, Adobe reader is just tons and tons of raw fun! Six plug-ins? Right... And the fifth nasty thing is the selection of search engines. Google and Yahoo? Imagine that Microsoft would have introduced just Live Search and MSN in Internet Explorer 7. However, limiting user choice is an Apple trademark, after all, all you need is a single edition of the Mac OS X operating system, because it's simpler this way...