"Safari on Windows is cack" - harsh or spot on?

[fuddam]

only a fanboy pops up an excel spreadsheet to prove a point - lmao

[dangel]

Pointing out particular features they don't like and why. Giving examples (and where necessary, evidence) of things not working or performing as they ought to. These sort of things. Comments like 'the font rendering is crap' is subjective unless backed up by some sort of justification for the comment. It's also a bit disingenuous to imply that people responding to this thread did so with open-mindedness at the forefront of their thoughts given that the thread subject starts with the words 'Safari on Windows is cack'. It's practically trolling.

Deep breath, here we go. Ok, so first up - I did point out which features I didn't like and why, didn't I? Secondly, it's _just_ as disingenous to imply that people responding to this thread wouldn't be open minded, or at least might side with Safari (hey, there's plenty of Mac folk on here). Since neither of us can provide evidence one way or other the point is moot, oui?

But look and feel and behaviour are two separate issues.

I think the two are often intertwined inextricably: a different shape or colour on a button can make all the difference between clarity and confusion. Let's agree to disagree.

(Needless troll-like asides emphasised).

People in glass houses m'dear. Pfft.

I saw you mention how it was slower than Opera at displaying things, and slower to restore to maximised state. Now it's fair to say that Opera is one of the fastest browsers out there, so it's not too surprising Opera does well against it, but Opera is also a decidedly minority browser. How well does Safari do against the browsers that most people use on Windows; IE6, IE7 and Firefox? I've not actually tried a speed comparison against Opera yet, but I'll do that later today.

Still, some actual proof in terms of numbers would be useful. The Mootools Slickspeed test is good for benchmarking JavaScript performance (and in this I was impressed at how much faster it was than Firefox). There are, however, a lot of other factors in how fast a page loads in a given browser. If you use Opera as your browser of choice, did you empty the cache before testing it with eBay? Those sort of things make a big difference.

Not really: if you'd read correctly i'd already loaded both pages _already_ in both browsers - the observation was how horrribly slow Safari was at just resizing it's frame. That was all. Outside of that my impression was that page loaded was slower in general terms, and I didn't really feel it worth my time running benchmarks to support my case (I suppose I wasn't expecting to have to defend my views to the ludicrous extent we've got too now).

A good question, which I can't answer. I know of a lot of friends who - anecdotally - praise it, and from the perspective of it being a simplified yet decent browsing experience it makes sense to me that it'd be popular with common or garden computer users. It also makes sense to me that it wouldn't be so popular with power users (it lacks some of the more advanced features, and there's no 'official' way of extending its functionality). The problem is that for a browser to succeed, it doesn't have to meet the needs of the power users. In fact, it doesn't even have to be any good; it just needs to be already there, and good enough. Q.E.D.: IE6.

Well, yes - but that was my point too Crikey, an agreement? Firefox's success wouldn't of occurred (period) if it didn't offer anything over and above what people already had in IE 6 - be it perceived security improvements or features (tabs, extentions, better speed, whatever). Power users are irrelevant - you're right - but it doesn't mean your average (lazy) user is going to switch from Firefox to Safari when there's no perceptable benefit in doing so. Do people sit in front of Firefox and think "gosh, I wish it processed javascript a bit faster" or are they perfectly happy with the speed of it? I'd suggest the latter - so speed is pretty much meaningless to the masses.

Then again, the PR machine that is Apple (and don't get me wrong if there's anything I admire it's Apple's PR dept.) gets it into the press and so we end up here, debating something that we might well of not even tried otherwise. Opera is a great browser (in my most humble opinion) but it's never had the PR of either the firefox campaign or Apple behind it and so it's pretty much nowhere on the radar of the public conciousness.

But I would if they existed for Safari.

And I wouldn't - so we're back to our own subjective point of view. Our own taste even

Better how? How do you quantify better? When Apple set out to make a browser, the key requirement was for it to be fast. Opera asides, I'd say they'd succeeded. Most users don't need (or even know of) the advanced features that Firefox provides, so what thing are they going to gauge it by when they first use it? The number of options about:config provides?

Whoooaaa.. hang on there - so now the key requirement for a browser is speed? As I've said, it's much of a muchness now - so what other key feature is Apple selling us? That it's an Apple product?
Does it do something mysteriously wonderful that i've overlooked? But:

It seems likely this was the main reason. That and the huge stack of cash they'd earn from Google (the same way Mozilla makes its money).

Riiight. Is there any sense to this? I used to own a Mac a few years back, and I switched to Windows. I'm now in the process of switching back. Loyal? Hmm, to myself and my own needs perhaps. Fanatical? Oh the crutch of the lazy Apple critic strikes back. There are fanatics in any field, and it's unjustified and lazy to tar people with the same brush just to support your arguments.

Why not? You do it by arrogantly suggesting that we're all wrong (cos we're all evil and bias n' stuff) and you're right. That's my bone of contention with your original post - not that you can't offer an opinion it's just that you've decided we're all mad anti-Apple(tm) nutters incapable of evaluating a UIF and so we can't have one too. And now you'll have us believe that the marginalised Mac community isn't over subscribed with zealots? It's fair comment. Hey, I used to be an Amiga owner - i've some experience in the field Personally i don't give a toss who makes a product, just whether it's any darn good or not for me and mine.

Why would people need Firefox? In the same way that Firefox meets the needs of more advanced web users, OmniWeb provides more advanced features, but still uses the WebKit framework, ensuring it can take advantage of the speed of that system. In fact, all manner of third-party applications use WebKit to handle their web views. Dashboard's widgets use it too.


Oh, and it's important to note that the security vulnerabilities that were in the Safari 3 beta appeared to be in the Windows version only. Not that this is the fault of Windows (most likely they weren't), but the decision to use OmniWeb over Safari is very unlikely to have been informed by concerns over security.

No, nooo. No. Firefox took off because of the much derided security problems with IE6 (and press coverage of). It was also faster (and note: appreciably so, back when this mattered) and was packed with useful features (tabbed browsing in part.) right off the bat that IE6 just didn't have. You could look at it next to IE and go "hey, this is much faster, and that thar tabbed browsin' thang is awfally nice too". You didn't need to be "advanced" to try it - you just read about it in the Sunday Times and.. Whereas i'm looking at Safari and.. what? What's the big leap forward? I found in interesting that you mentioned another browser (it's internal engine is by the by) that people prefer on the Mac was all - it wasn't that security was the important issue, it's just that I wanted to why _else_ they'd chosen it over Safari (assuming Safari really is the best thing since sliced bread why go elsewhere?).

I'm not sure such a thread would be productive, as I'm not sure this one is particularly either. There's a difference between listing concerns and suggesting possible improvements, and inviting a dogpile with namecalling.

Well yes, i can agree this isn't productive - we obviously have opposing views - the difference is i'm not discounting yours as meaningless. As for namecalling - i'm apparently a "Troll" - so i guess i'll give you a shiny badge with "Hypocrite" on it, since at no point have I resorted to that Oh - until now. Darnit!

Perhaps we'll call it a day now? I've other things to do. In any case, have a good weekend, have a beer and enjoy whichever browser you wish. Take it easy.

E&OE lol.

[dangel]

only a fanboy pops up an excel spreadsheet to prove a point - lmao

Hey, but it was 3D tho!

[kapowaz]

Deep breath, here we go. Ok, so first up - I did point out which features I didn't like and why, didn't I? Secondly, it's _just_ as disingenous to imply that people responding to this thread wouldn't be open minded, or at least might side with Safari (hey, there's plenty of Mac folk on here). Since neither of us can provide evidence one way or other the point is moot, oui?

I think perhaps I objected more to the points of others than yourself. You've found yourself the brunt of my complaints not because I objected to your points specifically, but because you responded. That's unfortunate as you're clearly capable of making your case more than anybody else who responded on this thread. But yes, there is no way either of us can reasonably back up a stance on what the tone of open-mindedness was in this thread.

I think the two are often intertwined inextricably: a different shape or colour on a button can make all the difference between clarity and confusion. Let's agree to disagree.

Well that's certainly true, but where we're talking window chrome (Mozilla even refer to it as such internally), it has less of an impact on functionality, unless it actively gets in the way (Windows Tellytubby edition, I'm lookin' at you).

Not really: if you'd read correctly i'd already loaded both pages _already_ in both browsers - the observation was how horrribly slow Safari was at just resizing it's frame. That was all. Outside of that my impression was that page loaded was slower in general terms, and I didn't really feel it worth my time running benchmarks to support my case.

That's fair enough, and I will admit when I was testing it, the window itself seemed to take a long time for it to become properly loaded and responsive. It's possible this is Apple's lack of familiarity with writing Windows graphical APIs compared to their own, or some other reason. I don't dispute that the responsiveness of the window itself is important too, although I'm guessing that resizing/moving browser windows around isn't quite as significant as the speed at which pages render and can be scrolled.

Power users are irrelevant - you're right - but it doesn't mean your average (lazy) user is going to switch from Firefox to Safari when there's no perceptable benefit in doing so.

I somehow doubt Apple is targeting Firefox users with this release, so I guess it's pretty moot. Firefox is in far more widespread use than a couple of years ago, but it's still a minority browser used by (mostly) the technically competent, or those with family members who are technically competent enough to set it up for them. I imagine the key demographic that Apple wants to erode is Internet Explorer users.

Whoooaaa.. hang on there - so now the key requirement for a browser is speed?

It was to Apple when they set out to create a browser for OS X. This is why they used Konqueror's KHTML as a basis, and not (as many people thought more logical) Gecko. I defer to Don Melton, engineering manager of Safari:

The number one goal for developing Safari was to create the fastest web browser on Mac OS X. When we were evaluating technologies over a year ago, KHTML and KJS stood out. Not only were they the basis of an excellent modern and standards compliant web browser, they were also less than 140,000 lines of code. The size of your code and ease of development within that code made it a better choice for us than other open source projects.

I'm not going to extend our wee debate about mac zealotry. It's a boring subject at the best of times; I'll assume you're a capable, sound-minded individual who makes his decisions based on rational judgement instead of brand or corporate loyalty, and I'll hope you assume the same of me.

Firefox took off because of the much derided security problems with IE6 (and press coverage of).

Yes.

It was also faster (and note: appreciably so, back when this mattered)

...not sure I agree there, or at least not in my experience, Firefox was much, much slower than IE6 in the early days. It's improved, but it has remained a memory-hungry beast. Just look at those JavaScript benchmarks - 18 seconds to complete the full suite. Nearly 5 times as slow as Safari or Opera. It was a major stumbling block back when I was trying to evangelise the browser at the company I worked for when it was released, both to encourage us to support it and to use it internally. Virtually everybody who used it complained that it was slow.

Thankfully the additional features did snag a few users, including the sysadmin, who made it mandatory (for security reasons), although that was much to the chagrin of most staff.

Well yes, i can agree this isn't productive - we obviously have opposing views - the difference is i'm not discounting yours as meaningless.

I think that's a little unfair. I don't think your views are necessarily opposite to mine, but I think this thread had headed into less objective territory. I certainly don't think your views are worthless.

As for namecalling - i'm apparently a "Troll" - so i guess i'll give you a shiny badge with "Hypocrite" on it, since at no point have I resorted to that Oh - until now. Darnit!

Heh. Okay, troll-like is as far as I'd go. You weren't actually trolling (the worst troll has to be the original thread creator - for giving it that subject line).

Oh, and speaking of trolls...

only a fanboy pops up an excel spreadsheet to prove a point

I did it to find out just what the truth was. I didn't know what I'd find out, to be perfectly honest. If you actually look at the numbers you'll see that Opera actually beat Safari in a number of the tests...

[Stompy]

They should rename it the iNternet

[andyr300]

we all need to rememeber that it is still in beta for windows, so its not going to be perfect.

i have only ever used it on a Mac and found it to be a good browser, but not as good as firefox.

[iamtheoneneo]

need to give this ago , but cant see how it can beat firefox especially on pc

[CMC]

not gonna write a big long review, plenty of those already, i installed safari last week on my PC, and as a mac user as well as a PC user i wanted to see what Safari was linke on the PC...

Cack... I really really didnt like it at all on PC, even on mac Im not a huge fan of it and use firefox more...

[TheAnimus]

There is a reason that interaction designers aren't usually programmers, and the above post illustrates it perfectly. It's also one of the primary reasons that Linux still hasn't taken off on the desktop; most of the coders hacking for it don't have a clue about interaction design, and the only ones really contributing to improving the UI in window managers are those with design skills, not user experience skills.

The Apply button in Windows is one of the worst, most terribly ambiguous parts of the Windows user experience. When coupled with a Cancel button, it means that the actual 'saved state' of whatever you were working on can remain utterly ambiguous to the user when it should be clear. What happens when I click the cancel button after I've clicked Apply? What happens when I click OK without having first clicked Apply? I've seen veteran sysadmins who always click Apply first, then OK, which illustrates that even these power users feel they have to play safe.

The important thing to take away from this is that it's not the position or appearance of the buttons that defines the experience; it's the behaviour of the buttons. By removing the buttons, Apple removes the ambiguity in the mind of the user. Unfortunately this poses a problem for experienced power-users who are used to having to deal with this ambiguity, as this absence causes confusion in their minds. This is a shame, but to Apple it's not a problem; they (mostly) make their software for the 80% of computer users who aren't seasoned power-users.

This fact can be applied to many of the above criticisms of Safari as well, as they're simply not targeting this browser at you. Tabs off by default? This is perfectly sensible when you're dealing with users whose only prior experience of the web may have been through something like Internet Explorer (6 or earlier). Remember that before IE7 was released, only a tiny percentage of web users actually used a browser that had tabs.

The only particular complaint I have with the above relates to the criticism of the text-rendering. ClearType is a broken method of anti-aliasing text. It might be what you're more familiar with, but that doesn't make alternative rendering methods wrong. If anything, Apple's rendering is far more accurate to the actual letterforms of typefaces; compare it to what you get in a PDF or when you set some text in Photoshop.

Really though, the criticisms about security are about the only valid criticisms this thread has garnered. Everything else seems motivated purely by a dislike of Apple or OS X. As a browsing experience, Safari fits its purpose very well - it's a fast, streamlined browser without too much feature-bloat that works well for casual web users. Unfortunately most of you don't come into that category, and Apple shouldn't be lambasted for not catering to your minority.

Funny you mention that, you see my flatmate, well she's a useability expert, granted mabye not expert yet, more proffessional (i think Msc and 1 years commeercial experiance isn't enough for expert).

And guess what, we both concur with the logic; when in rome.

Don't like the Yes No order on a windows message box? You'd better have a damn fine reason for changing it, don't like ok cancel apply, well tough, your in the land of the windows design guide now, changing it will only hurt people. Removing cancel is silly, you can't possibly justify it.

As people have said look at firefox, using the windows version you wouldn't think that it was a cross platform (i mean this in a good way) you would think it was designed completely for windows. Only issues i find are lack of interaction with favourates and history.

Now lets look at script rendering time.

I for one do not have any problem with lack of power for rendering jscript, all the easy to use AJAX components i get built in with my VS 2005 IDE work flawlessly on my eden 533 (a very slow cpu).

As such, i'd much rather have a sandbox, now this is problematic, because a sandbox will hurt performance. Its just like i was explaining to a developer at work, by disabiling the stack balance check on a peice of code that called COM interop a few hundred times a second, we could save a lot of CPU time, and apply the stack check on the way out. This is the classic stability/security vrs performance. Apples track record on this is not very good.