On Tuesday, Apple announced the public beta release of Safari 4, the latest version of their popular Web browser. New features include Cover Flow to flip through bookmarks, Top Sites to get a preview of frequently visited pages and Tabs on Top.
Apple is promising a much faster Web browser than its predecessors with the release of Safari 4 as a public beta. Available for download at Apple’s Safari Web page with both Windows and Mac OS, Safari 4 will runs JavaScript 4.2 times faster than Safari 3, Apple claimed in a press release obtained by DigitalJournal.com.
That speed boost is attributed to Nitro, a new JavaScript engine. Due to the engine, Safari 4 can supposedly execute JavaScript up to 30 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and more than three times faster than Firefox 3.
Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said: “Apple created Safari to bring innovation, speed and open standards back into web browsers, and today it takes another big step forward.”
Safari 4 ushers in several new features to its browser: Top Sites displays frequently visited pages in a wall of previews so users can jump to their favorite sites with a single click; Full History Search lets users search through titles, Web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages to return to sites they’ve seen before; Cover Flow resembles paging through album art in iTunes, allowing users to flip through their Web history or bookmarks; Smart Address Field completes URLs by displaying an easy-to-read list of suggestions from Top Sites, bookmarks and browsing history; Full Page Zoom give you a closer look at any website without degrading the quality of the site’s layout and text; and Tabs on Top adds drag-and-drop tab management tools and an intuitive button for opening new ones.
Safari 4 is available as a free download immediately.
