Apple has launched a public test of the latest version of its web browser. Sadly, it’s still called Safari 4 and Steve Jobs still hasn’t answered our emails suggesting the name Safari Sagoody…
Still, we’ll put up with the name if the claims that a new Nitro Engine in the browser runs JavaScript more than four times faster than Safari 3.
The web browser for Mac and Windows PCs also offers a Top Sites feature, showing a "stunning visual preview" of frequently visited pages.
That’s backed up by a full History Search, to search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages.
Meanwhile, Cover Flow allows users to flip through web history or bookmarks, and a Tabs on Top feature makes tabbed browsing "easier and more intuitive".
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"Safari 4 is built on the world’s most advanced browser technologies including the new Nitro JavaScript engine that executes JavaScript up to 30 times faster than IE 7 and more than three times faster than Firefox 3,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.
"Safari quickly loads HTML web pages three times faster than IE 7 and almost three times faster than Firefox 3."
All testing was conducted on an iMac 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo system running Windows Vista, with 2GB of RAM.
Safari 4 is a public beta for both Mac OS X and Windows and is available immediately as a free download at the Apple website.
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