Safari 4 official release

Apple today announced the official release of Safari 4. A public beta version of the web browser has been available for several months, and introduced the Top Sites feature, along with a slightly modified interface. The official release has refined problems users reported with the beta, and also includes several new enhancements. Safari 4 is one of the few browsers to score 100/100 on the Acid test, and Apple also claims to have upped the browser's Javascript performance by 50 percent, arguing that Safari 4 is now 7.8 times faster than Internet Explorer 8.

When coupled with Mac OS X Snow Leopard, the browser should feature crash protection that will prevent browser plug-ins from completely shutting down Safari. The new technology is said to shut down only the window causing a problem, leaving all other tabs and windows intact.

The completed version of the browser will available as a download for Leopard, Tiger, and Windows Vista/XP from Apple's website later today.

by MacNN Staff