Apple Says Safari 4 is World's Fastest Browser

By Marcus Yam
published

Apple boasts Safari 4 is faster than both IE8 and Firefox 3.

It was Apple’s big day with plenty of Mac and iPhone related news, but there was a lone piece of Windows-compatible software that also made it out – Safari 4.

Apple released a beta version of Safari 4 in February of this year, and the final version today with its “Nitro engine” runs JavaScript up to 4.5 times faster than Safari 3.

When compared to other browsers, Apple boasts that Safari 4’s JavaScript is up to eight times faster than IE 8 and more than four times faster than Firefox 3; and Safari 4 loads HTML web pages more than three times faster than IE 8 and three times faster than Firefox 3.

Safari 4 includes HTML 5 support for offline technologies and support for advanced CSS Effects. Apple at the WWDC was also proud to point out that Safari 4 is the first browser to pass the Web Standards Project's Acid3 test.

Safari is built off of WebKit, which is the open source browser engine that’s also used by popular mobile browsers and even Google’s Chrome. It’s interesting that Apple chose to compare Safari 4 against IE8 and Firefox 3, but left out comparisons with Chrome 2.

Both PC and Mac users can download Safari 4 free of charge here (opens in new tab) (as soon as Apple updates the site).

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
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32 Comments Comment from the forums
  • IzzyCraft
    May be faster but i still wont use it over Opera 10 Beta.
    Reply
  • TheFace
    Well why would they compare it against Chrome 2? Aren't IE8 and FF3 out? Chrome may be out, but Chrome 2? Tell me if I'm wrong, but I would assume that they would compare a final product against other final products. Otherwise why would they compare Safari 4 against FF3 and not FF3.5b?
    Reply
  • waffletronic
    Apple always claims it's the best and fastest. I'd assume they're full of it, or there's some sort of * that defines the parameters of their superiority.
    Reply
  • Hanin33
    so wot are we talking about? mere seconds? fractions of seconds? and it seems to me the biggest issue that affects loads times, besides the level of flash crap on the page, is the way the site is coded. i suppose if all the sites were coded in a single uniform standard this might be a meaningful metric to talk about... but since there's many standards and levels of coding, i don't see how these speed arguments mean much. let's not forget that load time also includes network latency and bandwidth concerns for your regular user. these sandbox tests showing load times for content hosted on the same machine mean little when they all still have to wait for the content to be fed to them in the real world. next!!!!
    Reply
  • Dreasconse
    Isn't Mozilla working a a much faster javascript engine for Firefox?
    Reply
  • funkjunky
    Hanin33: What you initially said is true and the reason why browsers need to render faster and run javascript faster. If everyone wrote perfectly effecient pages we could all use FF2 and be happy, however on one focuses on effecience... actually as a web developer I can tell you it is one of the lowest priorities next to usability and functionality. Usability usually takes up all extra time so effeciency is nearly ignored, that is where a really fast JS engine and a fast CSS and HTML renderer comes in.

    Also the fact that it says it 100%'d acid3 is interesting... IMO their isn't even a point comparing it to the absolutely terrible peice of shit that IE8 is... fuck I hate internet explorer. My hate for Microsoft is only topped by my hate for their internet explorer software... ruining web dev.
    Reply
  • funkjunky
    oh also I think it would have been fair for them to compare safari to chrome 1.???. Really you don't need 2... 1 is still damn fast. I wonder if it can run faster than chrome... I'm thinking no... but maybe.

    dude like chrome runs 3d smoothly in javascript! No other browser that I have tested does this... the Safari beta was no exception.
    Reply
  • iulianx
    Safari 4 is the first browser to pass the Web Standards Project's Acid3 test
    Yeah right. Opera 10a did that a long time ago. And it's alpha, imagine what it'll do when it'll be ready.
    Reply
  • Headline: "Tom's Readers Say Apple is World's Most Untrustworthy Company"

    I won't use anything they make, ever, period. I have no problems with Firefox, there's no reason to give them a chance. Apple = pwn2own fail crew
    Reply
  • danielkza
    DreasconseIsn't Mozilla working a a much faster javascript engine for Firefox?It's in FF 3.5 betas already, and it's more like an improvement of the current SpiderMonkey engine than a full rewrite. Still, it's at least 50% faster in all cases, and in some up to 40x.
    Reply