Hi Guys,

This is interesting news for web designers as it seems Safari is even getting traction in the Windows world:

Apple said Friday that more than 11 million copies of its new Safari 4 web browser have been downloaded in the first three days of its release, including more than six million downloads by users of Microsoft’s Windows operating systems.

Some interesting points about the new Safari 4:

- It uses the Nitro JavaScript engine that executes Javascript code several times faster than IE 8 or Firefox 3.

- Safari (according to Apple) renders HTML three times faster than Firefox 3 or IE 8.

And for Mac users, this is an interesting point:

With the release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard this September, Safari will run as a 64-bit application, boosting the performance of the Nitro JavaScript engine by up to 50 percent, Apple claims.

Besides the speed improvements, Safari 4 has some really cool features like the Topsites feature that basically gives you a large thumbnail preview of recently viewed web pages.

You can read the full article here:

Apple 11 million downloads …

You can check out Safari’s 150 features here:

Safari’s cool features.

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

Hi,

I’m a big fan of the Firefox browser; it’s fast, nimble and has a great plug-in architecture, that has made Firefox into a true tool for web designers. That said, Firefox has one big failing – it sucks on the Mac.

Yes, for reasons beyond the comprehension of this humble nerd, Firefox crashes like crazy on the typically ultra stable Mac OSX.

… It’s so bad in fact, that sometimes it feels like I’m using crash-crazy Mac OS 9!

What is the source of the Firefox problem?

I haven’t done any thorough testing, but it seems to me that the constant crashing has to do with the Firefox Javascript engine – it only seems to crash when I’m on a page that uses Javascript.

So if any of your Firefox developers happen to come across this post, please take a closer look at this glaring problem. Believe me, I am not the only one who has seen this.

PS: The Flash player also doesn’t work properly in Firefox on Mac.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com

The web design magazine is slowly taking off.

… We have our first article from John Beatrice who has given us a sneak-peek at the new IE8:

Internet Explorer 8 is Microsoft’s response to the growing interest in interactive web services and rich online experiences. This is Microsoft’s second attempt to build a browser that follows standard compliant HTML and CSS. So, will designers and developers embrace this new Internet Explorer?

You can read more about the Internet Explorer 8 beta in the magazine section of the website.

I hope you’ll find it interesting.

Stefan Mischook