It's a Beta, you whiners...
... you've never used one before?
Apple's Windows version of its Safari web browser is creating havoc on localised versions of Windows. Several international users who have downloaded the beta version noticed problems with loading bookmarks. When opening or importing bookmarks, Safari crashes. It also shows error messages such as: "Safari is missing important …
Hmmmm... just installed Safari for Windows to see if it's worth looking at. My first 3 web pages tried didn't render properly, including El Reg which doesn't work at all (no clickable links to the articles).
Google personalised homepage - applets broken, no AJAX headings readable.
The Register - Article hyperlinks have disappeared.
www.shutterbugs.nl - layout stuffed.
Any browser which can't deal with Google is doomed, IMHO.
Very, very, not impressed.
I don't have any of these issues so far. It's faster than Firefox and Opera but certainly not as featured. I quite like it. The Find feature is a good tool, but it can't match Firefox for clever and intuative features.
But it's not aimed at us developers is it. Apple know that the 80% of people who are stuck with the disaster that is IE 7 will start using Safari quite happy once it's bundled with the next iTunes download.
The most amusing thing is the annoyance the it seems to have caused so many El Reg commentators. Mean's Steve must have hit a nerve. :0)
Get a grip. I mean really.
This is no worse than any other beta - in fact compared to a certain redmond software company, the beta-3 of Safari is positively release candidate material.
And please remember, people who join beta programmes (which is exactly what you did when you downloaded the BETA) do so to help improve the product; to find and report bugs back to the developers and to generally imporve the user experience for others.
Exactly how does hanging out dirty linen help improve anything?
If you don't expect it to crash don't download a BETA version.
If you DO download a beta - then expect it to crash! But play your part and report the issues properly, not by airing them in public.
People like Gilbert Wham obvisoulsy don't understand what a beta is.
But then again, his system seems to be faulty anyway. His keyboard seems to type 0 instead of o (See his spelling of borked). Thank goodness people like him stay away from beta releases - he'd spend his entire time moaning instead of testing.
Apple usually wait until things are just right before they release a new software update (see the vista compatible version of itunes for an example). It seems very strange that they have rushed to get this out and it is full of bugs.
Ive tried it on my work XP machine and it crashes almost continually
Whats the reason for the rush apple?!
Beta? Beta implies "Complete product, may exhibit the occasional bug or unexpected behaviour but is generally useable".
Safari for Windows doesn't work, period. It's not a Beta, or even an Alpha. I'm using US Windows XP with no language packs or other weird stuff.
Google Personalised Homepage - widgets don't work, section headers are missing, hyperlinks missing, layout stuffed.
Live Mail - generates fatal error on login ("Safari has experienced a fatal error and has to close. We apologise for the inconvenience")
El Reg - no clickable links to articles, anywhere. Site completely unuseable.
Shutterbugs.nl - layout b0rked.
Those were the first links I tried. Didn't bother with any more because any browser that can't cope with Google (and of course El Reg) has no business being on any computer of mine.
Rupert you obviously posted your comment without even trying the product; I strongly suggest you at least bother to superfically test it before making unsubstantiated whining accusations, then you'd see what all the fuss is about.
I've had a few crashing issues with Safari (notably following the Sun link to the video of the YouTube boy racer), but was pleasantly surprised to see it renders the Acid2 test of the Web Standards Project well:
http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid2/
Not sure how much I would use it, but it is always useful to have another browser in the arsenal....
Beta=functionally complete, with bugs.
Alpha=not yet functionally complete
No proxy support. No support for the Windows way of working. It's own skinning rather than using the skin currently used in Windows. No internationalisation support. Lots of font issues (clue to Apple - some of us still use CRT, or even both CRT and TFT at the same time). Looks like alpha to me..
Apple really should have waited till the product was properly beta; this is only going to boost support for IE and Firefox.
@ Rupert Stubbs
"... you've never used one before?"
Indeed, many beta's infact and the aim of Beta software is to attempt to remove the last batch of bugs that are not found in Closed Beta and can only be found by large scale testing.
@ Kenny Millar
"And please remember, people who join beta programmes (which is exactly what you did when you downloaded the BETA) do so to help improve the product; to find and report bugs back to the developers and to generally imporve the user experience for others."
Very hard to test software which is so flawed it does not work thereby removing the ability to test the software. Beta software should be almost ready for production, it should have the basics done (as in, a browser that actually lets you read web sites, surf the internet, renders content correctly and doesnt crash whilst doing basic stuff). Safari cannot manage such simple things, it should be considered Alpha not Beta, not suitable for public testing and confined to the recycle bin, for good.
Why bother with a beta of a basic Apple browser when firefox works and is in a better position of pushing IE out... the only think Safari on Windows will do is stretch Apple resources when they have to keep dealing with holes that need plugging because of x,y,z.
I've used Safari before (on Macs, not this beta before Kenny claims I'm a n00b for not knowing what a beta is even though I write betas for a living! (or is it noob kenny - not zero's? ) ), I have used IE before (windows), by far the most reliable and flexible is FireFox (mac/windows/linux).... not used Opera before so I wouldn't dare to comment!! :)
I never used Safari when I had a Mac, Mozilla/Firefox being much better, so *normally* there's no reason why I'd need to use it for Windows. In fact, the only reason I downloaded Safari was so that I could do various bits of testing on an app I'm developing without having to faff around on a different machine.
I haven't had the problems that a lot of people have reported (yet - I'm using XP Media Centre, which is basically XP Pro with a few added bells and whistles) but thus far I can see absolutely no compelling reason why Joe Random User would want to download Safari for Windows, much less use it on a regular basis.
I'll use it for testing, but for regular, run-of-the-mill browsing it's still Firefox or Opera (as for Law's comment that he/she has never used Opera before, I suggest they give it a try - it really is good)
"Safari is missing important resources and should be reinstalled." haha, so much for Mac's not giving out cryptic error messages, sure we're not talking about the OS here but still. From the sounds of it though Safari is hardly useable, not quite beta yet and agree with the person quoted in the article that it seems more like alpha software. Beta should generally work but have hidden bugs, not bugs like "I goto a website and I can't click on the links", but then again, maybe Apple is following the Microsoft way in regarding software releases. Somehow it works for Microsoft as most of the population is willing to say "how far" when microsoft says "bend over"!
No idea what all this whining is about Safari 3 beta crashing, not rendering correctly, etc. as it works great for me (didn't even need to reboot - now that's a rarity on Windows).
I've tried many sites, including some of those people claim don't work, and have had zero problems.
Also it really is quick, especially in a side by side comparison with IE7. Only downside I can see so far is the memory overhead.
On another note, I've noticed lately that the usual snide & derogatory comments that occur when Apple launch something new are becoming just plain nasty - I think some people are getting genuinely worried...
God forbid you're a Graphic Designer with a lot of fonts. Safari on PC stops loading fonts after about 850 and since some of the required fonts, like Verdana and Lucida might load AFTER that, they never get loaded into Safari resulting in an application with no text buttons or text rendered in the browser window.
I've just installed it on a Spanish version of XP professional. I didn't read the manual so I started to try to import my bookmarks using Bookmarks->Show all bookmarks and instantly got the "...Safari... caused a problem... ...would you like to save a dump file" message.
Uninstall is the next step I think.
I'm an Opera user (and ex-employee) and have been one (user) for 8 or so years. Currently working on a US MacBook Pro (intel) in English language and country settings for Norway.
I can't say I have run into any problems with the Safari 3.0 beta for MacOS X Tiger.
Sad to say, but Safari 3.0 beta is so much faster on most pages, with an exception of The Register. I seem to remember that Opera used to start rendering pages while loading. Now, that doesn't seem to be the case any longer. (9.2 only?)
Speed for me is much more the number of tasks I can do with a browser within a time frame. Rendering a page is just not all of it.
But, Opera, I would seriously like for you to speed up!!!!
There is no question that Mobile Opera users will surf faster than iPhone users, but speaking of desktop we are lagging fare behind.
It's rather silly to be making comments like "it's a Beta so stop whining". A public Beta release should be generally stable enough to use normally with only the occasional small bug cropping up here and there. Safari on Windows simply doesn't work, period. I've never been able to run it for more than 30 seconds without it crashing and by the looks of it I'm not alone. A company like Apple should know that you don't release a PUBLIC beta unless it's pretty rock solid. It doesn't matter what you call it, if it's available for public download and you make a big PR song and dance about it then it better be bomb-proof because the company's reputation is on the line. Instead of enticing more Windows users to make the switch to Mac this public beta is in danger of undoing all the "halo effect" created by the iPod and iTunes.
I've installed and run Safari in WinXP and it gets as far as... opening. Almost. There is no text displayed - and I don't mean just on the web page, I mean in the browser UI as well - no menus, title, labels, nothing. I know this web 2.0 nonsense means text is being surpassed by images and video but this is going a bit far...
Furthermore to my previous point about no text appearing. I thought the whole point of a 'beta' was that you could provide feedback... but I can't find any information on the Apple website about doing so. It's possible that the Safari application has links to do so, but without it rendering text in the menus, I can't find out. If somebody is kind enough could they take a look for a feedback email address or something I can whine at?
While on the matter of betas, I think Apple have fallen foul of public perception of the word; so many businesses release nearly-perfect 'betas' nowadays (I'm looking at you, Google) that the perception of beta and live have merged. When somebody releases an actual beta, ie. an unfinished product, they get ripped to shreds for daring to release a product with bugs in.
I got Leopard and Safari at WWDC, and could not be more disappointed -- this is a final beta? Instailling "optional programs" crashes, Printing crashes just about everything, although Preview actually prints before dying, Safari can't get to gmail half the time, and saves attachments in gmail to really weird places. Performance is very bad (perhaps due to eye candy overhead). This is a "final beta"???? So, the people in non-US country should not feel bad, we were all screwed.
I think this thread is about the usability of the software on Windows. Safari is a Mac tool, and I am not surprised that it works on MacOS X (intel and PPC versions).
The problems noted are on international versions of WINDOWS, so unless you have installed Windows on your PPC Mac, then I am really not surprised that you cannot reproduce these problems...
OK, so Apple got their act together and finally got a cross platform software. Now if only they could get Cross language.
Finally, several comments were about hyperlinks not working. That really, really should have been tested and fixed... I mean, Apple has national HQ's in quite a few countries, and I will not believe them if they say that noone has a copy of 2000/XP/Vista hanging around on a PC (or Mac/intel) to test with?
Bad point for Apple quality control.
Cheers,
Daniel
It's time to get over yourselves as IE6/IE7/FF/Opera/whatever web coders, and stick with the standards as defined by the W3C et al wherever possible. When the browser fails to live up to its basic tasks (ALL of them do to some extent) then we are no further ahead.
I enjoy using Safari on a Mac and I welcome its arrival on the Windows platform. I must use both in my daily life and I adore Safari's CSS support. Have you ever seen CSS drop shadows work on Windows? No, I thought not... with Safari they do.
Cheers, Apple. Iron out the wrinkles and let the competition heat up. It's time for standards support instead of just more gimmicks!
Ian Ferguson:
You can report feedback on Safari in the help menu - "Report Bugs to Apple..."
I've been giving Safari a bit of a bash on a Windows XP SP2 machine here at werk, and it seems to run OK. No crashes, pages render pretty well. There's some interface bugs, but nothing like the problems others have experienced. Lucky me.