Derrick’s Musings

It’s no secret I use a Mac for my day-to-day computing needs but I also have a sleek new laptop with Windows Vista and my gaming computer with Windows XP. Now I’ll give some applause to Microsoft because compared to IE 6, IE 7 is a much better browser. With that said, my browser of choice is Safari, made by Apple. Being an Apple web browsers, it was designed to work in Mac OS X and it does a great job at doing so, even to the point of Microsoft discontinuing IE for the Mac. Sadly, Safari hasn’t been available on 2 of my 3 computer…until now. That’s right – my favorite Mac-only web browser is now available for Windows XP and Vista. Why would someone switch from IE or Firefox to Safari, you ask? Read the rest of the article for more…

1. The Sleek Apple UI

Granted, it’s not a “feature”, per se, but Apple does know how to make a wonderful and useful user interface. Sporting the same look of the familiar iTunes for Windows, the millions of Windows iTunes users will feel right at home.

2. Private Browsing mode

With private browsing mode enabled, no record of your internet activies are stored. Doing your banking on the same computer the kids use? Shopping for an anniversary gift? Using Safari on a friend’s computer? No problem.

3. Detachable and re-attachable tabs

Almost every modern web browser does tabs, even IE 7. What no other browser does (including older versions of Safari I’m afraid) is give you the ability to detach a tab from a window and open that tab in its own new window. If that wasn’t good enough, a quick trip to the Window menu allows you to merge all of your open Safari windows into one with tabs.

4. Built-in (Good Looking!) RSS feed reader

Sure, a dedicated RSS reader application does a better job at viewing RSS feeds than most browsers, but why use one when Safari has its own full-featured RSS feed reader built in.

5. Parental controls

With Safari, it’s very easy for parents to control how their children access the web. 

6. Resizeable text fields

New with this version for both Windows and Mac OS X is the ability to resize any text fields (though not one-line text boxes) as you would a window. 

7. Spell-checking

Keeping in mind that this is a beta version, this feature doesn’t seem to be available at the moment (or I’m just doing something wrong), but it appears that the final version for Windows will have the same “check spelling as you type” feature as the Mac OS X version has. This function works just as it does in Microsoft Office. As you type, if a word is misspelled, you are notified by a red squiggly line under the word, and right-clicking said word allows you to choose a spelling correction or add the unrecognized word into the dictionary.

8. Snapbacks

Sometimes you go to a web site and start delving deep into the content offered on the web site and you want to quickly go back to where you originally entered the site. Snapbacks make that easy. Simply press the snapback button and you are taken back to the page where you first entered the site. Also, you can mark a page for a snapback if you intend to come back to that page after viewing others on a given site. 

Those are just some of the reasons why I use Safari and why you should too! Download the beta for Windows (or Mac OS X if you’re on a Mac and want to try out the new features) and see for yourself.

This entire article was written in Safari on a Windows Vista machine.