1) The benchmarks are from Apple. They are not independent numbers. So, the data is useless. As others have noted, Safari “cheats” on the benchmarks, so the numbers are suspect.

2) The reviewer is fundamentally ignorant of the features of Firefox, which includes the extensions. The excuse that the comparisons were “right out the box” doesn’t make much sense. People pick and chose which extensions they use so that the core product won’t be loaded down with all the other useless crap they don’t need. That’s the entire point of the extensions: keep the core product small and fast. This is the same principle as the Mach kernal, the heart of Max OS X.

3) Safari’s restriction of searching using only Google is almost unforgivable. In the June 2007 PCWorld review, 3 of the 4 Yahoo search properties beat Google for text search. So, Safari restricts you to using an INFERIOR search engine.

Also, the search completion feature mentioned as a part of Safari is actually part of the Google search, and both Yahoo and Google have that as part of Safari.

4) Safari’s exclusion of the keyboard shortcut for making all tabs into a bookmark is really ackward for me. Apple actually *removed* the existing Firefox shortcut for this. Why ? The function is still there, just the shortcut is gone.

Finally, As I understand, Safari *IS* Firefox with a different rendering engine. Therfore, the claims made in the comments that Firefox copies Safari are uninformed. In any case, I’m assuming as decent engineers that take the best features and incorporate that into their own product.

5) I’m still looking for a Safari extension like FireFox Flashblock. With my old PC, with about 15 tabs or so, Flash ads took over the CPU (97% or so). Even though I have 8 CPU’s on my new machine, that is a tremendous waste of time that Safari imposes on my machine.

I wish this review had been more helpful. It was in a small way, but it leaves out a whole lot, and I’m definitely not a browser/web expert.

And yeah, my new Mac Pro *ROCKS*

Also, when running on a windows machine, safari kind of . . .crashes. A lot.

Safari is not a bad browser (none of the above is).
But it needs much much higher flexibility for an advanced web user. If a safari user wants many of the firefox’s options (not to mention countless add-ons)
he or she needs some commercial add-ons. What a pity!

I entered the address on Safari and then firefox (well actually Gran Paradiso).

Firefox took less than a minute to let me read and delete the mail.

And Safari took 7 minutes to do the same.

Winner: Firefox.

I still prefer firefox because of its customizable search bar and live bookmarks feature. Regardless of the improvements apple has added to Safari.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX1ZY4ASHsM