as the title suggests, has anybody tried Safari for windows?

i 'upgraded' to FF3 and then had to downgrade back since it was rubbish and i've had nothing but trouble with it since.

i've tried to make all the settings as it was before the 'upgrade' but its just not the same. it loads pages much slower than it used to, and switching between tabs.. omg, i think i'll go make a cup of tea while i wait. oh, still not done? pff.

of course apple big 'emselves up totally over Safari and reckon it loads pages faster than FF and any of the others and i just wonder if its any chop.

anyone tried it?

Believe it or not, it's considerably faster for me than FF2 was... Not that FF2 was slow anyway.

You might want to try the upgrade again and create a new user profile. http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing+profiles

This has fixed the 'slowness' issue that I've seen people experience.

Oh.. one more thing.

Personally, I don't like Safari much. Limited options, a totally un-windows friendly interface... But it is pretty speedy and does a pretty good job rendering pages.

I might also suggest Opera.

Ta Rick. maybe i'm being pedantic but i'm a total housekeeping freak - doesnt creating a new profile just leave behind the junk of the old one just sitting there?

The idea is so you don't delete your bookmarks etc.. But if you'd like a clean start, you can just uninstall Firefox and then delete the C:\Documents and Setttings\User_Account\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox folder.

Reinstall FF3 and you should be golden. Again, this will delete your settings, bookmarks, preferences etc..

thanx heaps.

i certainly dont wanna contradict anyone but in my experience ff3 was a total pain.

i saved my bookies, made a list of all my extensions & so on, uninstalled ff2, deleted EVERYTHING, ran a registry cleaner to get rid of all remnants, then installed ff3.

gave it about 2 days and it gave me the squirts so i piffed it. i did the same in order to re-install ff2, cleaned it out, and started again. but i musta missed something & cant be bothered giving it another shot.

so i thought i might try safari. hey rick, do you know how big the exe file is?

Safari is 18.7MB for the installer exe from the Safari download page http://www.apple.com/safari/download/

Safari is really fast. I mean it loads really fast, but it is windows skin resistant.

There is another thread asking the same question. Called Anyone Else Use Safari (Windows Version)? Its 35 posts long as of this posting, and has some debate about browsers that you may find interesting.

I use Opera in every OS. But I've been trying Safari/Webkit more on my Mac, and it is fast, faster than Opera on a Mac for sure. How much that translates over to Windows I'm not sure, but I don't ever hear of people complaining about the speed of Safari in Windows, so I guess its pretty fast.

I did use Safari for a bit on Windows about a month or so, I personally preferred Firefox because of the add-ons etc.

Safari is actually pretty good on Windows, I haven't used it on Mac so can't comment on that, but back to that I found it did load pages faster than IE and probably nearly as fast as Firefox but I went back to Firefox because of the background on Safari, if they did put a Background changing option and the add-ons like Firefox then I would have a very hard job choosing between Firefox and Safari.

Unlikely Apple will add those but thats my opinion on Safari.

used it once on a coworkers computer. It was interesting, but I didn't see anything spectacular.

I presently have it installed, and it loads way faster than Firefox, Opera, and IE7. navigation is a Breeze. I never use it though. I guess fast is not appealing enough.

Tried it a few months ago and did not like it. Just installed the latest version and it seems to be a lot faster than Firefox 3, and fewer misses on loading pages. So far so good!.

The spartan look does not bother me. Perhaps that's why it is faster.

I tried Safari out, but I don't like it. I am not sure why people say it runs faster...it is substantially slower for me. I like the interface okay, but prefer FF3 for most things.

I had tried safari earlier yes it takes few system resources but i would still prefer Ff over the same.

Regards

I tried Safari for Windows when it first came out and it crashed and crashed on me. I don't know what I expected from a beta, but I did try to like it; I just wasn't willing to spend the time to get to know it better. I use Opera now.

It was several years ago that I had last used Opera, and after reading this thread I decided to check out the latest version. In a word: WOW! It brings up Web pages so much faster than FF3 and IE, and it has a nice feel to it. FF's appearance seems more intutive to me, which is probably just because that's what I've been using for the past few years. But as I continue looking at Opera, its more minimal aesthetic grows on me. It's a smart product and has an excellent chance of becoming my default browser. Thanks for the tip.

On a longer trial found Safari disappointing:
1. Not really faster than Firefox, and absence of "Retry" button annoying. FF when slow loading pages almost always responds fast to "Retry".
2. Remembered some web logons and not others. For example remembered TechSpot but not Wilders Security.
3. Missed Speed Dial and other add-ons.

Safari is good with Java, actually better at handling Java than firefox IMO. But I usually stick with FF unless having to go into a site that is based on Java.

I tried FF3, but ended up rolling back to FF2 because very few of my ad ons were compatible with FF3 and I kept running into pages that couldn't be viewed with FF3 yet. I figured I'd give it a little while longer before switching over. I am pretty happy with FF2, I sometimes use Opera, but very rarely. I haven't used Safari, not sure if I will. I might try it, but I have a feeling I'll stick with FF.