Latest Safari/Webkit Builds Boost Javascript Performance

On my Macbook the results are

Safari 3.0.4 (5523.10): 638 ms
Webkit r28233: 264 ms

Which is an impressive speed increase. And according to that site makes it much faster than Opera 9.50a which is the fastest browser listed. The total score would be 0.45X which is very good.

All the "Safari seems snappier"s will actually be right for once!

Poor java performance is the only reason i've had long stints using FF or Camino, some sites in particular used to be painful until Safari 3. Looking forward to more speed boosts. :)

Awesome news! Now if only I used Javascript more often...

I take it this will not resolve the fans issue on my macbook. Why a simple flash animation banner on a site can set those RPM's through the roof.

I take it this will not resolve the fans issue on my macbook. Why a simple flash animation banner on a site can set those RPM's through the roof.

There will be improvements elsewhere so you could always download it and try it on the same sites.

I love the new features and speed enhancements that these nightly builds of WebKit brings, but it would be great to be able to integrate that nightly build into the original Safari app rather than having to launch the WebKit app, which is just... crufty and unclean.

Actually, you can integrate the new WebKit into your existing Safari... Open up the downloaded WebKit.app, go to the Frameworks folder, and copy all those. Go into /System/Library/Frameworks, back up JavaScriptCore.framework and WebKit.framework, and paste the contents of the WebKit.app's Frameworks folder into your system frameworks folder. Worked like a charm.

I love the new features and speed enhancements that these nightly builds of WebKit brings, but it would be great to be able to integrate that nightly build into the original Safari app rather than having to launch the WebKit app, which is just... crufty and unclean.

I'm unsure what you mean by "crufty and unclean". All WebKit.app does is launch the existing Safari that is on your system with the frameworks contained within it's bundle.

While Safari is usually thought of as the flagship product for WebKit, it is heavily utilized outside of Safari (Adium, Mail, Dashboard, Colloquy and TextMate to name some apps with very obvious uses of WebKit and many, many more using it in not so obvious ways) and adding some kind of nightly integration would seem, to me, to be to be outside of the scope of both Safari and WebKit.

Actually, you can integrate the new WebKit into your existing Safari... Open up the downloaded WebKit.app, go to the Frameworks folder, and copy all those. Go into /System/Library/Frameworks, back up JavaScriptCore.framework and WebKit.framework, and paste the contents of the WebKit.app's Frameworks folder into your system frameworks folder. Worked like a charm.

Please don't do that. Things like WebKit.app exist solely so you don't need to do that. There are safer ways to test non-Safari apps (ie: the run-webkit-app script).

Why not? The nightly build's perfectly stable for me, and I am aware of how WebKit.app works. Opening an app that opens another app and is called "WebKit" is pretty crufty to me, compared to just opening plain ol' Safari.

I take it this will not resolve the fans issue on my macbook. Why a simple flash animation banner on a site can set those RPM's through the roof.

This is really more an issue with the Flash plugin than with any browser engine. Submitting feedback to Adobe is the best way to improve the situation.

Why not? The nightly build's perfectly stable for me, and I am aware of how WebKit.app works. Opening an app that opens another app and is called "WebKit" is pretty crufty to me, compared to just opening plain ol' Safari.

You probably just got lucky and managed to grab a build that doesn't have any major bugs in areas you're using. Being development software, the stability of the nightlies can vary even with just one check-in. The goal of WebKit.app is so that when you undoubtedly get one of the flakier builds, you don't screw up you're entire system.

Personally, I don't see the "cruft" in WebKit.app. You can set it as your default browser in the Safari preferences and it's just a darker compass than Safari. The fact that it launches Safari is really transparent to you - you could easily remove Safari from your dock and replace it with WebKit.app and never really tell the difference...