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Safari 4 Tips, Tricks and Special Effects

The release of the Safari 4 Beta yesterday has generated a massive number of comments. Here are a few interesting tips, tricks and observations.

CNet benchmarked Safari 4's Javascript and found it to be 42x faster than IE 7, 6x faster than IE 8 and the fastest compared to any browser:


Javascript is a key scripting language that is heavily used in interactive websites such as GMail and MobileMe.

We previously discussed the inclusion of CSS Animation into Webkit and its long term implications. Well, the latest Safari 4 beta incorporates these new features which allows you to view these impressive demos that use CSS/Javascript (Safari 4 or comparable browser required):

CSS Animation: Falling Leaves, Bouncing Box, Pulse
3D with Canvas: JS Cloth, Miku, Touch (via Kawanet and Ajaxian)
Presentations: Sample slideshow (use right/left arrows to advance)

Finally, those who are still trying to get used to the new Safari 4 changes might want to follow these tips:

Safari 4 Hidden Preferences - how to move the tabs back to the bottom, restore the blue loading bar, turn off URL autocompletion, Google Suggest and more. (Original site is down - content copied here.)
1Password - How to get 1Password to work in Safari 4

Top Rated Comments

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39 months ago
Definitely excited for what this has to offer for developers :)
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
39 months ago
Nice, but I'm not sure I will abandon Firefox just yet though.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
39 months ago
I do like the new Safari and can tell a bit of a speed boost on sites like MobileMe and Gmail but I don't like the Tabs at the top. I'm glad somone has found a way to change this.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
39 months ago
What about the Mac version?
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
39 months ago
Glad to have my tabs back down where they should be.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
39 months ago
The performance of those 3D demos isn't very good. Is that software rendering or is it supposed to be accelerated? Miku was especially chunky. (I mean the FPS, not Miku herself)
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
39 months ago

Glad to have my tabs back down where they should be.


+1
I love everything about Safari 4, except the ridiculous location of the tabs. Happy to get them back where they belong now :D
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
39 months ago
I love my progress bar, and I like the tabs where they were! This is the best of both worlds being able to have a "Classic" Safari 4 (beta)!
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
39 months ago
I Prefer my tabs at the top, NOW. it took me an hour or two to get used to it, but i like theme there now. Definitely a LOT faster for me, on my 512kbps connection G-Mail is a lot more responsive, and a lot of other sites just seem to work a bit better.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
39 months ago
Tabs make more sense on top, and give me a bit more screen real estate on my 12" Powerbook. Now if they'd only add other features such as the address bar / google search bar combo from Chrome and I'd be completely satisfied.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives

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