Safari Climbs Into Windows

In a surprise announcement at Monday's WWDC keynote address, Steve Jobs unveiled the first public beta version of Apple's Safari 3 web browser. Another version of Safari? Big deal, right?

Big deal indeed. This latest release of Safari runs on both Windows XP and Vista! Apple's self-proclaimed "fastest, easiest-to-use web browser in the world" ventures into the PC realm at a time where Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera to a lesser extent, are battling it out for market share. The company's main selling point for OS X's default browser has always been speed, and this is still the case with version 3. Benchmarks by Apple that show Safari loading web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and one and a half times faster than Firefox 2 have been disputed in some circles.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that Safari's rendering engine is impressive. The browser does have its weak points, however, and only time will tell if there is room for it in the already overcrowded Windows world.