The most recent release of Safari’s web browser is changing the game

By: Michael Lipe, creative director, February 26, 2009

The dominance of the IE web browser is slowly fading as Mozilla Firefox and Apple’s Safari browser are getting a stronger and stronger foothold in the market.

The latter, Safari version 4, is out in Beta form and has raised the bar with some very compelling new features

Those of us who are iPhone users are very familiar with the Safari web browser and with the popularity of the iPod and iTunes software, some of the features found within those technologies arenow making their way to the web. Most notably, Apple has applied a version of their cover flow system to the web browsing world in the latest release of the Safari 4 web browser. Their system called “Top Sites” uses thre same cover flow style to browse both popular sites and your own browsing history. It even displays your most recent and most frequented sites in a single view so that you can browse all of them a single glance. Pretty cool.

 

 

But interface upgrades alone are not the only difference with this latest release, as Safari 4 claims to have the fastest browsing experience on the web, and a leading edge commitment to compatability of the latest web development technologies to get the most of the web’s potential. It has heightened security measures available to protect the user and an open-source module called “WebKit” which will allow independent web developers to continually develop new technologies based on the platform.

As good as all of these upgrades are, the most difficult thing for web developers (and website owners for that matter) is to continually keep up to date with the cross-browser compatability standards that insure that each website operates with ideal visual and performance integrity. There are many popular sites who are not accessible via the Safari browser, and that mindset will have to change as its popularity increases. As these new technologies emerge it is crticial that the web development world continually be aware of the changes to not only utilize all available technologies, but also to insure that each client’s site is accessible to eveyone on the web.

Intenet Explorer is still the top dog, but as you can see in this most recent chart of web browser usage statistics, Firefox and Safari are starting to make a push, and innovations such as these new realeases are making a strong case for the viability of these emerging competitors.