Apple's 3.1 release of Safari is available for download now (Mac or Windows, don't ask me why they don't put out a Linux version). It's advertised as "The fastest web browser on any platform", and
I'm not going to argue the point - it certainly snaps right up ready for
work much faster than Firefox on Mac, coming to life after two dock bounces versus six for Firefox.. on Windows the story was the same: about six seconds
for either Firefox or IE to be up and running, less than three seconds for
Safari.

Once running, Safari continues to be quick: http://aplawrence.com/oneday.html loads in about 70% of
the time Firefox needs. However, for ordinary pages without humongous
tables or other big stuff to load, any difference is too small to notice.
I suppose that as so many web pages are morbidly obese nowadays, you might
actually gain a significant amount of time over the course of a day
of browsing.

But does fast mean everything? On Mac, Safari displays on odd glitch:
the little FeedBurner icons that display in the left sidebar here are
invisible with Safari. They do show up with the Windows version though..
very odd. Other than that, I couldn't find anything wrong, and it
passed the Acid2 test
on both platforms.

There are other Safari oddities: no toolbars, for example. And this
odd "snapback" thing which they think is incredibly useful but I just
don't see it.. fine, yes, it could be useful now and then but I
can't imagine using it very often. Then again, I can't imagine
using Safari often either: Firefox has the add-ons (including
the toolbars Safari disdains) that I need.. I'm staying with the Fox.

The Windows download also offers to install Bonjour for Windowsw, Apple's
Network Discovery thingy. It also brought down iTunes and QuickTime.. I let
them install, but as all I use Windows for is to help me lead folks through
clicks, I'm not likely to use those.

So why no Linux version? (I said "don't ask me", but that doesn't mean
I can't ask you). Apple, Apple, Apple: the Linux folks aren't exactly
your BFF's (Best Friend Forever), but helping them hurts you know who.. so
whatcha thinking? (I know, now I'm asking them.. pay no attention to me).

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