Safari Beta 3 for Windows

[phppete]

Might be old news to some, new to me though ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6742439.stm

http://www.apple.com/safari/

So between IE5, IE5.5, IE6, IE7, FF, NN, Opera 6, Opera 7, Opera 8, Opera 9, Safari Mac, IE Mac we now have Safari 3 Mac/Win.... oh what fun! Lots of testing and debugging especially JS.

[Wassercrats]

I just uninstalled NN today. Last year a fraction of one percent of people used it.

[Buck]

Safari for Windows was just announced today. Appears to be much faster than IE7 and Firefox on the PC.

[Randall]

http://www.apple.com/safari/ What's really weird is the way it looks -- you've got a Windows program with the OS X scrollbars, tabs and window frame. Their only concession to XP is the menus and the close/maximize buttons, and even those are styled to make them fit in with the rest of the Safari UI.

Did they do that with the Windows version of iTunes too? I never looked at it closely. I realize that QuickTime Player has been more Mac than Windows all these years, but it's weird to see it in a major application.

Now if they would only port iCal to Windows...

Randall

[phppete]

Yep iTunes Windows is more Mac looking than it is Windows. I only really use my Windows machines for browser testing though, I'm a die hard Mac convert :clapper:

[Jeff]

Neat. Look forward to giving it a try.

Really interesting that Apple says Opera is the slowest of all the major browsers now... I remember when it was the fastest.

[Randall]

People have reported some really odd stuff happening on Vista (64-bit in particular), but this has to be the most bizarre:

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a73/jgfairman2/Safari1.jpg

Someone else posted a screenshot that had no UI text at all. And of course, people are split on the Aqua look. I only really use my Windows machines for browser testing though, I'm a die hard Mac convert I hear ya. I prefer Firefox on the Mac, but I might switch to Safari on Windows just to be perverse. :dopey:

If nothing else, I'll get to enjoy the OS X font anti-aliasing...

Randall

[Jeff]

Maybe I'll wait until it's out of beta (can't really give it much of a spin on a test box vs. actually using it), but I like the looks.

[Wassercrats]

Maybe I'll wait until it's out of beta Good idea. As soon as I installed it, I tried opening it through the desktop icon. I tried about three times, then I got one of those "...has to close" pop-ups that asked me to send the report to Microsoft, which I did. This may or may not be the same bug mentioned here (http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,132796-c,hackers/article.html).

[Wassercrats]

Seems slower than FF and IE with big tables like this (http://www.polisource.com/movie-ratings.html).

[Wassercrats]

Flaws Abound In Apple's Safari Beta For Windows (http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199903540)
Researcher David Maynor posted information on the Errata Security blog that they found a memory corruption vulnerability "in no time" and then went on to find six bugs -- four DoS and two remote execution flaws. "I can't speak for anybody else but the bugs found in the beta copy of Safari on Windows work on the production copy on OSX as well (same code base for a lot of stuff)," wrote Maynor. "The exploit is robust mostly thanks to the lack of any kind of advanced security features in OS X."

At one point in the blog, Maynor noted that new bugs were "popping out like hotcakes."

I uninstalled it yesterday.

[kitchin]

David Maynor is a bit of a FUD-ster. Google on "David Maynor Airport". He claimed he cold hijack Apple OSX through the Airport, but it didn't turn out quite that way. Something like that. He's not offering proof of his latest claim, is what I read here...
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/12/0120230
admittedly a site that probably tilts pro-Apple.

[Randall]

David Maynor is a bit of a FUD-ster. Google on "David Maynor Airport". Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with David Maynor.

But Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070612-afirst-look-safari-3-on-windows.html) mentions another researcher (who presumably has a better reputation) who did find a serious bug: In under two hours, Larholm was able to find a URL protocol handler injection vulnerability that facilitates remote command execution. Larholm points out that Safari doesn't properly handle URL validation in iframes, which can be used to manipulate programs associated with protocol handlers in unpredictable ways. Larholm demonstrates how to exploit this vulnerability by providing a page with an iframe that will crash Safari when loaded and can launch an arbitrary executable if Firefox is set as the default browser. Larholm's exploit uses the gopher protocol and Firefox XPCOM components for process instantiation, so it won't be able to launch another executable if Internet Explorer is set as the default browser, but it will still crash Safari. Not quite ready for prime time. :hrmm:

Randall

[phppete]

Not quite ready for prime time. :hrmm:

Randall

Neither is IE, Windows XP, Vista but plenty of people use them :rasberry:

[Wassercrats]

Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070612-afirst-look-safari-3-on-windows.html) mentions another researcher (who presumably has a better reputation) who did find a serious bugSo does the article I linked to above!

[Randall]

Neither is IE, Windows XP, Vista but plenty of people use them :rasberry: Well, yeah. But the current Safari beta for Windows seems to have a lot of stability issues that need ironing. :wink: Presumably the Mac version is in better shape at this point. So does the article I linked to above! But you didn't mention it. :rasberry:

Randall

[Mandi]

It won't display my ultramon window controls, grr. I like to use that send-window-to-the-other-monitor button. I suppose I can drag, but . . . meh.

Joel Spolsky (http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html) talks about the font vs. font issues, now that an Apple app is going to be in front of so many more people. Interesting analysis.

[Randall]

Joel Spolsky (http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html) talks about the font vs. font issues, now that an Apple app is going to be in front of so many more people. Interesting analysis. I definitely prefer the Apple look -- blame my print design background, I guess. I like to see the character (pun not intended) of the font.

In some cases, fonts that render poorly in Windows can actually look worse under ClearType, whereas just about every font looks nice in OS X.

Weirdly enough, I have ClearType turned off on all of my PCs. I like the sharp pixelated look better, even on LCDs. So it doesn't really matter to me one way or the other how a Windows browser renders text. But when I'm doing design work on the Mac, I really appreciate the difference in philosophies.

Randall

[Arthur]

It won't display my ultramon window controls, grr. I like to use that send-window-to-the-other-monitor button. I suppose I can drag, but . . . meh. Not as convenient, but... right-click on the application in the taskbar and choose "Move to Other Monitor".

-Arthur