Safari (web browser)

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Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Computer, Inc. and is available as part of Mac OS X. It was included as the default browser in Mac OS X v10.3 (Panther) and is the only browser bundled with Mac OS X v10.4 (Tiger).

Safari uses Apple's brushed metal user interface, has a bookmark management scheme that functions like the iTunes jukebox software, integrates Apple's QuickTime multimedia technology, and features a tabbed-browsing interface similar to that of Firefox, Internet Explorer 7 and Opera. A Google search box is a standard component of the Safari interface, as are software services that automatically fill out web forms, manage passwords via Keychain and spell check entries into web page text fields. The browser also includes an integrated pop-up ad blocker and a configurable image blocker.

Since the release of Safari, its browser usage share has been climbing but is still below 5%. For the month of August 2006, thecounter.com reports that Safari has a usage share of 2%^[1]; NetApplications.com reports that Safari has a usage share of 4.03% as of November 2006.^[2]

History and development

Until 1997, Apple Macintosh computers had shipped with Netscape Navigator. Microsoft's Internet Explorer for Mac was subsequently included as the default web browser as part of the five-year agreement between Apple and Microsoft. Microsoft released five major versions of Internet Explorer for Mac, with the last one being released on March 27, 2000.

On January 7, 2003, Steve Jobs announced that Apple had developed in-house their own web browser called Safari. They released the first beta version that day and a number of official and unofficial beta versions followed, until version 1.0 was released on June 23, 2003. Available as a separate download initially, it was included with the Mac OS X v10.3 release on October 24, 2003, as the default browser, with Internet Explorer for Mac included only as an alternative browser. Since the release of Mac OS X v10.4 in April 29, 2005, Safari is the only web browser included with the operating system.

Safari uses Apple's WebKit for rendering web pages and running JavaScript. WebKit consists of WebCore (based on Konqueror's KHTML engine) and JavaScriptCore (based on KDE's kjs JavaScript engine). Like KHTML and kjs, WebCore and JavaScriptCore are free software and are released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License. Some Apple improvements to the KHTML code are merged back into the Konqueror project. Apple also releases additional code under an open source 2-clause BSD-like license.

In June 2005, after some criticism from KHTML developers over lack of access to change logs, Apple moved the development source code and bug tracking of WebCore and JavaScriptCore to OpenDarwin.org. WebKit itself was also released as open source. The source code for non-renderer aspects of the browser, such as its GUI elements, remains proprietary.

Safari showing the RSS feed of this article's revision history.

Version 2.0 of Safari, released on April 29, 2005, includes a built in RSS and Atom reader. Other features include Private Browsing (a mode in which no record of information about the user's web activity is retained), the ability to archive and e-mail web pages, the ability to search bookmarks, and a reported 1.8x speed boost over version 1.2.4.

In April 2005, Dave Hyatt, one of the Safari developers at Apple, documented his progress fixing bugs in Safari to get it to pass the Acid2 test. On April 27, 2005, he announced that his development version of Safari now passed the test, making it the first web browser to do so.^[3] The changes were not initially available to end-users unless they downloaded and compiled the WebKit source code themselves or ran one of the nightly automated builds available at opendarwin.org.^[4] However on October 31, 2005, Apple released version 2.0.2 of Safari that included the Acid2 bug fixes.
 

Version history

See also

• Cyberdog - Apple's previous Internet suite that included a web browser
• List of web browsers
• Comparison of web browsers
• WebKit - Underlying engine of Safari and other Mac OS X web browsers
• Drosera - Debug tool used in Safari and WebKit development.
• Browser timeline

References

External links

• Official Safari website
• Safari and WebKit version information
• KDE weblog "The Dot" announcement about Safari
• WebKit Nightly Builds - Nightly builds of WebKit that include SVG support.
• NightShift - Automates the process of downloading and installing the latest WebKit Nightly build and creates a backup copy of the previously installed build.
• Pimp My Safari - Extensions and plugins for Safari
• SafarIcon - Allows you to change Safari's user interface to various preset themes and modify hidden Safari preferences.
• SafariSpeed - A popular utility claiming to increase the performance of Safari.
• Portable Safari - Allows you to open Safari as portable application from external drive.
• BrowsrCamp - Online safari screenshot generator.