[Macworld]

Post your comments for Safari at 10: lasting impact on Apple's success here

[icerabbit]

I think Safari has been a good thing, all the way around.

The one thing I wish they'd fix (and have fixed years ago) in Safari is how it will gobble up memory till it implodes. They've split off Web Process and that's now the offending process. Whether scripts or flash or whatever is to blame, it never should go beyond a few hundred MB of RAM, let alone several GBs. If other browsers can keep things in check, so should Safari.

[Luis_Alejandro]

"As for Apple, we all know how it’s doing these days. Would it have reached the same heights were it not for Safari?"

As the same Steve said… “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

When, in 1997, he arranged with Bill Gates the "five years of Office support" paying including Internet Explorer as the default browser, Steve did not sleep in his laurels.

He began to develop iWork and Safary. Then, at the end of the "five years survival time," Apple was able to walk alone, without any other's help.

So, answering your question: Apple has become what it is now with the impulse that produced Safari and iWorks, that is the same that in almost all other aspects of Apple: Freaking control of the basic technologies!

[decondo]

Still slow and still misbehaves after all these years.

[bubbamac]

I use Safari almost exclusively on my Mac, although I've got a copy of Firefox for (very) occasional use. I do miss the top tabs from the beta; I wish we could get those back. Safari is the only browser to ever do them so they don't look ridiculous. And Camino. Wherefore art thou, Camino? That was my go-to browser back in the day; fast and light. I still try it out once in a while, but it's just not getting the developer love. Ah, well.

I don't find Safari slow or buggy at all. It's the most stable and fastest browser I've used.

Nice article.

[cincyflygrrl]

"No longer is there an independent Google search field"

I didn't think I'd like this feature. Now I can hardly wait until it's implemented in iOS.

Thanks for the history lesson.

[nbuck]

As someone just learning web development, I am very thankful that the browser wars are (mostly) over.

The one thing I do miss (unlike most people, it seems) is the RSS integration. I use NetNewsWire now, but it doesn't support tabs and isn't as good at returning to the original page if you click a link inside it's mini-browser.

Since RSS links just take you to a webpage, I'd just prefer being in my browser of choice to begin with.

[StevenFishervsh2]

Quote

"No longer is there an independent Google search field" I didn't think I'd like this feature. Now I can hardly wait until it's implemented in iOS. Thanks for the history lesson.

I suspect you'll have to wait a while. iOS is different than a desktop computer, and having customized keyboards for different types of data entry is just too useful. Leaving two text entry boxes reduces the number of taps you need to pick the right keyboard for the job.

[RobLewis]

Quote

I think Safari has been a good thing, all the way around. The one thing I wish they'd fix (and have fixed years ago) in Safari is how it will gobble up memory till it implodes. They've split off Web Process and that's now the offending process. Whether scripts or flash or whatever is to blame, it never should go beyond a few hundred MB of RAM, let alone several GBs. If other browsers can keep things in check, so should Safari.

Amen, brother! I've gotten to where I keep Activity Monitor's RAM pie chart in my Dock, and I can watch the green slice of free RAM wither away. When it gets down to a sliver, it's time to re-launch Safari. Most annoying!

[blecch]

Not that I don't like Firefox (besides the fact that it's too slow), but Webkit is transformative because it has brought a high-quality, consistent web experience to *multiple* platforms including Mac, iOS, Chrome, Android, Linux, etc..

I was a fan of the KHTML and Konqueror work in KDE, but Apple (including folks like Dave Hyatt, Darin Adler, and others) really took it to the next level and poured many years of effort into it; it's transformative because it doesn't just affect Apple platforms but the whole industry.

The Javascript canvas is another great thing which originated at Apple (for Dashboard widgets) but has become an industry standard that enables web apps to draw almost any 2-D graphics that one can imagine.

[blecch]

As I understand it, one brilliant thing about Webkit is that the project workflow refuses to incorporate new code that makes it slower on the performance tests. This means that if something causes a slowdown, then additional changes to speed something else up need to be added to compensate! It's like "carbon neutral "for software.

This approach should be adopted by all software, in my opinion!!

Unfortunately, in spite of this methodology, Safari 5 still turned out to be dog slow on my machine, but at least it wasn't Webkit's fault! (Chrome was still blazing fast using Webkit, for example.)

[blecch]

I miss snapback - it was one of my favorite features.

And I loathe the integrated search field, because it turns my default domain URLs into Google search queries. ;-(

This post has been edited by blecch: 10 January 2013 - 04:03 PM

[blecch]

Quote

Still slow and still misbehaves after all these years.

Wrong on point 1 - even Safari 1.0 was faster and better than IE for Mac when it came out, Safari 3 was a thing of beauty, and Safari 6 fixes the madness of Safari 5 where opening up multiple tabs had a half life of 50,000 years.

Chrome is also fast - it uses Webkit like Safari - and it's probably just the thing for people who value security over privacy.

Firefox, though.... oh Firefox, I want to like you with your many nifty extensions like Firebug, but you're just ..... tooo.... slow... At least Firefox 18 seems to work correctly on the Retina MBP though, finally!!!

A friend of mine works for Mozilla - whenever I see him I say "Firefox is too darn slow" and he says "I know, I know, but we're working to make it better all the time!"

But you are right about misbehaving - I still quit and restart Safari at least once a day because I have been trained to do so by years and years of memory leaks that cause it to grow into a bloated virtual memory monstrosity. Why can't anyone seem to make a web browser that doesn't leak memory like a sieve?

This post has been edited by blecch: 10 January 2013 - 04:00 PM

[dfs]

One of the recent changes is a deal-killer for me. When they removed the Appearance panel from Preferences, this forces me to read pages in a font chosen by some bozo in Cupertino rather than those of my preference. Even worse, my eyesight isn't that great so I need a browser where I can set font size (and I bet a lot of visually impared users depend on this feature -- Apple usually has a great record for being sensitive to the needs of handicapped users, so this was an unexpected kick in the teeth). Apple took that away too. Good-bye Safari, hello Chrome.