Apple have made a big fanfare this week over the release of their Safari 3 public beta, which is also available for PC. Many commentators have offered their opinions as to why Apple have provided a PC version. The general consensus being that the same browser will be available on the iPhone, so thereby having a PC base they will encourage more development for their up and coming iPhone product. Most of the iPhone applications will be browser based.
Public reaction to the beta has been unimpressed, with many vocal people decrying a number of bugs and security issues. Apple were quick to tend to these.
I tend to think that the uptake of Safari for PC will be mostly limited to iPhone and web developers. I fall into the second group, being only interested in have a copy to test my website for Mac users. Otherwise I have no need or desire to struggle with a new browser that lacks the development community support that FireFox has. The range of plugins available to FireFox extend its features way beyond what Safari can currently offer.
As for Apple's claim that is the fastest browser on earth, my testing of it so far shows this to be only a marketing sham. Their browser speed comparison graph on the Safari download page is a farce, as they don't offer any information on what tests they made to arrive at such claims.
Safari for me will end up like Opera on my computer, only ever used for testing. I will still recommend to Mac users that they should use FireFox or Camino.
