The first time I tried to install Safari 4 beta, I got stuck at a ‘roadblock’. Safari just won’t open. It will just crash without any error message, except for the debug popup. I tried all things, like restarting my MBP like a few times, reinstalled over and over again. Nothing worked. A mac-friendly software from Apple failed to install properly.

I tried one final thing, remove all the 3rd party plugins to see if they conflict with the new installation. It was right! After removing the plugins from Safari 3 and re-installing 4beta, Safari 4 beta works. At last. Sogudi was that problematic plugin. What I don’t understand is why Apple can’t follow firefox. Firefox’s browser checks for 3rd party plugins and warns the user if those plugins will conflict with the new version and gives you the option to disable the plugins…:)

After trying Safari 4beta for about 4 hours now, it is quite a surprise that the browser works very much better now. Speed is definitely faster now with pages loading relatively faster than usual (even though I am using NTU’s ultra slow network). Design changes are also seen in this new version. The tabs are now at the top of the browser (recall: Google Chrome). Some changes are also seen in the overall design for the history page. It now fits the entire theme of the glossy background theme we are familiar with in iTunes and the new macbook/imac designs.

There is a new addition. The addition of the “top sites” (recall google chrome) is very helpful too. It also comes in a black glossy background with a more improved version over the google chrome.

Very slick very nice changes on the whole. The design is very much neater and more chic with the changes. But, I don’t think it is much faster than google chrome though. Google chrome seems to speed through things way faster than Safari. Apple is quite smart to rush this improvement before Google comes out with the mac version of google chrome, which will then reduce Apple’s browser market share.

Go download the working beta@http://www.apple.com/safari/download/ (I can’t seem to insert links now…apple, here is one bug), or navigate around to find out the new features of this browser. Last note: it works on windows too, but I think Google Chrome will be a better, no frills choice.. It is much much neater and faster.