After a somewhat disappointing beta release Apple released Safari version 3.1 earlier today. There’s no mention of any beta or RC so I assume it’s the first official release in the 3 series.

Nothing much has happened design wise, and to be honest it looks a bit dull and the font rendering isn’t among the best on my Windows machine. However, according to their press release Safari loads web pages 1.9 times faster than IE 7 and 1.7 times faster than Firefox 2. Safari also runs JavaScript up to six times faster than other browsers (tested on a VeriTests iBench Version 5.0 on a modern iMac running Windows XP). On my Windows machine it seamed quite the opposite though…

What’s new?

Safari 3.1 is the first browser to support the new video and audio tags in HTML 5 and the first to support CSS Animations. Safari also supports CSS Web Fonts, giving designers limitless choices of fonts to create stunning new web sites.

Safari 3.1 is available immediately as a free download at www.apple.com/safari for both Mac OS X and Windows users. Safari software updates are delivered seamlessly through Apple’s Software Update application, which automatically checks for updates.

Safari 3.1 scores well on the new Acid 3 test and passed 75 of 100 browser tests. It does use its time, but eventually it comes out rather well. If you run it with the latest WebKit (Safari’s rendering engine) I’ve been told it scores above 90.

So which browser do you think will pass the Acid 3 test first? I’m pulling for FF3 myself, but it sure looks like it’s going to be a close race.

While I’m normally writing about free software I feel I should mention Adobe Flashpaper anyway. FlashPaper 2 allows anyone to convert printable files into Macromedia Flash documents or PDF files with one click. A single-user license is only $79 which I think is fairly reasonable.

Overview

What better way of showing how it works by reading about the capabilities in a Flashpaper presentation.

[ Launch intro ]

I personally think the Flash approach could come in handy several times as it comes with an intuitive navigation panel for printing, zoom and pagination. Also Flash is included with most modern browsers and makes it even more available than PDF (even though I think most people have that as well installed). What’s your take on this? I’d like to hear.

Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 31 months. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 12,000 updates including some major re-architecting to provide improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers.

What’s new in Beta 4?

Firefox 3 Beta 4 includes more than 900 enhancements from the previous beta, including drastic improvements to performance and memory usage, as well as fixes for stability, platform enhancements and user interface improvements. Many of these improvements were based on community feedback from the previous beta.

When may we expect the final release?

If you remember back from the time Firefox 2 came out it only took 2 months after the last Beta until the first official FF2 release. According to the project calendar it looks like there will be a Beta 5 shipping out later this month. If this is the last Beta we might get the first official release before June!

In my mind I think this is going to be the best browser so far and I keep my fingers crossed for an early summer release.

Microsoft made their next browser version, Internet Explorer 8, available for download on Wednesday. It’s still an early beta release but could prove useful for designers and developers as they now have some time to adapt their websites to yet another IE browser.

According to recent MS blogs IE8 will be more focused on staying with the web standards. However, you can also make it render pages like IE7 and also like it did in older versions. Hopefully most people will stick with the forward compatible mode so that designers for once can have only one stylesheet for media/screen and one for print (wishful thinking ).

On a side note, even though IE8 passed the Acid2 test, they still struggle with the new Acid3 test recently made available by WaSP. Let’s hope Microsoft manages to improve the code before releasing their first RC.

On March 3rd the Web Standards Project (WaSP) announced the release of Acid3, the latest in a line of tests designed to expose flaws in the implementation of mature Web standards in Web browsers. By making sure their software adheres to the test, the creators of these products can be more confident that their software will display and function with Web pages correctly both now and with Web pages of the future.

The Acid3 Test is designed to test specifications for Web 2.0, and exposes potential flaws in implementations of the public ECMAScript 262 and W3C Document Object Model 2 standards. Collectively known as DOM Scripting, it is these technologies that enable advanced page interactivity and power many advanced web applications such as web-based email and on-line office applications.

As a series of 100 mini-tests, Acid3 has already been found to expose flaws in all tested browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. WaSP hopes that Acid3 will prove useful to browser makers during the development of future versions of their products.