Safari 4 – Wow

Safari 4 Beta was released to the masses in the middle of last week and some have hypothesized that it holds some clue as to what we will see in the next Mac OSX (Snow Leopard) later this year. Well I dont know about that but after downloading the Beta version I am quite pleased with a couple of the improvements they have made to the browser.

First on the list is the change to tabs. Previously the tabs would appear below the address bar and toolbar favorites. The drawback of this was precious space taken from the actual viewing area. Then when you return to just one single tab things would tend to jump visually. A small thing, but an improvement. I wonder if we’ll see tabs in the Finder window soon.

Tabs now appear on top of the browser window

The second improvement takes a bigger stage. Its “Top Sites”. A visual selection of your most frequented sites. You can choose to show 6, 12 or 24 of your sites and can also lock them to prevent them from being replaced by frequent visits to other sites.

Top Sites view

Bay far the most useful change is the way you can browse your history just like you view your albums in iTunes. The same functionality ( coverflow ) is also available in the regular bookmarks view too. There are many ties when I can see the site in my mind but cannot recall the name. This visual listing of webpage snapshots is sure to help.

Coverflow your history

Oh, and some people say its a faster browsing experience too. I have read some experiences of mail problems after downloading the beta safari 4 but if you want it, go get it.