Safari Beta 3 for Windows Test Drive

Well I downloaded and used Safari Beta 3 for Windows tonight... it looks and feels a lot like iTunes. Of course the first question is, "Do I really need another browser?" My first answer was "No." But upon reconsidering, I wondered if it might be a good alternative to testing sites for users of Macs and possibly the iPhone. So maybe for that reason, it's a good idea. I already have IE7 and Netscape in addition to Firefox. I also have a Linux VM with Firefox for test too.

With that in mind, I decided to test the popular sites I frequent. Here's my results:

• This blog -- no problems
  
• Authoring the blog -- failed: couldn't get the cursor in the Title field
• eBay -- warned me to upgrade my browser, but worked
• PayPal -- no problems
• Gmail -- no problems
• Google Calendar -- no problems
• Last.FM -- no problems
• Pogo -- failed: couldn't load a game
• My company website -- no problems (includes Flash movies and apps)
• My bank -- no problems
• del.icio.us -- no problems

Overall, not bad, but definitely not up to Firefox or Netscape. I also do not like that to resize the window, I have to go to the lower-left corner. One other knit I have is that on the first click of the URL bar, it does not highlight the current URL, you need to triple-click. In addition when in the URL field, CTRL-A does not highlight the URL either. And to see if this is a viable alternative to testing sites that I would typically have to use a Mac, I need to see if I have the same problems using Safari on a Mac -- I would hope that I would not.

To conclude, "Safari for Windows?" Not now.