Apple, Inc. has recently released the newest version of its popular web browsing software.  Safari 4 offers many improvements over previous versions, including many performance enhancements.  For example, the “Nitro engine” in the newest version of Safari runs JavaScript over 4 times faster than the previous version of Safari.  Safari version 4.0 also executes JavaScript up to 30 times faster than IE 7 and more than three times faster than Firefox 3.  Safari loads HTML web pages three times faster than IE 7 and almost three times faster than Firefox 3.

Some of the new features in Safrai 4 include things such as ‘Top Sites’, for a neat visual representation of the user’s most frequently visited pages; ‘Cover Flow’, a feature that allows the user to easily flip through web history or bookmarks like album covers in iTunes; and ‘Tabs on Top’, which makes tabbed browsing easier and more intuitive than ever before; and ‘Full Page Zoom’, which allows for a closer look at a website without degradation of quality.  To some (such as myself) one of the most welcome new feature in Safari 4 also features built in developer’s tools that help with the development of web pages.

Apple’s newest browser, Safari 4, offers support for innovative new web standards including HTML 5 and CSS 3, which allow for new feature-rich web applications with media, graphics and fonts.  Safari 4 is the first browser that supports advanced CSS Effects, which allow web developers the use of reflections, gradients, precision masks, and many other tools that allow for awesome looking web content. Safari 4 is also the first browser to that has passed the Web Standards Project’s Acid3 test that examines how well a browser adheres to web standards.

Safari 4 is built on Apple’s WebKit, the world’s fastest and most advanced browser engine.  WebKit is an open source project that aims to create the world’s best browser engine as well as advance the adoption of new web standards.  Recently, WebKit has led the way for the introduction of the new HTML 5 and CSS 3 web standards.  Many of the industry’s newest browsers are based on WebKit including Google Chrome, the Google Android browser, the Nokia Series 60 browser and Palm webOS.