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Mac OS X Lion's Safari is Snappier and More Stable Thanks to WebKit2
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Everything is super fast, but you know the download button that fades in when you open a PDF file? The download button doesn't seem to work, so I can't test out preview at all
Speed isn't a problem with Safari, although the webkit 2 enhancement is certainly welcome. The problem is that it really hasn't changed much GUI-wise and is very much behind Chrome and Firefox 4 in that aspect. The tab closure box should be on the right side, the add new tab button should be right next to the last tab instead way on right side of the bar, and they canned a very good top tabs implementation because there's a large group of mac users resistant to change.
I like the fact that they used the word "snappier" in the title! Safari always seems "snappier" after every update!
I have a love hate relationship with Safari. Safari 5 on my MBP takes forever to launch and eats up over 800MB of memory after a day of surfing. I downgraded to Safari 4 and not only does it launch faster now but the RAM usage is only at ~300MB for the same usage.
Link?
Do you have a link to support your claim that plugins run in the main process?
A quick web search finds pages like http://www.edbott.com/weblog/2010/03/how-does-ie8-keep-tabs-isolated/ that claim the opposite.
And from experience on IE8 I've certainly had bad pages that have hung a tab without hanging the rest of the browser and tabs.
Do you have a link to support your claim that plugins run in the main process?
A quick web search finds pages like http://www.edbott.com/weblog/2010/03/how-does-ie8-keep-tabs-isolated/ that claim the opposite.
And from experience on IE8 I've certainly had bad pages that have hung a tab without hanging the rest of the browser and tabs.
screen real estate
I'm anal retentive, and screen real estate is strangely important to me, on my 13" MacBook.
Chrome has tabs on the first bar space and address and google search on the second bar space. This is very good use of space. Between the three bar spaces, Chrome takes up about a little over an inch of vertical screen real estate.
Safari has the title of the current site display on the first bar space, a redundant feature that each tab does the same thing below. A waste of space that should be made available to the website. We are talking about 1 cm of vertical screen space here, and as noted I'm anal retentive. Google search and url input fields can become one like Chrome, which is very efficient when using the web.
Sorry Safari you lost me a few months ago to Chrome. This is really important if you use the 11" MacBook Air, but not so much if you surf on your 27" iMac.
I'm anal retentive, and screen real estate is strangely important to me, on my 13" MacBook.
Chrome has tabs on the first bar space and address and google search on the second bar space. This is very good use of space. Between the three bar spaces, Chrome takes up about a little over an inch of vertical screen real estate.
Safari has the title of the current site display on the first bar space, a redundant feature that each tab does the same thing below. A waste of space that should be made available to the website. We are talking about 1 cm of vertical screen space here, and as noted I'm anal retentive. Google search and url input fields can become one like Chrome, which is very efficient when using the web.
Sorry Safari you lost me a few months ago to Chrome. This is really important if you use the 11" MacBook Air, but not so much if you surf on your 27" iMac.
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Thanks for providing the link for me. Read this quote from that article:
Flash will crash the tab process in which it runs in IE8.
Also, look at the task manager image in the article. The frame and tabs all run as separate instances of iexplore.exe but each exists as a complete browser process such that each is exploitable as such.
In Safari (4 and up), Safari runs as it's own process and plugins run in another independent process called Webkit plugin agent. This can be viewed using "All processes, heirarchical" in Activity Monitor.
When Flash crashes in Safari, the Flash object will show "plugin failure" but the browser (or tab in browser) will not crash. Non-plugin crashes in one tab will crash the browser until Webkit2 update is released.
In Webkit2 based Safari, each tab will be it's own process with plugins still running in the independent webkit plugin agent process. Also in Webkit2, the rendering and scripting engines will run in a separate process than the UI as well.
https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/WebKit2
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Chrome tabs don't save much screen real estate
I thought that Chrome saved vertical real estate, too, but it turns out the difference is really minimal: only a few pixels. The problem is that Chrome uses blank space above the tab bar so you can still grab the window by the top. So it's not that much space saved.
And if you only have one tab open in Safari, the bar is actually significantly smaller than Chrome's.
See this screenshot for a comparison between Safari (with multiple tabs), Chrome, and Safari (with one tab).
I thought that Chrome saved vertical real estate, too, but it turns out the difference is really minimal: only a few pixels. The problem is that Chrome uses blank space above the tab bar so you can still grab the window by the top. So it's not that much space saved.
And if you only have one tab open in Safari, the bar is actually significantly smaller than Chrome's.
See this screenshot for a comparison between Safari (with multiple tabs), Chrome, and Safari (with one tab).
Really, why? Because Firefox and Chrome have them on the right? I guess you are also in favour of moving the red close button on all windows on the Mac to the right since they are on the right in Windows.
Firefox and Chrome decided to ignore the Mac convention that the close button should be on the left side (because they either are lazy or value Mac-Windows consistency more than internal Mac consistency).
Nonsense. Safari has best UI. Chrome basically has no UI, Firefox is a UI hell, Opera? do i need to say it.
So if it doesn't change much it's bad? Since 2.0 it's changed a lot, but the change is well thought and subtle, not a UI object slapping in random places fest.
Awesome! I knew they were working on this, and was hoping it'd be out in time for Lion!
This multiprocess model will definitely help exploit the full power of multicore Macs. It may sound silly to speak of maximizing CPU performance when talking "simple things" as the web, but the web is becoming the dominant application platform today, and is no longer about merely "small, simple Javascript blocks".
It'll especially help a lot with Flash and not have it slow down your other tabs much.
Maybe Lion will be out with this even before Mozilla get their Electrolysis project into Firefox (similar forthcoming multiprocess model for Firefox).
This multiprocess model will definitely help exploit the full power of multicore Macs. It may sound silly to speak of maximizing CPU performance when talking "simple things" as the web, but the web is becoming the dominant application platform today, and is no longer about merely "small, simple Javascript blocks".
It'll especially help a lot with Flash and not have it slow down your other tabs much.
Maybe Lion will be out with this even before Mozilla get their Electrolysis project into Firefox (similar forthcoming multiprocess model for Firefox).
I can't even remember the last time Safari crashed for me- very happy Safari user here.
I can, it was before I had Click-to-Flash installed.
Or, afterwards when I was watching some Flash
sorry but Chrome 10 is just killing everything, even though it's still in beta. I think Chrome is what a web experience should be... fast and less cluttered. Safari is old school junk, like IE. They both are some of the least compatible out there. Chrome on an Ipad2.. I wonder if $teve Job$ would $allow$ that.
Which for a Web browser is just the best. Let's face it, if your browser has too much UI, it's taking space from the UI that really matters : the web site. A browser should be an address bar and a content pane.
Chrome got it right with its simplicity. Safari does look dated and I never quited liked the UI of it.
very glad to hear this. right now, sad to say, chrome is better than safari. hopefully this changes that!
I agree with a browser having the least UI is the best, that being said, Safari is quite UI-free as well. Firefox seems to be quite crowded compared to them both.