Does anyone have this browser? Is it worth trying? What are its pros and cons? Can I run it along side safari?
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Webkit browser question
- Thread starter Michaelgtrusa
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Yes, it will run along side Safari. It uses the Safari UI and so you start it, you get the Safari menu. But there's a different dock icon - darker blue than Safari. You can delete it at any time by dragging to Trash.
Pros: it's generally faster at JavaScript. It uses a new JavaScript parser. It supports newer CSS standards.
Cons: it may be unstable since it's essentially the in-development version of the Safari renderer. That said, it has never crashed on me.
At the moment, I'm using Safari 4 Developer Preview. Again, very stable, faster than Safari 3.
Pros: it's generally faster at JavaScript. It uses a new JavaScript parser. It supports newer CSS standards.
Cons: it may be unstable since it's essentially the in-development version of the Safari renderer. That said, it has never crashed on me.
At the moment, I'm using Safari 4 Developer Preview. Again, very stable, faster than Safari 3.
Just as a clarification, WebKit.app really isn't a browser. It's a browser rendering engine (WebKit) + a launcher app that starts Safari with the newer engine. So if you have the Safari 4 preview installed and launch WebKit, it will be Safari 4 + new WebKit, and so on.
Other than speed, the part I'm happiest about with recent WebKit nightlies is the improvements in memory usage.
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One additional comment: WebKit nightlies are primarily provided for testing purposes, so it'd be much appreciated if (should you choose to use them) that you a) stay up to date, and b) file bug reports as described in http://webkit.org/quality/reporting.html if you run into problems. It's certainly not required, but good bug reports are something everyone wins with; users get a better browser, WebKit developers get to spend time fixing bugs instead of finding them.
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Other than speed, the part I'm happiest about with recent WebKit nightlies is the improvements in memory usage.
<edit>
One additional comment: WebKit nightlies are primarily provided for testing purposes, so it'd be much appreciated if (should you choose to use them) that you a) stay up to date, and b) file bug reports as described in http://webkit.org/quality/reporting.html if you run into problems. It's certainly not required, but good bug reports are something everyone wins with; users get a better browser, WebKit developers get to spend time fixing bugs instead of finding them.
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NightShift is probably the easiest way to stay up to date. It's up to you how often you update, I generally do about once a week or so, or if I see a commit go in that I particularly want to try out.
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You'll need to hit the "get url" button in prefs to update to the new download url.
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You'll need to hit the "get url" button in prefs to update to the new download url.
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