Finally, it seems the last major update to our beloved Windows XP is just around the corner! For a while, I thought we'll never get to see a third service pack for Windows XP from Microsoft, but it seems I was wrong. The best part of it is that we'll have to wait only about a week until Windows XP SP3 becomes available for everyone!


<-234x60 Half Banner - left->Yes, ladies and gents, this is official! Microsoft announced that Windows XP SP3 has been released to manufacturing, and will arrive on the 29th of April, as a standalone installer. After that, SP3 will also become available as an automatic update, but that is expected to happen in June.

As you probably have figured out already, Windows XP SP3 includes all previously released Windows XP updates, but according to Microsoft, no significant Vista functionality is going to be added by this service pack. Well, it seems we won't play DirectX 10 games on XP, but at least they included Network Access Protection (NAP), saying this move was made to "help organizations that use Windows XP to take advantage of new features in the Windows Server 2008 operating system."

At last, you should know that IE 7 won't be included in Windows XP SP3, but things like the Microsof Management Console (MMC) 3.0 and the Microsoft Core XML Services 6.0 (MSXML6) have been included, as well as an update of Windows Product Activation.

These being said, let the countdown begin! There are 8 days until SP3...

Today's Safari trick is an easy one, but I am sure a lot of users can't find their way around with it, because there are a lot of people out there who really don't know how to set a certain page as their browser's homepage, no matter the Web browser they are using. Anyway, today we're talking about Safari, so here we go...

1. Open Safari, and load the page you want to use as homepage from now on


2. Press Ctrl+, (or open the Edit menu and choose Preferences, if you want to make it slow)


3. In the General area, press the Set to Current Page button.


That's it!

Although Safari was released as a public beta on the 7th of January, 2003, it took Apple no less than 4 years to launch a Windows version, but I am sure this happened so late because the current status of the browsers market made it a better idea than before, and not because it wouldn't have been to create a Windows version back in 2003.

Anyway, since the beta for Windows XP and Vista arrived on the 11th of June, 2007, and in the meantime we arrived to version 3.1.1, a stable and reliable one, I considered installing this browser on my computer, and after playing with it for a while, I decided to write a proper review for this new browser on the Windows platform, so here it goes...

Setup
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First stop, the setup process... Well, it is my pleasure to inform you that installing Safari can be as easy as 1-2-3, especially if you already have QuickTime or iTunes. Why? Each of these programs comes with the Apple Software Update utility, a tool created first to help you keep your programs from Apple up to date. Recently, Apple decided to help those using its software on Windows get acquainted with Safari, and the easiest way to do it was to include Safari in the Apple Software Update tool.

Being given the above, you have two choices - you can either open the update tool and choose to install Safari, or simply go to the download page (check the link at the end of the article), get the setup package, and install the program (that's what you should do only if you don't have iTunes or QuickTime already, so the Apple Software Update tool is not available).

Since installing Safari should be very simple, no matter how you choose to do it, I guess the natural step to take now is to talk about the program's interface, so let's get moving, shall we?

Interface

When it comes to the interface, Safari is one of the best looking Web browsers when using only the default skin, without any additional skin or add-on. Anyway, there are no skins for the Windows version of Safari, as far as I know, and - at least for me - Safari doesn't really need any skins.


As you can see in the image above, Safari has a nice brushed metal texture all over, rounded edges, discrete, yet easy to spot and use buttons, so most people should be happy with it. Switching between the Web page and RSS Feed view modes is very simple, with a single mouse click, in most cases, but that is taking us to the features of the program, so let's move on and see why should you use Safari...

Features

Before saying anything else, I have to repeat what I said in every article related to the Windows version of Safari I wrote so far - Safari is very fast, and that doesn't need any benchmark to prove it. Simply open some pages with your old browser, trying to choose sites that load slow, and then let Safari handle them. I am sure the difference in speed is going to be noticeable without having to count the seconds - I am not paid by anyone to say this, it's just my computer user opinion, and nothing more.


First of all, we have tabbed browsing. Do I have to say more? Everyone tries to do as many things as possible at the same time, and save precious minutes to spend with the family, or maybe to play some games... One of the interesting tab-related features in Safari allows you to bookmark all the open tabs, but this is also available in Firefox. Anyway, Firefox won't allow you to move a tab to a new window (although this may only be useful to a handful of people).


Next, there's the built-in RSS Reader. If a page has a RSS Feed available, all you have to do is click the blue RSS button in the address bar, and Safari will take care of the rest. There's also a search feature available, and multiple choices for sorting and filtering articles. Nothing too fancy, or extremely advanced, but nicely integrated, and it gets the job done.


As a side note, I have to tell you that Safari managed to amaze me with one thing - while playing YouTube videos, CPU load was extremely low, most of the time below 5 percent. No, I don't have a quad-core, it's only a dual-core AMD processor, which sometimes gets loaded up to 90-100 percent in the same scenario, when using Opera or Firefox.


The long feature list of Safari's Windows version also includes a very good pop-up blocker, enabled by default, the SnapBack feature which allows you to return to where you started easier than in most other browsers, Forms AutoFill, resizable text areas, "private browsing" mode, a very handy feature for those of you that don't want anyone else to stick their noses into the History of your browser, and that's not all. Obviously, you need to taste it, so you can really appreciate it, so I'll leave you here, and move to the "final thoughts" part...

Final Thoughts

As soon as Safari appeared on Windows, I wasn't quite interested in it. I have been using Macs for a while, and back then, about one year and half ago, switching from Safari to Camino was one of the first software switches I made on the Mac. Today, I must confess that, in certain areas, Safari is the best Web browser for the Windows platform. Obviously, it's not "the best" yet, but I will use it from now on for at least some tasks, and that's no lie.

No matter if you like Apple or not, please give Safari a try, or at least share with the rest of us your opinion, and the reason you are still keeping the distance. After all, it can't get any worse than having to dump your favorite browser for it, right? ;)

Developer: Apple Inc.
Price: free
Full version download: Download