Safari for Windows Downloaded Over 1 Million Times 439
ClaraBow writes "Apple reports that it took Apple just two days to reach 1 million downloads of its newest Safari Web browser for Windows. If these downloads manifested into regular Safari users, then we just might have a third major browser on the Windows platform. If Safari can obtain a 10% market share on Windows, then it would further weaken IE's position and give standards-based browsers more leverage with developers."
It makes me wonder... (Score:5, Informative)
These statistics make me wonder if Konqueror 4 [konqueror.org] will become another large competitor on Windows. Konqueror and Safari both share a very common core (KHTML [wikipedia.org]/WebKit [webkit.org]), so the renderring and page handling should be relatively the same. Web designers can get another speedy and a more native web browsers that tests their sites for the same purpose, and general users can get a lightweight, standards-compliant, open source web browser (without the OSS requirements, you can already get this with Opera [opera.com], of course) that won't try to enforce another platform's "look'n'feel" like Apple's apps all do.
For the interested, you can grab an alpha copy of KDE 4 [kde.org] (download qt-copy, kdelibs, and kdebase at the very least; you can use either GCC/Cygwin or MS Visual Studio to compile it). On OS X, there are precompiled universal binaries for everything, and Kubuntu and openSUSE users can get packages for it from their respective websites.
Re:It makes me wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
It won't. The only reason Safari took off like this is because Apple is behind it.
Re:It makes me wonder... (Score:5, Informative)
Just because I downloaded the thing doesn't mean I'm going to switch to using it seriously.
Maybe I just wanted a giggle!
Re:It makes me wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
I did download it though I'm not using it as my main browser, I don't even use it on my powerbook.
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It may be even better than that. (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason why this is such great news is that this could possibly make WebKit, one of the most standard compliant engines out there, the number one option after IE (alongside with Gecko), which will hopefully prompt Web developers to, at last, respect the standards as the basics for any Web development.
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You don't think that developers would like to be able to develop against concrete standards today? We have to develop where the users are. And if the users are on IE, as unfortunate as it is, we have to develop there.
In a perfect world I'd prefer everyone was on Firefox, but that's just my pref. If I could count on a critical mass having XUL and SVG, etc, it would fre
Re:It may be even better than that. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it's not consistent, and it's broken. It doesn't act as you would expect it. Microsoft is a member of the W3C, who decides on webstandards. Then, IE breaks them (Microsoft owns IE).
Microsoft helps make standards. Microsoft breaks standards. So, to reiterate, it's unfeaseable, and a stupid idea is why.
Re:It may be even better than that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the standards are there for a reason, and IE's implementation is broken. It might not be a big deal in the short-term - but if we pander to people who break the standards, where does it end? In 10 years, we have a thoroughly broken "box model" just because Microsoft uses a broken model today? It's about consistency and logic, not expedience. And if we start caving to Microsoft today, what does that bode for the future? they will just be more brazen, because they can expect any changes they make to be be added to the standards.
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> as the standard. I mean, why not?
Because this would require cooperation from Microsoft and they do not cooperate.
The WebKit and Gecko programmers work together on standardization. For example, WebKit introduced the canvas tag which is used in Mac Widgets, and Gecko implemented this also, however during the standardization process, the way the canvas tag "should" work was changed, and then WebK
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Sorry for the confusion, but I think there were enough hints there that you could have read for comprehension. Bt if you can't do the substitution in your head:
"With flakey standards, I may WANT a 300px-wide box. But I have to then subtract the borders, then subtract the PADDING,
Re:standards are not bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
What kind of nonsense is this?
If you build a standards-compliant website, it will work in IE. It won't be broken. It may have some layout differences, but it will work. So, what's all this crap about people not being able to use your website if you code to standards? It's more likely to break for everybody else if you ignore standards and build in IE-specific stuff.
Also, non-IE users make up a lot more than 15% of the market. you must have a pretty skewed audience there if you have 85% of users on IE.
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If it doesn't look the way it was designed to look, then it doesn't "work".
You clearly don't understand authoring for the web. It's not about how it looks, it's about conveying information. What does "how it looks" mean for someone who is blind, and uses a screen reader? Even in Internet Explorer, users can change the text size, or base CSS, which will change how your site looks.
If you want everything to look the same, you should be a graphic designer, not a web designer. Wepages are supposed to look different for different viewers, based on their preferences.
Re:It may be even better than that. (Score:5, Interesting)
1) De-facto standards, where a given arbitrary product is the reference, and codified standards, as described for open implementation, are VASTLY different things. Can you tell why? (Here's a hint: the answer contains the words 'lock-in'. I'll let you ponder that while ruing the lack of Firefox and XUL user base.)
2) However, reference implementations are a good thing, because they, as you rightly point out, help developers. Not providing a reference implementation of CSS is possibly the biggest mistake the W3C made.
3) In a perfect world, you'd be using just whatever the hell you want and it would make no matter. Gecko lock-in is not much better than IE lock-in. (Case in point: browse the commit logs of other browsers and count how many entries there are that go, "Emulate Firefox bug such-and-such so as to display somesite.com correctly". Seriously.)
And lastly,
4) I am slightly annoyed that you seem to assume I don't know about Web development. Because, meanwhile, in the real world, our issue tracking system is littered with tickets that read something like:
"Dear Mr. Important-customer-at-huge-company,
The issue you report looks like a bug in Internet Explorer. We'll allocate developer ressources to implement a work around for the next revision of the product. Kind regards, etc..."
This costs money. This costs resources that could be allocated to building better mousetraps, to make awesome shit, to create stuff to be proud of and to drive things ahead. Instead... Working in this field today is trying to build castles on swamps, and it's a daily struggle to not cave in and just sell shaky wooden shacks (painted cheap gold as per marketing's instructions) like the rest of 'em.
And this is not something I can do anything about.
However, you can.
Will you, in all consciousness, make the choice to be part of the problem? That choice is yours and yours only.
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My company only officially supports IE and yet there are rendering issues, CSS bugs, and scripting errors between IE versions. Even worse behavior varies on the same version of IE on different versions of windows (IE6.0.2900 handl
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And referring to Windows as ugly while implying Linux isn't? At worst, XP was plain. Vista is quite nice looking. One of the big drawbacks of Linux is the frequently bulky/ugly interface. A lot of that is personal preference, but I daresay far more people would agree with me than with you.
You lose a f
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Re:KDE 4 Konqueror KHTML (Score:5, Insightful)
and won't go thunk in the night when Bill Gates "upgrades" things to break your work
You know, it's really open source software that's known for making arbitrary upgrades that break backwards compatibility (and keeping version numbers below 1 so they have an excuse - hey, it's just beta!), while Windows goes to great pains to preserve backwards compatibility at all costs, even at the detriment of the system as a whole.
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Because you are using mainstream software supported by your distro provider. Which they have to do because if they didn't, stuff would keep breaking. Distros exists largely to deal with this very problem! The fact that they manage to work around the problem in a large number of cases doesn't mean there isn't an underlying problem being worked around.
Re:It makes me wonder... (Score:5, Informative)
Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?F
You can convert the VPC image to the format of your VM of choice (I use VMWare Player on Linux).
Dumb speculations (Score:5, Funny)
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You crack me up, little buddy.
Re:Dumb speculations (Score:4, Insightful)
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Among Safari's unique tools is the Web Element Inspector [webkit.org], which is to fucking die for. Nothing I've seen for any other browser even comes close.
Excellent news :-) (Score:3, Informative)
A new browser - that will target a different userbase to FF & divide the market up a little more, will make the web a better place for everyone.
Re:Excellent news :-) (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutly, and I think that's the only market that will really go for Safari. I'm a Mac guy, but I use Camino at home and Firefox at work. Safari doesn't have anything great that will make me switch. But, if it's bundled with itunes, I can see a lot of people who use IE because it's the default making the switch.
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That's why I made the comparison. FF 1.0 went from 0 to a huge userbase very quickly. For Safari to get downloads in the same ballpark is fantastic. Imagine what's going to happen when they bundle it with itunes.
Re:Excellent news :-) (Score:4, Informative)
If, of course, people keep using it.
I've downloaded Safari for Windows (twice, in fact: home and work), and while I'm keeping it around for testing (like I keep Opera around) I have no intention of using it as my primary browser.
There are a number of reasons for this, but the most basic reason is that Safari doesn't fit in with Windows that well. I'm not talking about the "look," Aqua under Windows is fine, I'm talking about the "feel." The biggest example for me is that the back/forward buttons on my mouse don't work in Safari. They do work in Firefox. Plus Safari doesn't use standard Windows shortcuts (Ctrl-Shift-] for next tab versus Ctrl-Tab, for example).
Other things like extensions also keep me using Firefox over Safari. I like AdBlock Plus and NoScript, and those just aren't available for Safari.
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> I have no intention of using it as my primary browser.
> Firefox.
The thing is, Apple doesn't really want you to use Safari. Neither does Google. They are really happy with you as you are because you are already using a standards-based browser. You are a good Web citizen. You are easy to author for, easy to serve in the future.
However there are many people using Explorer because it came with their PC and they don't know any better. Getting those people to just tr
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These are just a couple of points from my brief testing at work yesterd
Re:Excellent news :-) (Score:5, Informative)
That kind of depends on which release of Firefox you're talking about.
The first "preview release" of Firefox took about 100 hours to break 1 million downloads.
Then Firefox 1.0 hit 1 million downloads in about 24 hours.
And Firefox 1.5 hit 1.5 million downloads in the first 24 hours.
And Firefox 2 hit a bit over 2 million downloads in the first 24 hours.
I'd say the first public beta of Safari for Windows is most equivalent to Firefox's first preview release, so in those terms it's doing pretty damn well, especially considering it was just mentioned at WWDC and then immediately posted on Apple's website, whereas Firefox had been publicly developed and hyped for a long time before it's preview release. But then again, it's still well below the rate of download of the most current release of Firefox.
Well, everyone except microsoft and mozilla, who could lose market share and search revenue...
I really hope that Apple does carve itself a good chunk of windows browser market share, because that would provide a lot of support for a more standards based and platform/browser independent web. But I'm not sure Apple is really betting anything on their ability to do so; if they just make it easier for more web developers to target and test for Webkit/Safari/iPhone/etc, I think they'll consider Safari for windows a success and take any market share gains as a nice bonus.
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Re:Excellent news :-) (Score:4, Informative)
I think you're thinking of the RC releases. 1 million people downloaded FF 1.0 on the first day [mozillazine.org] of release.
Also (Score:5, Funny)
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And fembots!
Oops. Same thing.
Competition (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't cry any tears over a little loss of marketshare for Firefox. Let's rejoice the fact that the marketshare of standards-compliant browsers goes up. THAT's why it is important to eat away at IE's m
Backwards (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Competition (Score:5, Interesting)
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Consumers are going to get Safari for Windows free with their iPod and iPhone, just like they get Explorer free with their PC.
- 100 million iPod users
- 300 million iTunes for Windows users
- 400 million QuickTime for Windows users
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The bigger change is open standards. But if too many users move to a single alternative browser run by a corporation we might be right back in the same boat we are with IE.
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Firefox has a marketing engine, I wouldn't exactly call it huge. I don't think you could compare even a daily full page NY times ad to even one national television commercial. More importantly, Apple has itunes/quicktime. When safari is installed by default with itunes (and based on Apple's past history it will be) every teen in the US is going to install Safari on their compute
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I'd guess it is unlikely unless they want to greatly annoy lots of existing iTunes users. Sure, it's theoretically possible that they might be able to use incompatibility stuff to encourage people to switch, but it's more likely that they'd get people to switch away from iTunes.
If the percentage of web connections from Safari builds up to the 5-10% level, then start looking for subtle incompatibilities. Until then, Apple's bes
Oh come on (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see you do something a million people are in (Score:2)
Who knows if Safai will stick with many people, but Apple did a good job of getting the word out it is there.
Re:Oh come on (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps Apple will make Safari an optional download when people download quicktime or iTunes. If so, they will likely get a lot of IE converts.
While a couple years ago I would have said that they would not get a lot of Firefox users. But since Firefox is now mainstream, they will likely get a lot of converts from people that think the Firefox icon is for the internet and have no idea what an application really is.
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The only reason anyone is taking Safari seriously is because Apple is behind it. If this were just another open source project, people would have just laughed at it and forgot about it.
Even though Apple is behind it, I don't think it's a serious contender. It lacks the majority of the features which cau
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That's a pretty big "if" (Score:2)
(And I'm not flaming anyone or anything here, just pointing out the fact that 1m of anything only equates to 1m of exactly that, and nothing else)
I believe it (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm really glad that apple released this, and I hope it does well at establishing a good sized customer base. Competition is _always_ good, even if it draws market share from firefox.
No competition for IE (Score:2, Insightful)
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My prediction is that when Safari is available on windows (right now it is just an unstable beta) it will be as simple as not unchecking the box when installing ITunes. Every house with a teenager will have Safari installed.
Canabalizing FF? (Score:3, Insightful)
I highly doubt these 1million were users that have never used a third party browser.
Unfortunately... (Score:4, Insightful)
The majority of people I know that use Firefox do so because I either told them to download it, or I downloaded and installed it for them. They will use whatever program gives them internet access that has a convenient shortcut on their desktop or quick launch menu, and as long as webpages and stuff appear when they click on things then that's what they will use until they replace their computer.
Dan East
Flawed assumption (Score:4, Insightful)
That is, supposing it gets the 10% market share from IE, and not from Firefox, for example.
For how long...? (Score:3, Interesting)
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I'm assuming you're referring to using it on the Mac. The article title is about "Safari for Windows" so I'd assume the OP is referring to using it under Windows, and not on the Mac.
That being said, I've yet to use Safari for Windows for more than, say, five minutes in one stretch. Firefox works better under Windows than Safari. Yes, Safari is faster, but it doesn't fit in with Windows quite right.
Mac users frequently complain about direct-to-Mac ports of Windows software, and how they don't fit in and
I downloaded it... (Score:2)
Why? 1) I was curious, and 2) I thought that maybe I could use it for those very rare pages I visit that don't work well with Firefox, rather than use IE. Although, I have to have a very good reason to visit pages that don't work with Firefox -- usually I just boycott that site, probably forever...
Honestly, I probably would use Safari more, because it is faster, were it not for one simple fact:
No Flashblock. No Adblock. No Use.
Just that simple. You wi
Safari & XP64 not in love ? (Score:3, Informative)
See by yourself: Screen shot [cabuzel.net]
Safari : not just for iPhone? (Score:2, Informative)
I hate to admit it, but john Dvorak had an interesting theory[1]. Google pays the mozilla foundation $50 million/year or so for redirecting searches their way. I believe Google also had a deal with Opera (the latest version of Opera seems to default to yahoo, though). Is google paying Apple for Safari searches? If so, a windows port could bring in $10 million/year easily, enough to pay for the port and subsidize continued development.
1M downloads != 1M users (Score:5, Insightful)
No story here.
Apples extra spice ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Think about it. People with technical insight choose FF/Opera over IE because it offers them features that IE doesn't have. People without technical insight just don't care about these features - they don't use plug-ins, skins, or strange shortcut keys.
If I were to convince "regular non-technical users" like my mother, aunt, neighbour, etc. to switch to a non-IE browser, I would need something that appealed to them. Fancy plug-ins ad strange/smart hotkeys is not what they are looking for - they want a sleek, graphically appealing and (for them) intuitive user experience.
Apple is in the business of delivering that EXACT experience! Not too many fancy settings and details, just the sleek and appealing interface that common people understand.
If Apple play their cards right, they could be a serious challenge.
Personally I'll stick with FF (on all 3 platforms I use) but I can certainly understand why the less technical "common users" would fall for the "Apple experience". They are really good at adding that extra GUI spice
Windows version crashes (Score:2)
Their site says the fastest browser but i really doubt that.
Downloads aren't users (Score:5, Insightful)
I do love how Safari for windows uses the nicer Cocoa font rendering. Really makes Windows' native font rendering look blocky and horrible. Does anyone know how to tweak freetype on linux to render the fonts closer to OS X? I already have hinting turned off and that helps, but the contrast of the fonts still isn't right (OS X fonts render a bit heavier, which I like on the screen).
I also personally don't mind the cocoa widgets either. Cocoa looks nice and is highly functional. That's all I care about. Although it definitely would look very out of place on Vista. But on XP, I think it's fine.
and in other news, 999,990 of those... (Score:2)
Oh great... (Score:2)
Sigh...
And Uninstalled 1 million times (Score:5, Funny)
Safari v. Firefox downloads comparison? (Score:2)
That may say something about how the general public feels about open source offerings v. closed source offerings outside of Microsoft. Note: I am not making any comparisons about the quality of Firefox v. Safari (I use both, I like both), so don't blast me off Slashdot...
I am just wondering what it says, if anything, about the general public's perspective.
Buggy As Hell...Sorry (Score:3, Insightful)
Half a million downloaded it... (Score:5, Funny)
Safari for Windows Downloaded Over 1 Million Time (Score:2)
10 Million more Windows crashes reported.
Of course, the question is: Who gets the blame over this. Microsoft, or Fake Steve Jobs?
Why Switch? (Score:2)
And neither runs ActiveX, meaning IE won't go away any time soon.
Safari's fonts, color space support (Score:3, Informative)
The color space stuff is a big deal to photographers, and it's very annoying that no other browser seems to respect the ICC color profile in images. I've seen a lot of discussion about Firefox versus Safari on the Mac and why Firefox seems to "wash out" images. It's rea
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In other words, publishing production standards instead of PC production standards.
This will be especially important when we have 300 dpi displays, because at that point, all of the "screen" based media becomes obsolete and the screen becomes just another print medium. We will show things in inches/cm and the computer will use as many pixels as it can. That is the whole idea behind the PD
My experience with Safari (Score:2, Informative)
Why? Safari is just an SDK! (Score:3, Interesting)
Either its a browser or its an SDK. It doesn't change its role based on whether the news is good or bad.
People will download anything (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm always amazed at what people will download. I used to have a plug-in for Softimage|3D, the high-end animation system, on my web site. To download it, you even had to fill out a form. Yet thousands of people downloaded it, more than could possibly use it for anything. Even after I added large type warnings that you must have Softimage|3D to use this thing, there were still people downloading it. Even after Softimage|3D was discontinued.
How Apple cheated on benchmarks (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/safaribenchmarks.htm
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Yes we know.... (Score:2)
Enjoy your burry text... (Score:2)
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And therefore... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now this is just my opinion, and let's face it - it's all totally subjective anyway - but there's no way I'd be happy with that sort of text output.
Simon.
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My uncle is a transvestite you insensitive clod!
Not true (Score:3, Informative)
What the hell are you tlkaing about?