Apple Announces New "Safari" Browser

In kicking off the Macworld Expo
keynote, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled
a new Macintosh web browser named
Safari. Jobs
said the browser was
"based on standards", "works with any Web site", has much-improved
performance over IE (page-loading speed is "three times faster",
JavaScript performs twice as fast and it launches "40% faster" - comparisons
to Netscape 7.0 shows similar performance gains on the Macintosh platform).
The KDE connection: "[f]or its Web page
rendering engine, Safari draws on software from the Konqueror open source
project. Weighing in at less than one tenth the size of another open
source renderer, Konqueror helps Safari stay lean and responsive.
"
The good news for Konqueror: Apple, which said that it will be
"a good open source citizen [and] share[] its enhancements with
the Konqueror open source community
", has today sent all
changes, along with a detailed changelog
, to the KHTML developers.
Congratulations to the KHTML developers for this recognition of
their outstanding efforts. Update @22:34: Dirk Mueller has
posted
an interesting mail from the Safari engineering manager as well
as his response. Hats off to collaboration!

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Comments

by crichards (not verified)

I used to be a GNOME-head, and didn't realize the power of KDE until I was "forced" to use it after installing SuSE 8 again so I could use Linux while I waited for time to install another distro. I found that KDE was incredibly well designed, but that Konqueror was no Mozilla. When I got a new distro installed, I installed KDE 3.1RC3, and Konqueror became my favorite browser. Its progressed so much, and these Apple enhancements will make KDE even better!

by Raul (not verified)

Congratulations to all the KDE developers. I am really
proud to be a member of KDE community as a KDE user on
Solaris. Time for SUN to switch to KDE!

I am really happy to see Konqui being appreciated and
elevated to the status it deserves.

Raul

by Sam Phillips (not verified)

I'm a longtime Mac user just popping in to say thanks to all you KDE folks who have just given me a present via Apple.

Thanks for your time and effort.

It's amazing to see Open Source software working to enhance two seperate (and previously unconnected) strands of computing. And to the benefit of both.

I hope Apple send you guys a crate of Champagne..

by AC (not verified)

While the naysayers keep claiming that open source isn't ready for "The Desktop", Apple goes ahead and writes a KDE compatibility layer for the Mac... I think that speaks for itself.

by Tim Jansen (not verified)

Usually people say that because there is a) a lack of integrated guis for many things, especially administration, and b) a lack of mature mainstream applications in many areas.
Apple using a component from KDE doesn't change this.

by Mark Bennett (not verified)

I'm another long-time Mac user who just wanted to say thanks to all you open source programmers that have made Safari a reality.

I have always wanted to surf the net with an "Apple" browser but after CyberDog I never thought it could happen. I always had this pipe dream that Apple could build a great browser, I even thought it would be neat if it had a way to notify Apple of incompatable sites so they could try to fix the problems.

Now here I sit, typing this using an Apple browser that has a small button which sends bug reports right back to the mothership.

Many thanks to all of you who worked on the KHTML open source project.

I just downloaded safari and checked it out. boy is it fast. it's the fastest browser i've ever seen. Thanks K!!!

even tho' ibm spent $1b on an ad campaign and admitted to already recovering their 'investment' ( by selling over-priced products & services), apple's actual use of a well known O.S. product has given more visibility to KDE and Linux than anything ibm or hp claim to have done.

Be careful, IBM does contributes a lot of work, for example by employing many kernel hackers.

the ones who port the kernel to run under a labotomized version of VM ? how's that helping linux ? its the other way around. they are selling a lot of crap by stamping open source on it while in reality they seed the market with their propreitary h/w and middleware.

You missed those great big tv adverts with Linux on 'em, along
with great production and sometimes, (relatively) well-known
actors and then, I guess.

IBM has also donated many of the servers that take part of the KDE inftrastructure -- the CVS server, the servers running many of the .kde.org sites, the mailing lists, etc.

by Randall Helzerman (not verified)

I downloaded the Webcore package and nosed around in it--is it really what it seems like
it is? Did Apple do a QT-ectomy-runaround? It looks like nothing less than a full-scale
replacement for QT written in objective C......

by not me (not verified)

It is probably more like a compatibility layer: implementing only the bare minimum of things from QT necessary to get KHTML to run, and possibly slightly changing the way KHTML works in some areas to make it easier to write the compatibility layer instead of maintaining full QT compatibility. Kurt Skauen did exactly the same thing when he used KHTML as a base for a browser for Atheos.

by JF Paradis (not verified)

I am glad to see KDE emerging as another reference platform!

Written in Safari...

PS: But there is something else about OSS...

I maintain a few OS X desktops in our Creative Services department at work (and two OS X laptops at home). I also support an implementation of LTSP in a primary school. My main job is sysadmin of a large WinNT network where we are piloting Linux and FreeBSD for desktop and server replacements.

OSS has completely changed my work over the recent years and made it a much more interesting environment! Skills are portable from LTSP desktops to OS X to BSD and Linux file server...

Great!

by Jos (not verified)

If Safari becomes more popular, it means websites will have to make sure pages are rendered correctly. So even more websites will become useable for Konqueror!

by Federico Caboni (not verified)

Safari is just sweet...amazingly fast and pretty reliable.
The best thing is that little "Report bugs to Apple" button...
A lot of Apple users will report to apple developers about
not-so-compatible websites... so that they'll be able to fix
issues AND this will affect konqui too.... Both worlds are gaining
users and testers...
Way to go, Apple and KDE :)

(posted w/Safari Public Beta v48 ;) )

by bobbob (not verified)

Any guesses?

by Michael Collette (not verified)

NOOOOO!!!

Some of the really good stuff MUST stay in Unix land. Especially the key applications, like Konqueror.

The Unix desktop acceptance is moving beyond the point of needing to ease the transition from Windows by porting our best stuff over. Compelling reasons, like having the fastest, bestest, coolest browser on the planet are going to be crucial in the coming months.

If you want a better browser, come on in... the water is fine, and FREE! For those still feeling trapped in a Windows world... too bad. That's what companies like Adobe, Macromedia, and Autodesk have been telling us Unix users for the last couple of years. Now is the time to shine without Windows!

by bobbob (not verified)

Windows is mandated at work - I can't develop for Konqueror compliance unless there is a version for Windows

by atp (not verified)

It's easy to code for Konqueror/Safari or compliance with any browser really. Have a look at www.w3c.org and adhere to the standards.

by Kicken (not verified)
by AtR (not verified)

Are they still working on it ??

by Brian (not verified)

That doesn't account for bugs, peculiarities, and general oddities. We all know that the W3C standard is the goal, but no one's there...yet.

by Jason (not verified)

This couldn't be further from the truth. My site is www.w3c.org certified yet doesn't render correctly in Konqueror or Safari.

by Jiffy (not verified)

If you really must run Konqueror on Windows, you can use Cygwin. You could also try VMWare.

by Henwrath (not verified)

I've used a Knoppix boot CD to boot my home computer(Normally boots to Win2K) and test websites with Konqueror. It works like a charm.

For doing anything more than testing you will probably want to learn how to use other apps to edit and deploy changes, I used SSH to access my servers(unix) and edit HTML pages with vi but that's not for people unfamiliar with Unix.

by bender_ubl (not verified)

how does that work?
I work with win 2000 and i´ve a linux - Homeserver that i telecommand with ssh
and i´m interested in fish:// (ftp over ssh ) .
So do you know how to install konqueror under win2k or any other program supporting fish ??
thanks for your help !

bender_ubl

by Athanasii (not verified)

If fish is like ftp over ssh, than I think it is like sftp. FileZilla is a great sftp client for Windows, so is WinSCP. These both support drag-and-drop, but not directory access by applications.

If there was an ssh integration to Windows so that sftp was viewable in an explorer window like ftp currently is, we'd be a lot closer. (Windows XP has Network Places that are shortcuts to ftp sites with stored passwords.) I'd like to know if this is possible!

by Rakhun (not verified)

fish is a protocol to access files through a ssh commandline :)
I'm not exactly sure how it does it, but for example it could do
ls - to get the list of files, to show graphically
cat [filename] - to get the contents of a file

and it does show this data graphically like FTP, it just uses the common commands to retreive data, which means most servers that have SSH access support this

by Doug (not verified)

Ive only one problem with all that.
Im stuck using a Windows system more often that I like, a result I suppose of being a Windows interface programmer. Anyway, Ill put up with the restarts, gives me a regular coffee break, but I still want to be able to use good browsers.

Anyway, thats my 2 cents.

by Metrol (not verified)

Before replying to this I want to disclaimer my next couple of statements with an appreciation from where you're coming from. In short, I'm not trying to turn on the flame thrower here.

>...but I still want to be able to use good browsers.

As inconvenient as it may be for you Doug, users such as yourself "should" be feeling a bit of application envy while remaining on Windows. If that envy doesn't ever build, neither will the demand for a Unix desktop or KDE.

Being that what I really want to see is an industry wide move away from Windows, I want users just like you to be irritated as all hell with the options you have available to you on that platform. The combination of dissatisfaction with Windows and wanting to use the killer apps on Unix is the key to true market presence.

To provide you Konqueror, or any other of the cool apps now running under Unix, is to do nothing but keep you comfortable in your lock in. You may get your app or two, but in the end you lose just the same. Only Microsoft wins.

by mac.zooks (not verified)

Safari for Windows, now that would be a switch! (pun intended)

My iMac is the first personal computer I've ever owned. So I was relieved to see IE was pre-installed, simply because I was forced to be familiar with it at work. At least I had a starting point from which to venture as a newbie.

It seems, however, that what I perceived to be lousy dial-up performance turned out to be lousy IE browser performance. This left me hungering for a really good browser.

Chimera was faster but REALLY buggy. Netscape didn't really enthuse me either, though fewer bugs.

Safari came along at JUST the right time for me.

Theoretically, if Windoze users could get a taste of KDE, just to experience how much faster it works --- albeit--- with the caveat that the BEST PERFORMANCE WILL BE EXPERIENCED ON A UNIX BASED SYSTEM--- they might just be curious to check out "Unix-land".

Bill Gates might be able to copy a KDE browser, but not without giving up his power. So if KDE makes it onto DOS/MS platform in some form or another, Microsoft can't control it, because open source can't be monopolized.

(Of course, if anything I've written is contradictory or doesn't make the least bit of sense, take it with a grain of salt. After all, I've only been a computer owner for 3 mos! LOL )

by Ryan (not verified)

3 months!
The majority of people I know that have used a computer for over 2 years don't know what chimera, kde, unix, or anything like that is. Props!

by mac.zooks (not verified)

Well, I guess that goes to show you that the majority of people who own computers don't have Macs.

Sad, but true, but probably for the better-- for now.

LOL!

by Timothy J. Warren (not verified)

Linux is okay, but nothing beats the Mac for ease of use and Eye-candy interfaces. I just wish Safari was ported to Windows so I would at least one well-written free program on my computer. Not to downplay Firefox or Mozilla, but it is true that they just don't have the eye-candy that ANY Apple software has.(Sincerely wishing I could afford a Mac)

by rkane (not verified)

If your only in it for the eye candy, then just get this and put it on your Windows Computer.

http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/

They even have Mac OSX theme.

If you are really in the mood for eye candy though, you should probably have a linux box, and run a different window manager besides KDE, or Gnome. one that you can fully customize like this:

http://www.fvwm.org/screenshots/desktops/Pierre-Eric_Marchandet-1600x120...

Lataz!!

by Sven (not verified)

You call that: http://www.fvwm.org/screenshots/desktops/Pierre-Eric_Marchandet-1600x120... ...eyecandy ?

How sad is that :P

though the windows blinds has some nice themes, but seems to be a bit unstable or buggy or slow or what so ever is wrong with it....

never mind and lets wait for the "Vista experience" :D

Sven.

by Charlie Paglee (not verified)

Lets see if I can follow Metrol's arguments. Windows is great because it has a lot of apps, but B. Gates is not a nice person and builds annoying things into Windows, soooooo, we should all switch to some extremely complicated OS so that we can have access to a few obscure programs.

Most Windows users will NEVER buy this line of reasoning. And Windows users will always think that Linux / Unix is obscure because they have never used any of the programs that have run on it.

Or another idea.

What about porting good Linux programs on to Windows so that Windows users can actually see how great Linux is. Then they won't be so afraid of Linux, and once they get used to Linux software on windows they will just purchase Linux the next time around. Lets see how many companies are out there trying to follow this frame of reasoning:

Lindows
Lycorice
Xandros
Mandrake (kind of)

All of these people are trying to make Linux more LIKE WINDOWS so that people can use WINDOWS SOFTWARE on Linux. But wait ... Metrol sais that Linux software is better, so why are they doing this. Is it possible that Windows software is better, or maybe its just that Windows users don't know about Linux software so they want Linux to become Lindows.

Metrol you should support porting Linux applications to Windows. It is a far better idea to win Windows users by getting them to enjoy Linux software than to win them by turning Linux into Lindows!!!!

by Metrol (not verified)

> we should all switch to some extremely complicated
> OS so that we can have access to a few obscure
> programs.

If you have such a bitter hatred for Linux on the desktop are you just here to troll?

by Adam Ellis (not verified)

I don't think he is here to troll, he was just stating his oppinion as you were. It sounds to me like you have more of a bitter hatred for Windows than he does of Unix... just open your mind up a little, windows has it's good points. And besides that, he was right; people will never make a move to unix just to run a few different applications that they can't run on windows(especially when there are comparable programs on windows). Views like yours will hold back unix for a long time to come.

by Metrol (not verified)

> It sounds to me like you have more of a bitter
> hatred for Windows than he does of Unix

In reviewing my initial comment I do not believe I stated anything negative about Windows at all. I merely stated that I would like to see the desktop market shift towards Unix. A growing dissatisfaction with what can be done with Windows is a means to that end, not an expression of hatred for anything.

I would like to quote the line that prompted my "troll" follow up to clarify why I stated this.

"...soooooo, we should all switch to some extremely complicated OS so that we can have access to a few obscure programs."

If there was something I said that even approached saying something this insulting about Windows please quote it from my previous comment. I'm sorry, I just don't see it.

> just open your mind up a little, windows has it's good points.

Been using every flavor of Windows since 3.1. Did time as an NT admin, and continue to provide technical support for a wide variety of Windows implementations and applications to this day. My mind is quite open to the pros and cons of Windows.

> Views like yours will hold back unix for a long time to come.

Tell me something then, what is your #1 compelling factor in choosing which operating system you will be using? Security? Stability? How about price?

For me and, probably real safe to say, the vast majority of the marketplace the deal maker is what applications run on it. No, Konqueror by itself is not a compelling reason enough. It's a component in a growing suite of applications that are starting to make KDE a compelling reason to give it a hard look when it comes down to decision time.

Most users, with all applications being equal, will most likely go down the same road with the rest of the market... that market being nearly all owned by Microsoft today. Breaking this trend will require great applications that can only be run under a Unix based OS. Case in point to this argument is how Apache and Samba have changed the server landscape. Yes, Apache will run under Windows, but not nearly as efficiently as under Unix. A compelling reason to utilize Unix!

This is not anti-Windows. This is pro-KDE. If you haven't looked around and noticed just yet, this is a KDE advocacy related site we're posting on here.

by Bhaswar Dasgupta (not verified)

It is all human psychology, developed over the ages by crushing societies, terrible inflations, and of course, opression of the penniless. It is not about 25 years of computing, it is about thousands of years of oppression. PEOPLE EYE WITH SUSPICION THINGS THAT THEY DON'T HAVE TO BUY. Unix / Linux are very good examples of wonderful things that come free of cost (or for a minimal price), but alas, people prefer to pay and BUY things, even if inferior.

My sentiments are strong, say what you may, but I will have my say. I would never NEVER NEVER prefer an Operating System whose operating interface is unreliable, which hangs more often than not for trivial reasons, which provides an inferior security strategy, and Oh Yes! one that is most vulnerable to virus attacks, system corruption and instability, over another that is more programmer-friendly, robust, strong, stable, secure and elegant (that it is cost effective may have been included here, but that hardly counts in comparison to the other properties I mentioned). Linux is my favourite, and I promise, there will be a day when nobody will remember Windows. And by the way, did I mention that Linux systems can mount existing Windows partitions, whereas Windows fails even to detect the disk segment on which Linux is resident.
That's for another point: Compatibility. Hear, Hear!

by Nate Johnson (not verified)

The dirty little secret that UNIX-heads usually don't see or have a hard time admitting, is that Windows does do something well. That there is a real REASON why is it so widely used.

Lindows, et al are not trying to make Unix look like windows, they are trying to make Unix more intuitive to use (like windows is). Microsoft has done a pretty good job of abstracting the user experience from the complexity of the system. They do this to maximize the number of paying customers. This part of what they do is good.

Open source developers too often do not care about making their software easy enough for their grandmother to use. They are most often tech geeks rather than business people and as would be expected, usually develop things that are useful to them and theirs, without too much thought to the huge group of people (majority on the planet) that are scared shitless by computers.

The only thing stopping the open source movement from permanently trumping closed source software, is the one thing that we think is empowering us: the copyleft copyright scheme and all the resulting complicated tangled spaghetti mess of licenses.

Public Domain software is the answer. You allow those companies that want to develop open source into proprietary products to do so, and then down the road their innovations make it back into the open source projects, either by being re-written, or directly, as Apple has now done with FreeBSD and KHTML.

The missing link is a for-profit (proprietary even) company stepping in and really focusing on making computers as simple as possible for as many users as possible (maximizing their sales). This link is missing because the GPL and other copyleft licenses strongly discourage typical commercial development. Most venture capital investors and business leaders are not convinced about open source. They want to keep intellectually property close at hand. To convince them, we have to co-opt them with public domain source, not force them with the GPL.

The more liberal the license, the more use a program gets (BSD code is in Windows, Mac OS, Solaris, etc), the more development (proprietary and not) it gets, and the faster it evolves to be the best it can and have the most value to everybody.

See betterdifferent.com for more arguments against intellectual property. Set your information free!

Nate Johnson
[email protected]
(858)824-9003

ps ignore the "fine print" on this website. All my comments are freely donated into the public domain. Go ahead and improve and reuse them in any manner whatsoever. Live free!

by Jeff Johnson (not verified)

>>Public Domain software is the answer. You allow those companies that want to develop open source into proprietary products to do so, and then down the road their innovations make it back into the open source projects, either by being re-written, or directly, as Apple has now done with FreeBSD.<<
[Removed khtml it is lgpl and not public domain-like]

What's the advantage for the free software developer? Why should the developer allow some company to hijack the software, make it proprietary and sell it without giving the developer a single cent? Why is proprietary software based on (formerly) free software better than proprietary software based on completely proprietary code?

The open software developer would not gain anything, but lose some market share. The interrest of most developers (especially those using the GPL) is that the application is improved and gets better. If somebody wants my work for free, they should also give me their work for free, otherwise I want a different formof compensation (=money).

by Jered Winchester (not verified)

OR should we, instead of porting good *nix software to windoze, port good windows software to *nix systems??????????
HOLY *&^@#$ BATMAN, WHATTA CONCEPT!!!!
So lets all speak to anyone we know in the *nix system area (unix, minix, linux, who cares if its red hat debian bsd) and tell them to devote some of thier time to wine http://winehq.com and CrossOver http://crossover.codeweavers.com type applications???
Put windows on linux I say
and kill windows entirely
look at Lindows and Xandros, both fine implimentations of an attempt to ease the transition.
If you get programmers and developers to make linux based copies of thier software and promote wine and crossover type implementations perhaps we CAN make this world a stable computing enviroment!!!!

by ZuNBiD (not verified)

"If one day...
I reboot my windows system and all i see is software ported from linux...
Next day I'll be booting a linux system !!!"

Ancient Portuguese saying.

by Domenico Pagliarulo (not verified)

Michael Collette you are a f***ing IDIOT!!

This flame is for Michelle and the rest of you lamers you advocate NOT porting good Linux/UNIX software to Windows as well. You are just a bunch of GEEKS who know NOTHING about marketing, which is the principal reason why Linux will take longer than it should to become a standard and dethrone MicroSucks.

Microsoft lovers (I am not one - I use Opera) will NEVER switch to Linux until the applications they are using are available on Linux. If a bunch of MS users started using Konqueror (which gets its name from Navigator --> Explorer --> Konqueror) then they would know that the BEST version of Konqueror is available for Linux. Once they were used to using Konqueror as their default brower they would start considering switching to Linux because they would want to use the latest and greatest version of their favorite software.

The 'Avenue for Transition' you espouse will never happen because 99.9% of the users out there will NEVER KNOW just how good Konqueror IS! The really sad thing is that it wouldn't even be that difficult to do a Konqueror build for Linux as Qt is already available for Windows. That NOBODY has ever taken the initiative to compile it for Windows, ant that lamers like Michelle Collette are AGAINST this just goes to reinforce the TOTAL GEEK nature of Linux development, and the complete inability of this user/developer group to understand the FIRST THING about marketing and the way people adopt new products/technology.

Too bad. Grow UP!!!