What do Opera users think of Safari for Windows?
Published June 13th, 2007 12:29 PM EDT By Daniel GoldmanOver 100 comments were made to my previous post on Safari’s entrance to the Windows market. Many more have blogged about their impressions of the browser and in particular on Apple’s distorted marketing of Safari as ‘the world’s best browser’, despite its instability and the discovery of security holes.
First let’s start with the favorable impressions. David Storey, Opera’s Chief Web Opener, welcomes Safari to Windows, and says ‘it’s a great day for Opera’. From a Web standards point of view, David points out, Safari on Windows would help reinforce to developers that standards matter.
“Of the reasons why it is so good for Opera is web standards. Many web developers don’t test in Safari as it was only available on Mac. With another standards aware browser available on Windows it reinforces to developers that standards matter. Especially to the crowd that just test on IE and Firefox, and assume that Firefox equals web standards. This leads to many issues where developers use Mozilla extensions to the DOM or Mozilla bugs without realizing it. In many cases, sites that break in Safari break in Opera and the other way around. I know there has been work I’ve done that has benefited Safari, and I’m sure that developers that find issues in Safari will also help Opera (providing they don’t use browser sniffing to just give Safari the fix).”
I’ve been talking to some of my Opera colleagues about their impressions of our newest competitor, in particular about the way they portrayed Opera in a not so flattering way. Apple used iBench, an outdated benchmarking tool, to show Safari being faster than the other browsers, in addition Apple (may have) optimized for iBench. Should you test in another benchmark frameworks, you’ll probably get a different result.
One prominent member of the Opera Desktop Team pointed out to me that in addition to measuring the actual speed of the browser, there are other factors that would make a browser ‘fast to use’. For example, mouse gestures, double-click to open a new tab, keyboard shortcuts, etc. are things that make Opera fast for many.
eWeek wasn’t very impressed with Safari on Windows. In its review it found Safari on Windows to be on par with Internet Explorer, but a good distance behind Opera and Firefox. Read their review.
APC Magazine also had a nice review of Safari, focusing on their independent benchmarks.
Dantesoft writes ‘Slashdot is having a field day’.
Many readers in the comments mentioned the crashes with Safari, though I’m sure it will be worked out soon with another beta. The blurriness of text is another point many have been making.
If you haven’t yet read the comments, take a look at it.
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//off-topic
i am sorry, but isn’t Hakon Wium Lie Opera’s CTO ?
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My only major gripe is that the text rendering is different. It seems blurry and bolder. Makes site development a little more annoying now that I have to mess with text properties more.
If not for the text issues, incompatibility with some AJAX web apps, and the lack of sessions/browser restore , then I’d make the switch.
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Khaled Khalil, oops… thanks for pointing that out. Sorry Hakon.
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Agree with the general gist of this post, in that as a Windows user who does a bit of web development it’s good to have the option of testing sites for Safari compatibility. (As an aside, does the release of WinSafari mean what you see on Windows is what you see on Mac, or WYSOWIWYSOM for short?)
However, the brief test I’ve done of browsing with Safari hasn’t shown me anything that would make me want to switch from Opera. I flirt with other browsers now and again, but keep coming back to Opera, despite some of the issues with AJAX sites and Google’s tools. Added to which, the Mac-like look of Safari just feels… wrong, somehow. I’ve always cast one green eye towards the Mac platform as better looking than boring old Windows, but for whatever reason I didn’t like the way Safari rendered pages.
Added to which, Safari crashed after about 20 minutes of use. I’ll admit that I was looking at a horribly bloated Myspace page full of rubbish, but Opera managed to view it without any complaints.
To summarise - nice to have Safari as an option, but I can’t imagine I’d ever use it apart from to test webpages.
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iBench is a test which logs a starttime, then races through 30 archaic table-based pages from 2001 as fast a possible using setTimeout and document.location. A portion of that test is actually specific to UI - Safari does not update its UI much, whereas Opera has rich feedback in the form of fast-forward, favicons, data loading information. When loading pages in such an artificial manner (users do not jump serially from page to page every 10 milliseconds!) this causes more UI burdern which skews Opera’s results.
Having extracted the iBench HTML load test locally, I can significantly improve opera’s performance by tweaking the UI and opera:config to overcome the limitations of the benchmark
That is not to detract from Safari - the more browsers with strong commitments to standards the better. And windows-based web developers being able to test websites for their Mac clients will make the web more accesible for all. And I think Webkit is a fantastic rendering engine, it *is* blazingly fast — shame they used a flawed benchmark to show it off…
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Thanks for being one of the few people in all this to actually look at the human/UI aspects of browsing as opposed to numbers and benchmarks. Well said.
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Safari is a bad news for Opera desktop unless Opera’s team changes their way to make business, improving their marketing instead of justifying what they have done wrong, as do not hear end users from the interface design to promotional efforts.
Here are a few considerations:
1. Here, operawatch.com, there are a lot of complains about the Apple’s benchmark, but I have not seen a single official comment from Opera about it.
2. I do not see how Safari for Windows is good for standards, considering that most of the Opera’s “unusable” Web sites were made with Apple’s platform, I may say that those will be now fully compatibles with KHTML, not standards.
3. Apple’s strength is marketing and for most of their users it is like a church, with such big picture in their Web site, the message to the followers is “Stop using Opera, it is ****”.
They are going to do with iPhone and Safari something that Opera could years ago, I wonder if the time is right to react or not, in the case that there could be the intention to get market share bigger than 1%.
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Safari? Suppor for:
text-shadow
text-stroke
multiple backgrounds
rounded borders
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@Roberto
Could you give an example of something “fully compatible” with KHTML, that is not a standard? And, presumably, something no other browser would support…because I can’t think of anything.
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I agree with Roberto. Opera has been very quiet about this whole thing officially. Maybe von Tetchner has better things to do, but some of the people at the Desktop team should officially comment on this.
Somewhat “nerdy” comments like “well, come back in half a year when Opera 9.5 is ready for teasting and we will show you…” just wont do it.
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I know that Opera Software ASA and Opera fans all over will turn this around to say it is a ‘good day for Opera’, but the truth is that Opera is now in trouble.
With Safari on the desktop, there is another free alternative to IE, coupled with the fact that Safari will be available on the iPhone and users will see a lot of sync-ing between the browser and the cell that they will forget about small screen rendering technology and speed dialing and give that up for the latest and greatest Apple software.
Opera seems to be doomed…
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@EC:
Safari will not appeal to the kind of users Opera currently has, in my opinion.
On Mac, Safari browser appeals to those who ‘just want to browse’, who like the Mac way and want something that is really sinmple and Maccish.
We don’t have something like that on Windows, even IE is more complex than Safari. IE works good enough for the ‘just want to browse’ people.
People wanting it ’simple and really maccish’ tend not to use Windows that much
And people wanting it ’simple and windowish’ will hate Safari because it is anything but windowish. For them, a default Firefox without extensions is better. Safari might get an installed base quickly enough, by bundling with QuickTime and iTunes, but whether people will use it much is something that remains to be seen.
Opera has a different appeal, luring users with smart features, and customizability, and integration of different internet apps.
So I think will Safari get some traction on Windows, but only by taking over some marketshare of IE and especially FF-without-extensions users. The more adventurous Firefox users and Opera users will not be very interested. This might be good enough for Safari, I don’t think they were aiming to become the number 1 browser on Windows.
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The more I play with Safari on Windows (having used it on the Mac for ~3 years), and the more comments I read about it, the more I’m convinced that Apple’s goal isn’t about desktop marketshare. It’s primarily about the iPhone.
It uses the MacOS font rendering system instead of the native one. It uses Mac OS style widgets for forms. I haven’t done a screenshot comparison, but I’d hazard to guess that yes, Safari on Windows will look identical to Safari on Mac — and therefore identical to Safari on the iPhone (other than screen size).
In essence, Safari for Windows is the “missing” developer kit for the iPhone.
And EC makes a good point about PC-to-iPhone syncing. Apple has lots of experience syncing up computers with handheld devices.
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Translated: “Safari is bad news for Opera unless Opera does what I want them to do.
Opera is only in trouble if Safari takes over the entire browser market, and that is simply not going to happen. Safari is a very basic browser on Mac and Windows, and you can only get it for iPhone, which is just one player in a huge market with several mobile manufacturers.
It only seems that way if you ignore reality and assume that Apple has a monopoly on both PC and mobile phones.
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Comment on what, and why?
“Yes Safari is great, better than Opera”?
“Yes, Safari is trash. Really bad”?
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@Rijk
Opera has a different user base than Safari caters to, true. As well as the users that IE now has. And FF.
But, Opera is trying to get it on the market share, not fall more and more behind. For the non-techie, non-Opera users who might have switched to Opera for the sake of it, just because they were fed up with IE, they now have another option - a more stable option, one that is the IE of then Mac, and has a name for itself which Opera is still trying to build up on their end.
So, not only is FF a show stopper for the community Opera so desperately seeks, Safari has joined in on the fun.
Besides, I don’t think too many FF users will leave for Safari, mainly just IE users - FF’s extensions are something nobody else has or can even compare to!
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I fired up Parallels to try out Safari for Windows just because it seemed like an interesting thing to do. I’ll be honest, I rarely use Safari on my Mac. I was an Opera user prior to switching from Windos so I’m an Opera user on OS X. I also like that fact that I can run Opera on my Ubuntu machine and it all just works.
Safari is targeted at a very specific set of users. However, the potential for iTunes/iPhone integration is great. I know Opera is working on cross-device bookmarking but Apple may be the first to it. Identical bookmarks on Safari for Mac, Safari for Windows, and Safari for iPhone is a cool proposition. Imagine reading an RSS feed on your iPhone and then back on your PC, Safari knows what you’ve read. The possibitlies are great…
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I get a Deja vu feeling here… Everyone is criticizing Safari, and dismissing is as just another simple browser. Well, wasnt that the case with Firefox a few years ago? Firefox took the world with storm, even though one could argue that the browser is inferior to Opera.
The main point here is marketing. Apple are just geniuses at marketing campains. Opera suck at it… This is why i think a lot of people will actually start using Safari - after all thay have got an Ipod and are planing to get a Iphone - but are not Mac users (thats a bit to extreme for most people…). Most of the converts will be using IE in the first place, but some will probably use Firefox and Opera. Not all Opera and Firefox users are hardcore fans after all. To me, I can’t see anything good about another competitor on the scene.
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even faster
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Well, too bad, but Opera will probably consistently stay ahead of Safari…http://thenewsroom.com/details/396038?c_id=wom-bc-js
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@Fyrd
Sadly I can not give right now a single Web site to you, but I think you, as Apple’s user, may simply remember a few examples of AJAX and Flash ones working happily with Safari and unusable in Opera. HTML and CSS are not big deal within Web 2.0
@Trickster
You are right, I want them to hear their loyal users, at least those in this Web site. I invite you to do it and at the end, please let me know what do you think about that most browsers have gained market share percent and Opera stays with 1% as a geek niche product.
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I browsed for about half an hour on Safari the other day. I gave up after that because I kept trying to do mouse gestures, and lost of keyboard shortcuts that I take for granted when I’m using Opera.
Safari seems to be extremely lacking in features, and I feed disabled when I use it.
I feel the same way, to some extent with Firefox, but I can make Firefox behave sort of like Opera with extensions.
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Roberto, you are making too many assumptions about what, when, how, etc. Opera is listening. Just because you can’t dictate which features go into Opera doesn’t mean that Opera doesn’t take user feedback into account. In fact, history should show that Opera does indeed take feedback into account.
If you are saying that Opera has 1 per cent of the market because it doesn’t listen to its users, then you have simply not paid attention to Opera’s history.
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EC, are you desperately trying to convince yourself that people will switch from Opera to Safari, but not from Firefox to Safari?
It seems to me that the kind of people who would appreciate Safari — normal users who just want a basic browser — are more numerous among Firefox users, so Firefox has a LOT more to lose than Opera. Sad, but true. You can keep telling yourself that this will affect Opera but not Firefox, but deluding yourself is rarely a good thing to do.
Firefox might have extensions, but Opera has the speed and integrated functionality that neither Firefox nor Safari can emulate. Safari might be faster than Firefox, but it doesn’t have a lot of functionality and no extensions. Opera is the best of both worlds, speed and integrated, streamlined functionality in one package.
So yes, Firefox has more to lose because it is precisely the fact that it’s just a basic browser by default which is a huge contributing factor to its growth. Now you get another browser which is much faster, and which is just as simple and easy to use, so if anyone is going to lose users it’s Firefox losing its “normal” users to Safari because Safari kicks Firefox in the butt when it comes to speed.
And Firefox is not a showstopper for Opera. Since Firefox was introduced, Opera’s user base (and market share, according to Net Applications) has actually grown. Opera’s revenues from the PC version grew by more than 140 per cent in the first quarter of 2007. How’s that for “showstopper”?
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@Cap
No assumptions, I invite you as well to read the historic comments with their reaction from Opera, sorting those from the press, advanced and novice users. As example: How long and why the program help has been so difficult to use? How many clicks do you need to reach the information compared with other browsers?
Opera desktop has great technology, it is the best, but every body in the industry knows it need serious improvements in marketing to deal with American products.
I may suggest read or ask people in the SW business before argue things that are not my ideas, just because I am not a fanboy does not mean that I do not want Opera desktop to succeed.
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@Roberto
Sorry to have to tell you this, but people generally don’t read help files!
You also seem to be confused about what your message is. First Opera is not listening to its users because it doesn’t allow you to dictate everything. Then their marketing sucks because they aren’t allowing you to dictate how they should do marketing.
Stop predicting doom and gloom just because Opera does it their way rather than your way. Opera has been doing browsers for more than ten years. How many browsers have you made with millions of users all over the world?
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I promote competition. It makes all products strive to be better. But I discourage slander. And I think that is the biggest thing that has determined the outcome of this new Safari release and why people are frowning down on it.
Yes, we know WinSafari’s beta, but it shouldn’t be taken for anything else. And that was Apple’s mistake, and now it has rashly awakened the protective mother bear. Had Apple not tried to compare its speed and security to other browsers or push it out into the mass market (it’s beta, not a final release, you don’t want the whole world switching), WinSafari would have received better PR. And I think they’ve lessened their future likelihood of developing a product that people will want to try and use because of the negative PR.
This is a great day for Opera for increased awareness of alternative browsing and opening the web, but not such a great day for Apple’s WinSafari team.
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I’ve tryed Safari on my P3 600Mhz..
The result: Too slow to start, too slow to open sites… Opera still being Fastest Browser on Earth.