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Apple CyberDog 3.0 AKA Safari
Apple Computer (It is a fruit company) just announced that they have developed their own web browser at the Mac World Expo called Safari and released a late public beta of it. Now one would expect that Apple would follow AOL and Netscape's lead and base their custom browser on Mozilla with the incredible powerful and standard compliant Gecko HTML rendering engine. But instead they said good bye to logic and decided to make their own browser based on the Konqueror web browser rendering engine or KHTML and then to make things worse they went ahead and changed a hell of a lot of how it renders HTML code thus destroying all abilities to test a page for it on any other OS than Mac OS X Jaguar.
That is just great... Just when you thought non standard compliant web browsers were a thing of the past Apple releases yet another web browser for developers to test and design for. Lets see what the Web Standards Action Project has to say about the compliance of W3C standards in KDE Konqueror.
Konqueror is a full-featured, modern graphical browser for Unix/Linux, with strong support for web standards including HTML 4, CSS1, ECMAScript, and the DOM Level 1, and partial support for XML and CSS2. The current version is not at the same level of compliance, however, as Mozilla, Netscape 6+, MSIE, and Opera, and some sites may display incorrectly in Konqueror as a result.
Now I only have a Mac that can run OS9 so I can't actually run Jaguar and Safari but I am just going to have to take Apple word about Safari rendering accuracy because there is no way that I can test for it besides just testing in Konqueror. If you sniff the browser of a client who is using Safari you get.
"Netscape 5.0 Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/48 (like Gecko) Safari/48"
But the Safari browser is NOT BASED on Gecko and does NOT render HTML and XHTML the same as Mozilla/Netscape. That is one of the Good things about Gecko is that Mozilla/Netscape7/6/AOLMacosX and what ever uses it on what ever platform it pretty much renders HTML exactly the same.
Mark Pilgrim has a good breakdown of this new web browser for fellow web designers.
Am I the only one that is reminded of Apple's (late and not so great) CyberDog Web Browser? Now I am just being sarcastic. Safari is not technically related to CyberDog but it does inherit Apple's some what questionable sensibilities and embodiment of NOT INVENTED HERE! phobias by picking not 100% compliant Konqueror over Mozilla that has Netscape/AOL roots.
Oh and you need to have a new mac with the latest software to test your web pages in this new browser. So when did Apple move to Redmond WA?
I just hope that Apple brings Safari up closer to 100% W3C standard compliance before they have it become the default browser on Mac OS X
Jake at January 7, 2003 
WebDev
Comments
Actually, I'm using Safari right now, having just got home from MacWorld and being all pumped and shit. It's not half bad, and has some interesting new features, but this beta build Apple has for download is kinda slow. It's no Cyberdog, though, thank God. Jesus, that thing was fucking horrible.
Posted by: Evilninja at January 7, 2003 11:22 PM
That's why I only code things that will work on IE6 ... not Netscape, not Opera, not Mozilla, not even previous versions of IE. I will force the world to comply with ME ... MWAAHAHAHA!!
Posted by: tj at January 8, 2003 8:07 AM
WOW that TJ is one sick puppy! **shudder**
Posted by: pete at January 8, 2003 9:19 AM
But seriously i dont understand why thier doing this. There is NO reason for it. What is the point to this?
Posted by: pete at January 8, 2003 9:20 AM
Well Safari is really fast and renders most pages just fine. I think Apple didn't want to rely on Microsoft or AOL/Netscape for a web browser.
What I am wondering is why they named it Safari?
Why not iBrowser or iWeb
Posted by: Jake at January 8, 2003 10:19 AM
No Jake! No mor lowercase "i" please. LOWERCASE "i" must be DESTROYED!!!! MUUHAHAHA!
Posted by: pete at January 8, 2003 1:16 PM
I would suggest that before bagging and deriding Safari, that you actually install and use it. Your claims of it being non-standard and proprietary and such are presented without any real evidence of why. Should we just take your word for it when you've never even downloaded it?
You might also be interested to know that the KHTML developers have been provided with Apple's changelog, and the changes are being fed back into the original project. Additionally, the Konqueror developers have indicated that many of these changes were on their TODO list. You may also be interested in a number of communiques betwen Apple and the Konqueror group:
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kfm-devel&m=104197092318639&w=2
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kfm-devel&m=104197104218786&w=2
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kfm-devel&m=104196912316326&w=2
The User Agent has no doubt been adjusted to prevent artificial Safari blocking when developers do not include Safari in their browser detection. If you utilize the free Safari Enhancer tool to display Safari's Debug menu (normally hidden), you can see that Safari automatically chooses the User Agent string from a list of 7.
Posted by: Mac OS X Angel at January 9, 2003 2:43 AM
Reason for Safari? Easy. Eliminate dependence on Microsoft. If Microsoft turns on Apple, now that their contract has ended, and dumps their MacBU, Apple will be ready. Or perhaps you guys would prefer that Apple help to ensure IE's dominance by making sure that it ships pre-installed and configured as the default browser on not just the #1 but also the #2 operating system?
This is also the reason Apple has released Keynote, a PowerPoint-style (and compatible) presentation application. Probably just the beginning of a number of Office-style applications.
Posted by: Mac OS X Angel at January 9, 2003 2:50 AM
Dave Hyatt (who initated the Chimera project and was employed by Apple to work on Safari) explains the "like Gecko" string in the User Agent, as well as providing other Safari insights:
Posted by: Mac OS X Angel at January 9, 2003 3:34 AM
I can't install and use it. I have a 604-based Mac running OS9 that I use for testing and a Mac SE running System 6. The fact that I can't install and run it unless I buy the latest and greatest Mac is a Microsoft like maneuver. They should make a version of Safari that runs on OS9 if they really w ant web designers and developers to take it seriously. I mean I ma going to design for Valid XHTML and CSS2. It ends up my site looks fine in Safari but my friend down in SF had to test it for me.
I know that Safari is still in Beta pre 1.0 and apple seams committed in making a standards compliant browser. In that case I look forward to seeing future versions of Konquer that are up to par with Safari.
But there are going to be a lot of designers and developers who are going to have to buy a new Mac just to test for that browser. And to think Apple only got money from Microsoft when they announced a partner ship.
I am running System6, Mac OS9, Windows2k and RedHat8 how the hell am I supposed to download and try the browser?
Posted by: Jake at January 9, 2003 10:22 AM
I actually use AbiWord and Open Office and the only Microsoft product that I use on a regular basis is my Xbox and Microsoft Keyboard. I am surprised that Apple hasn’t made an official port of Open Office to Mac OSX yet. Who knows now that X11 has been ported to Mac OSX As a Linux user I would have to say that Apple reliance on Microsoft is not significant in 2003. I think they should allow MS to sell Office for OSX but if I were Steve Jobs I would order a port of Open Office and start selling it for 20 bucks.
Posted by: Jake at January 9, 2003 10:23 AM
I am enormously pleased to see Mozilla get kicked to the curb and rejected in such an open, public, and humiliating manner.
Posted by: Gordon at January 9, 2003 3:43 PM
So did Mozilla kick over your garbage cans and pee in your corn flakes Gordon? I mean this is Apple and I love apple but Linux is going to over take them this year as trends continue and Apple will be the 3rd largest OS behind Linux and Windows.
Posted by: Jake at January 9, 2003 3:54 PM
My Ip is 63.198.177.5 and I left a fake email address
Posted by: Bob Saggat at November 1, 2003 6:05 PM
