Speed: Safari 5 vs Chrome
Google's popular browser, Chrome, is spreading like wildfire among desktop computers everywhere. It's currently the fastest performing browser in almost every aspect of performance. Safari has never exactly been a slouch, and has always been a top performer but this time Safari 5 is looking to take the title of fastest browser. See how they compare below.
As you can see, Safari 5 and Chrome are very close competitors. Chrome seems to be ever so slightly faster on PC, while Safari 5 has a small edge over Chrome when installed on a Mac computer. For the most part, it's visually impossible to tell the difference in speeds between the two browsers. It seems that Apple has created a successful browser to compete with Google. On another note, Firefox is significantly slower than both Chrome and Safari. Internet Explorer performs so horridly that it doesn't even deserve a spot on the second comparison chart. Microsoft is really getting lazy with their software lately.
Safari Reader: What is it?
The Safari Reader is new with Safari 5, and it's a pretty important addition. It's a very useful feature that not only makes reading from a computer screen more appealing, but also less stressful to your eyes.
When you are browsing the web, any text that Safari identifies as an article/story is marked with a button. When clicked, a boxed window appears over the current page that is being viewed, and that page is darkened for easier reading and less distractions. All text, photos, videos etc are placed into the scroll box for an overall more pleasant reading experience. There is the option to zoom in or out, print the page or email it to somebody else. Another cool feature in Safari reader is that you don't need to go to the next page in multi-page articles, the entire article is entered into the overlay display.
One of the most controversial and problematic things about the Safari Reader is the fact that no ads are shown when the article is viewed using the tool. This may be a positive thing for you, but it also means that many websites and writers of these articles will not get ad clicks from their posts, and therefore will not make any money from it. It's important that these writers are rewarded for the hard work and countless hours they put into their writing. Hopefully there will be something done about this to be fair to these people, such as the possible inclusion of ads on a sidebar or as links in the Safari Reader display.
Extensions
Apple added support for extensions in Safari 5. Extensions are much like the add-ons found in Mozilla Firefox that attracted so many users to the browser in the first place. Just as in Firefox, you simply download and install the extensions of your choice. If you don't like them, just uninstall and remove them. There aren't many extensions currently available, but there are many developers creating extensions as we speak, so expect to see the library increase day by day as they are released by Apple.
HTML 5 Support
Just as all other browsers will include HTML 5 support, so will Safari 5. There's not much to say about it that we don't already know; embedded videos, geolocation, application cache..it will all be implemented in Safari 5 too.
Conclusion
All in all, Safari 5 seems to have become both a great competitor with Chrome and Firefox, if it wasn't already before. The increased speed makes put Safari right on Chrome's heels and puts the pressure on Google, while the newly added extensions make it a possible alternative for Firefox users. HTML 5 is still new, so its performance in Safari 5 can't be tested on a worldwide scale as of now. If you're a current Safari 4 user, you should definitely upgrade to Safari 5. If you've never given Safari 5 a try but are looking for a fast yet flexible and versatile browser, you should take it for a test run. The browser is available as a free download from Apple's website here.
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