MacShrine

Apple today seeded Safari 310A18 for Windows. The build weighs in at 15.5 MB. The current time-scale means the final version should be released by the time Leopard comes out later this month. Some major known bugs include:

• Crash in preferences clicking Edit buttons
• Can’t drag buttons already in toolbar in customization mode
• Bonjour appears enabled but doesn’t work after upgrading
• MS Silverlight 1.0 beta plug-in is not supported
• Safari Win on Tablet PC: Virtual Keyboard marker does not appear
• Crash occurs while printing in Safari (Korean)
• Safari can’t find the right glyphs on some Yahoo site
• Yahoo.com main page rollovers render incorrectly (14920)
• Some characters display as SimpChinese characters in TA
• Web page area of window doesn’t redraw if page isn’t loaded
• Spelling window is too small to fit buttons on Chinese OS
• Print Preview icons drawn offscreen
• Control buttons missing in print preview window

You know how we feel about these boring little updates, bla bla. They fix some stuff that’s all we need to know really. They’re both available via Software Update or online at Apple. Oh, this applies to Windows users as well (nearly forget about WinSafari there!).

The license agreement for Safari 3 forces you to give consent to Apple to collect “technical and related” data from your computer. It doesn’t say exactly what this data is or for how long it is kept however. This is pretty standard for a beta.

“You agree that Apple and its subsidiaries may collect and use technical and related information, including but not limited to technical information about your computer, system and application software, and peripherals, that is gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, product support and other services to you (if any) related to the Apple Software, and to verify compliance with the terms of this License. Apple may use this information, as long as it is in a form that does not personally identify you, to improve our products or to provide services or technologies to you.”

Apple today announced that in just 48 hours Safari for Windows has been downloaded over 1 million downloads. That’s pretty impressive. How many of those are actually new Safari users and not just Mac users on a PC?

After security concerns about Apple’s new Safari Beta for Windows arose earlier this week, Apple has issued an update to Safari for Windows. According to Macworld, the update addresses a number of security issues:

The security improvements in Safari Beta 3.0.1 include correction for a “command injection vulnerability,” corrected with additional processing and validation of URLs that could otherwise lead to an unexpected termination of the browser; an out-of-bounds memory read issue; and a race condition that can allow cross-site scripting using a JavaScript exploit.

The new version is available through Apple’s software update or downloaded from Apple’s site. The Macintosh version of Safari 3 is not vulnerable to these issues.

Citing Safari’s increasing market share (currently 4.9%, according to Apple) and Apple’s desire to see increased adoption of its innovative browser platform, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that Apple has ported Safari to Windows (XP and Vista).

Experience the web, Apple style, with Safari: the fastest, easiest-to-use web browser in the world. With its simple, elegant interface, Safari gets out of your way and lets you enjoy the web - up to 2 times faster than Internet Explorer.

The Safari 3 Public Beta is available for download for both Mac and Windows.

New browser numbers from Market Share have come out for November 2006, and they show good things for Safari. Safari use grew 2.5% between October and November of this year (from 3.93% to 4.03%), and shows an almost 45% increase over the Safari numbers from November of 2005. Back then, Safari use was at 2.78% of the overall browser market. Go Safari! The market share can only increase when the amazing Safari 3 launches next year alongside Leopard. The growth also shows that the Mac market share is growing too since Safari is the default browser on Macs.