Today there are four runners for web-pages reengineering: Trident (Internet Explorer), Gecko (Firefox), Presto (Opera), WebKit/KHTML (Safari/Konqueror). And for the moment there is only one operation system family that supports all of four systems ??“ Windows. It was possible to indicate Mac OS as such system 5 years ago but wasn??™t after Apple Safari browser release and giving up Internet Explorer. The latest one was the Apple thing #1 till 2002, and then the Microsoft decided that IE should not be supported for Mac in future.
Apple made a rather daring step. 11 of June was released the public BETA Safari 3.0 version for Mac OS X and Windows. It became the second part of one of the most well-known Apple applications. The first was iTunes 4.1 player that was produced in 2001. Apple indicates the fast operation of the browser either that time or now as the main merit of the browser (especially for Windows- versions).
Directly after it release we downloaded the first available build 522.11.3 for Windows and tested it rapidity. To tell the truth Safari worked very fast that is not always a feature of the port programs. But we (and all users who run the Safari for windows) identify the bug that Safari does not display all fonts.
Safari Beta version for Windows
This bug was fixed in the next version 3.0.1 (build 522.12.2). And there were some more versions for Windows. For Mac OS X final Safari 3.0 was submitted with Mac OS X 10.5. It took more time to verify Windows versions. But never the less the latest release hasn??™t been waited as MS Vista. 2008/03/18 new and final Safari 3.1 was released for Windows and Mac OS X.
This article is our duty for the promising in news to demo Safari for Windows after it release. But before let see steps of it development in short way.
The History
Till 1997 Apple computers were furnished with the Netscape Navigator browser as the main. It was an active fight between Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. So The Microsoft uses the competitor??™s system without any discomfort, supporting its resource for Internet browsing in two versions: for Windows and for Mac OS.
In 1997 Apple and Microsoft have signed a 5 years agreement that IE became a default browser For Mac OS. The first part of Mac OS X was furnished with this browser. When the time-frame of the agreement was over at one Apple meeting Steav Jobs announced about Apple own browser development and perform the demo of the first beta version. It happened in the 7th of January 2003. The final release was in 23d of June 2003. This version was included in Mac OS X 10.3 that began to go off from the 24th of October 2003. So far Apple didn??™t delete Internet from the system and offered it as alternative.
Safari 2.0 was appeared with MacOS X 10.4 in the 29thof April 2005. New version included new recourses such as: on-board RSS-reader, the function of Private Browsing, maximized in 1.8 times the rate of operation and others. In addition new browser was able to be tested on the compatibility with ACID 2. Concerning Safar 3.0 its history is in the introduction.
Completed as the basis
The time, when all soft was created with very beginning is passed. Such a thing was Mac OS system. But the 10th version of the Mac OS Apple was decided to create not as all others. The resume is the basis was BSD Unix core that was redesigned by the company developers. And Last year Mac OS C 10.5 was named as UNIX version.
The same story was happened with Safari. Its web-pages rendering runner is based on KHTML, which was created by the KDE developers. The Kounqueror browser uses the same runner. Of course Apple didn??™t copy the KHTML completely. It includes some redevelopment and renamed it in WebKit.
WebKit initial code is not available for public as any commercial software code. But never the less, KHTML is distributed with GUN license (General Public License). This license assumes that any modifying in code is available for anybody. So it was not surprise that Apple had some disagreements with openSource and KHTML developers.
The history was overed in 25th of June 2005, when Apple made KHTML and WebKit code available. Never the less Safari code fragments (that concerned to the web-pages runner) was not available. Apple has a right for it.
Need to notice that the WebKit quality is very high. So high that the part of it migrated to the KHTML and successfully used in Konqueror browser.
