Apple released today Safari 3.1 for OS X (via Software Update or download-requiring a Restart) and Windows (via download).

Safari 3.1 now get 75 (out of 100%) on the Acid 3 standards test.  On the other hand the latest nightly Safari WebKit gets a 93. So it looks like by the end of the year Safari will be almost 100% web standard, the first browser to be like that.

Latest build is at 96 in acid3...it may not be the first as Opera is already at 98% and actually has rendered at 100%, although there does appear to be an error on that.  I don’t really care about nightly builds, who will be the first to release an acid3 compatible browser.  I am betting on Safari for that.

If you get the latest nightly build of Webkit safari 3.1 scores 100/100 on Acid 3.

BunsenHoneydew - 27 March 2008 10:24 AM

If you get the latest nightly build of Webkit safari 3.1 scores 100/100 on Acid 3.

How does one go about getting the latest version of Safari? And how safe is it to use?

You get the builds here.  It should be noted though that it installs nothing.  You launch it from the DMG and it runs its own version of Safari.  Its nice in that if you find a bug you can report it, but it doesn’t kill your machine at all.

BunsenHoneydew - 02 April 2008 01:05 PM

You get the builds here.  It should be noted though that it installs nothing.  You launch it from the DMG and it runs its own version of Safari.  Its nice in that if you find a bug you can report it, but it doesn’t kill your machine at all.

Very handy link. Thanks for sharing. I’ve been running the nightly WebKit all this week with no notable issues. Well, one. I notice that the Home vertical Menu Button (left side column) of PixoBebo ‘flickers’ a bit with WebKit but does not with Safari 3.1 or Firefox.

I’m just glad there’s a little competition among browser makers.

BTW, PixoBebo has been live just a couple of days and already almost 2-percent of the site’s visitors are viewing the site on an iPhone or iPod touch.

I like the site.  Its kinda fun to use all the different builds and see progress being made.  It was really fun when Acid3 had just been announced and you could see really how quickly they got the code working.  Did you let them know about the fickering?  It would be interesting to see how long it takes them to get that one right.

Does anyone use the Developer option in Safari? I was reading Mac360’s look at Flock and one of the posters there had trouble with Safari maintaining the ‘user agent’ in the Developer option. I’ve been using it all day today and it seems fine to me, except that it snaps back to default when I change it something else.

I use it.  The agent selector is flaky.  It likes to reset all the time.  I only use it if I am trying to determine if there is a page coding error with a given browser.

Danny Boy - 20 April 2008 02:53 PM

Does anyone use the Developer option in Safari? I was reading Mac360’s look at Flock and one of the posters there had trouble with Safari maintaining the ‘user agent’ in the Developer option. I’ve been using it all day today and it seems fine to me, except that it snaps back to default when I change it something else.

I’ve been using Flock and like it. What is the Developer option in Safari? How do you get to it? What does it do?

You turn it on in Prefs>advanced>show develop in menubar (radio button).  It is a way fro developers to troubleshoot pages in safari.  It allows you to turn on/off like web inspector and change things like the user agent

BunsenHoneydew - 06 May 2008 04:18 PM

You turn it on in Prefs>advanced>show develop in menubar (radio button).  It is a way fro developers to troubleshoot pages in safari.  It allows you to turn on/off like web inspector and change things like the user agent

Hey, very cool. I’m using it on the nightly WebKit version. This is waaaaay cool.

I don’t recall reading much about new features showing up in the nightly WebKit versions, though. In fact, Apple hasn’t done much beyond basic features in Safari since the first version. What’s new? RSS and tabs? Anything else?

The webkit builds are really only for rendering changes, and updates for standards.  The features are separate and don’t come until Apple releases an update.