Giving Thanks to Safari

I obsess over small things. The slightest thing can be a show stopper for me. It will come as no surprise that I spend a lot of my time inside of a web browser, so my obsessiveness has naturally spread there. In my day, I have used and evangelized many browsers. For over a year now, my browser of choice has been Apple’s Safari. This time of year is dedicated to giving thanks, so I wanted to show my thankfulness for such a useful browser. Here are the reasons why I prefer Safari.

“¢ Inline search. Safari’s implementation is second to none. The search term is highlighted in yellow while everything else on the screen is dimmed.

“¢ Syncing. All of my bookmarks sync through iTunes to my iPod Touch, and sync through Mobile Me to my other Macs.

“¢ SnapBack. The orange button that sits in the address bar will bring me back to what I was looking at before I got distracted, and started clicking links.

“¢ Standards compliance. Safari was the first browser to pass Acid2, and the developer builds of Webkit were the first to pass Acid3. The Webkit/Safari team is dedicated to being the best of the best.

“¢ Private browsing mode. Sometimes I don’t want certain sites, illicit or not, to leave cookies or show up in my history.

“¢Keychain integration. All of my saved web information is kept in a secure database with an easy to use interface.

“¢ Speed. From my friend’s 500 Mhz iBook to my 2.4 Ghz MacBook Pro, Safari is the fastest browser available. Not only does it render webpages speedily, but the browser itself launches in one bounce. Other browsers I’ve tried take a longer time to launch.

“¢ RSS support. All of my RSS feeds sit in my bookmark bar, and the bookmark bar indicates when there are unread posts. Everything is handled in one application.

That is what I’m thankful for this year. Safari is a joy to use, and its many features make my life that much easier. What technology are you thankful for?

Grant is a writer from Delaware. In his spare time, Grant maintains a personal blog, hosts The Weekly Roar, hosts Quadcast, and writes for video games.