Well, I'm happy to report that this anom¬aly has been righted by the good folks at Apple Inc. That, along with a slew of new improvements, some unique features, impressive speed, and future-looking standards support makes it a worthy brows¬ing partner. This 3.1 release also marks the first non-beta release of the software for Windows, and though some have rightly questioned Apple's practice of piggybacking the Safari installer along with iTunes updates for Windows systems, it's a piece of software that merits your corisideration.

The changes are more than skin deep. Safari benefits deep down inside from being built on top of the open source Web Kit browser engine, a descendant of the Konqueror Unix Web browser. That makes sense, since Mac OS X is a flavor of Unix underneath its pretty interface. WebKit is at the root of the browser's leading speed and standards compliance.



Windows users craving some entry to the rarefied world of Apple style will get a bit. The borderless window will save that critical millimeter of screen real estate, and the understated gray menu area is certainly easy on the eyes. And the browser brings a few unique features to the party, as well.

Tabs are present in all current browsers, but Safari gives them an extra twist. Competitors let you rearrange your tabs by dragging them side¬to-side, but Safari adds an extra ability: letting you drag a tab label down to open a new window. Nice, though not a huge deal. On the topic of tabs, I'd love to see all browsers do what Internet Explorer 8 does: When you go to close a page with multiple tabs open, it offers the option of closing only the current tab window.

Simple to implement and very helpful. One tab feature is missing: Safari doesn't display the site icon on the tab, as other browsers do to make identifying the tab you want quicker.

Unlike Safari for the Mac, the Windows version doesn't lock you into one search provider: You have a choice of changing the browser's search box to use Yahoo!, too. I guess it would be too much to ask for Apple to let you choose (gasp!) any search provider, as the other major browsers do. And I guess it's inconceivable that a better search engine than Google could ever come along.