4 ms·

This can only be a good thing for the web. In a twisted way, I'm kind of disappointed, though; it'll make the choice between Chrome and Safari a lot harder. Ri

This can only be a good thing for the web. In a twisted way, I'm kind of disappointed, though; it'll make the choice between Chrome and Safari a lot harder. Right now I'm using Chrome 95% of the time, but if Safari becomes much better, I might end up sitting between two chairs. Anyone knows what the implications of this are for Chrome? They use Webkit. Will they stay on Webkit1 while Apple splits with V2?

pavs 17y ago
Safari has bigger issues than rendering engine. (at least for me) I don't even have to open a website, just open a new tab and its starts beachballing just to load the new tab. Also extensions are a big part of my browsing experience. Safari doesn't have large extension community like firefox and Chrome. Simply put, for me, chrome is more than its rendering engine. Overall its just a well rounded piece of software with very frequent updates, which is very unique among browsers.
- MikeCapone 17y ago
  I would be very surprised if Apple took the time to re-write the rendering engine but didn't also work on the UI. I suspect that when this new rendering engine launches, it will probably wrapped in a UI that copies most of the innovations of Chrome (and hopefully improves on them) in the same way that Chrome took a lot from others.
- cpr 17y ago
  If what you say is true (beachballing when open a new tab), you've got some serious issues particular to your system.
  - eob 17y ago
    I agree. People always seem to bash Safari in discussion boards, and I always read these comments a bit confused. I've used Safari full-time for the past 2.5 years, and I've never once had a problem. I downloaded Chrome and didn't notice anything significantly different than Safari (other than the strange-looking tabs, from the standpoint of someone used to Safari), so I shrugged my shoulders and deleted it. I'm not saying Safari is a superior browser. Just that it has always seemed perfectly fine to me.
  - pavs 17y ago
    Now that you mentioned, I realized that I didn't use safari since the last large system-wide update (I think it was in the last 2 weeks or so, 10.6.3). So I tried it now and I can't replicate the beachballing problem, Safari seems much more stable after the recent update. On an unrelated note, firefox on mac is a really sorry case. I hope this is not only on my system.
    - albertsun 17y ago
      What's wrong with it? It works great for me. Memory usage seems like it might be a little higher, but it's well worth it for the extra add-ons and configurability.
      - ahlatimer 17y ago
        Memory usage is higher, it generally feels a little bit slower than Safari or Chrome, and it takes a ridiculous amount of time to launch. I skipped Safari entirely when I first got a Mac because I was used to FF on Windows. I tried out Safari after a friend suggested I do so. I've since moved to Chrome as my primary browser, but there was a buggy release (for me) that caused me to switch back for a while. I now try to avoid opening FF unless I absolutely need something in Firebug or the Web Developer Toolbar. One plus to Chrome is the integrated search/URL bar, also. I've gotten so use to using the same bar for both, that I've had issues using other browsers when they try to visit some site that's actually my search query. Firefox still has a place on my system, but it's definitely not something I want to use all the time.
    - gruseom 17y ago
      FF on Mac is terrible for me too. I switched to Chrome recently and the difference is shocking.
    - aaronbrethorst 17y ago
      It's not just you. FF on Mac's only redeeming quality is Firebug. Pity the WebKit inspection/debugging tools are so awful still.
      - 17y ago
- acdha 17y ago
  Do you have top sites enabled? That's a comically inept botch (loading a 300MB image pack?) but with it disabled the difference versus Chrome is pretty minimal - it's mostly down to Chrome's ability to segregate CPU-hungry apps at that point.
  - tolmasky 17y ago
    This is 100% the case, switching your homepage to about:blank (or ANYTHING other than top sites) makes the browser feel new again.
  - pavs 17y ago
    Yes, I had top sites enabled. However, as I mentioned somewhere else, I just checked safari for the first time since the last update and the beachballing problem seems to be gone now. Safari overall seems much more responsive.
  - guns 17y ago
    In addition, there is a defaults command to disable web snapshots in Safari (for Top Sites, history, etc). This can save considerable amounts of disk and bandwith if you don't use the graphical previews. defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSnapshotsUpdatePolicy -int 2
- rimantas 17y ago
  On Mac if I need to have lots of tabs open (which I do when I visit photoline.ru and want to see all the photos of the day: I just click on thumbnails to open them in background and then go through them. Sometimes it resutls in several hundreds of tabs, weird I know) Safari handles that much better than Chrome. Chrome is my default browser, but I swtich to Safari just to browse said site.
othermaciej 17y ago
WebKit actually has multiple different API layers. There is the Cocoa API used by Safari on Mac, a Gtk API, a Qt API, and a special API just for Chrome. WebKit2 is really a peer to all these APIs, although we also hope it can be a tool for building new tightly integrated APIs that support multiprocess and nonblocking operation. The bottom line is that Chrome and Safari will not be sharing any less WebKit code than before - the WebCore layer, the part that does most of the heavy lifting in rendering Web content - remains unchanged. We may actually have the opportunity to share more code since we'll now be facing many of the same problems. We also hope the Chrome team someday decides to go more in a WebKit2 direction and do multiprocess inside the WebKit API boundary instead of outside, so they can share more code with other port. But that's up to them, and they already have a lot invested in their current path.

pavs 17y ago

Safari has bigger issues than rendering engine. (at least for me) I don't even have to open a website, just open a new tab and its starts beachballing just to load the new tab. Also extensions are a big part of my browsing experience. Safari doesn't have large extension community like firefox and Chrome. Simply put, for me, chrome is more than its rendering engine. Overall its just a well rounded piece of software with very frequent updates, which is very unique among browsers.

MikeCapone 17y ago
I would be very surprised if Apple took the time to re-write the rendering engine but didn't also work on the UI. I suspect that when this new rendering engine launches, it will probably wrapped in a UI that copies most of the innovations of Chrome (and hopefully improves on them) in the same way that Chrome took a lot from others.
cpr 17y ago
If what you say is true (beachballing when open a new tab), you've got some serious issues particular to your system.
- eob 17y ago
  I agree. People always seem to bash Safari in discussion boards, and I always read these comments a bit confused. I've used Safari full-time for the past 2.5 years, and I've never once had a problem. I downloaded Chrome and didn't notice anything significantly different than Safari (other than the strange-looking tabs, from the standpoint of someone used to Safari), so I shrugged my shoulders and deleted it. I'm not saying Safari is a superior browser. Just that it has always seemed perfectly fine to me.
- pavs 17y ago
  Now that you mentioned, I realized that I didn't use safari since the last large system-wide update (I think it was in the last 2 weeks or so, 10.6.3). So I tried it now and I can't replicate the beachballing problem, Safari seems much more stable after the recent update. On an unrelated note, firefox on mac is a really sorry case. I hope this is not only on my system.
  - albertsun 17y ago
    What's wrong with it? It works great for me. Memory usage seems like it might be a little higher, but it's well worth it for the extra add-ons and configurability.
    - ahlatimer 17y ago
      Memory usage is higher, it generally feels a little bit slower than Safari or Chrome, and it takes a ridiculous amount of time to launch. I skipped Safari entirely when I first got a Mac because I was used to FF on Windows. I tried out Safari after a friend suggested I do so. I've since moved to Chrome as my primary browser, but there was a buggy release (for me) that caused me to switch back for a while. I now try to avoid opening FF unless I absolutely need something in Firebug or the Web Developer Toolbar. One plus to Chrome is the integrated search/URL bar, also. I've gotten so use to using the same bar for both, that I've had issues using other browsers when they try to visit some site that's actually my search query. Firefox still has a place on my system, but it's definitely not something I want to use all the time.
  - gruseom 17y ago
    FF on Mac is terrible for me too. I switched to Chrome recently and the difference is shocking.
  - aaronbrethorst 17y ago
    It's not just you. FF on Mac's only redeeming quality is Firebug. Pity the WebKit inspection/debugging tools are so awful still.
    - 17y ago
acdha 17y ago
Do you have top sites enabled? That's a comically inept botch (loading a 300MB image pack?) but with it disabled the difference versus Chrome is pretty minimal - it's mostly down to Chrome's ability to segregate CPU-hungry apps at that point.
- tolmasky 17y ago
  This is 100% the case, switching your homepage to about:blank (or ANYTHING other than top sites) makes the browser feel new again.
- pavs 17y ago
  Yes, I had top sites enabled. However, as I mentioned somewhere else, I just checked safari for the first time since the last update and the beachballing problem seems to be gone now. Safari overall seems much more responsive.
- guns 17y ago
  In addition, there is a defaults command to disable web snapshots in Safari (for Top Sites, history, etc). This can save considerable amounts of disk and bandwith if you don't use the graphical previews. defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSnapshotsUpdatePolicy -int 2
rimantas 17y ago
On Mac if I need to have lots of tabs open (which I do when I visit photoline.ru and want to see all the photos of the day: I just click on thumbnails to open them in background and then go through them. Sometimes it resutls in several hundreds of tabs, weird I know) Safari handles that much better than Chrome. Chrome is my default browser, but I swtich to Safari just to browse said site.

othermaciej 17y ago

WebKit actually has multiple different API layers. There is the Cocoa API used by Safari on Mac, a Gtk API, a Qt API, and a special API just for Chrome. WebKit2 is really a peer to all these APIs, although we also hope it can be a tool for building new tightly integrated APIs that support multiprocess and nonblocking operation. The bottom line is that Chrome and Safari will not be sharing any less WebKit code than before - the WebCore layer, the part that does most of the heavy lifting in rendering Web content - remains unchanged. We may actually have the opportunity to share more code since we'll now be facing many of the same problems. We also hope the Chrome team someday decides to go more in a WebKit2 direction and do multiprocess inside the WebKit API boundary instead of outside, so they can share more code with other port. But that's up to them, and they already have a lot invested in their current path.