I have been using the beta version of Safari 4 recently released by Apple and so far I have found it much better and faster than Safari 3. There are plenty of new features found in the beta – some for the better, some not so.

Generally I find the speed of rendering of pages much faster than before, especially with web apps like Gmail with the new Nitro JavaScript Engine. Some like Top Sites and using CoverFlow for Bookmarks and History might be fanciful but probably might come in useful. For one, I wouldn’t put Top Sites to load on new pages or tabs, especially in a working environment if you do lots of non-office work surfing. Or how the Tab bars appear on the top of the navigation, or how the Reload/Stop button appears within the Address input field, instead of grouped together with the other Safari navigation buttons.

Here are a list of reviews and tips for those who wants to use Safari 4 beta:

• Download Safari 4 Beta
• 150 features – New and Old
• Safari 4 benchmarked – fastest so far?
• Safari 4 review – Daring Fireball: Ob
• Safari 4 Hidden Preferences – to help revert to some old UI
• Safari 4 Buddy by Swoon to easily enable those hidden preferences

As it is, this is still a beta version and might break some functions or have some infrequent crashes, so do use it with caution.

I have also tried it on local Citibank and OCBC Internet Banking sites with no issues, and they do load much faster.