I tried out Apple’s Safari for Windows (beta). It’s not bad at all.

However, I did uncover the annoyance of being unable to minimize it by clicking on the taskbar ! You have to either use the shortcut CTRL+M or Windows+D. Worse, when you maximize it, the window is ‘restored‘ instead of being maximized. I hope they fix this in the final release.

I would like:

• To view RSS item headings in a menu as in firefox. Safari opens an admittedly nifty Feed Viewer with all the feed items. But I’d really like to see the headlines at a glance.
• To use CTRL+TAB to cycle through the tabs instead of the given shortcut, which is CTRL+{ or CTRL+}. On my keyboard, this entails pressing three keys: CTRL + SHIFT + [
• A lighter theme ? The current one is too dark and gray. An option to switch to the Macintosh theme would be nice.
• To be able to click on an item in the auto-completion menu for the address bar. You have to press ENTER in Safari.
• The status bar to be visible, by default, upon installation.

Otherwise, I like Safari.

• Compared to IE, Safari is swift (to the naked eye).
• Font smoothing is configurable.
• There is an amnesiac mode called Private Browsing where, like TorPark, Safari does not record anything in the History or Downloads and form entries are not saved in AutoFill.
• History items are accessible date-wise from a recursive menu (History -> ‘Wednesday, June 13th 2007′ -> Item …. ), which, in my opinion, is far easier than opening a sidebar and navigating a tree menu.
• I haven’t noticed any website rendering incorrectly, so far.

I need Firebug at work, so I’ll probably stay with Firefox. I’m on Linux at home, so I don’t have the option of Safari there.

That said, I’ll definitely give Safari’s final release another chance.