As Apple rolled out the fourth version of the Safari web browsers, the company managed to generate some hype around its new product. Safari impresses through its looks, but it also shows impressive speed improvements compared to the previous version. Still, this is a beta version, so reviewers reported that the browser seldom crashes, but it is bearable.

First, the big news was that Safari is now much snappier. Numerous benchmarks and especially Google V8 returned impressive figures. At this point, Safari 4 Beta is the only browser on the market that is close to Google Chrome in terms of performance in JavaScript tasks. Of course, JavaScript is only a fraction of the overall web experience, but as cloud computing is becoming more popular, this development platform is very relevant when testing web browsers.

The interface of the web browser has changed, as there is more eye candy than ever. Quite predictably, the Top Sites layout and the Web History menu might easily charm style-conscious users, bringing them closer to the Apple-way of doing things.

The Top Sites strongly resembles Google Chrome’s Most Visited start page as both layouts use the same idea. Still, Safari went the extra mile and the Top Sites looks much more polished, but it also offers more features. You can pin the websites you visit the most in a certain place and delete the websites you don’t want to be displayed on the start page.

The tabs layout and the upper part of the window look strikingly similar to Chrome. Even the page menu icon looks the same.

Overall, Safari has now become a relevant alternative to the other web browser out there. It runs pretty fast, but one must know that there are some features that aren’t available on Safari. For instance, you cannot install any add-ons, a feature that has proved to be hugely popular on Firefox.