Yesterday Apple released a public beta of version 4 of the Safari web browser. I’ve downloaded and installed it and spent roughly an hour browsing some of my favorite sites. So far I really like it. It gets out of the way a little bit more that the previous version of the software did and has a few obvious handy features. One that I really like is the new treatment for tearing away tabs to create a new window and dragging tabs between windows – very handy. The “Top Sites” feature looks like it might be really fun too, I’m not sure if it is going to work for me but I am certainly going to give it a try. I took a quick peak under the hood at some of the Developer Tools and was very happy to see some much needed improvements to this aspect of the software. I normally use Firebug via FireFox in my daily work (and I like it very much), but I am going to take the functionality in Safari for a spin and see how I fare. I like the idea of being able to stay in Safari as much as possible. Also worth noting is that the beta software includes an uninstaller (a nice touch). According to Apple, this version of Safari raises the bar for browsers in terms of speed, standards support and forward looking features (like typographical control for example). I’m looking forward to participating in the beta release.