Safari turns 20, Jobs calls it ‘the fastest web browser on the Mac’

20 years ago today, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs (Steve Jobs) introduced the Safari browser for Mac at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco and said it was “for The fastest web browser ever made for the Mac”.

IT Home learned that Apple said that compared to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, the original Safari loaded web pages on the Mac more than three times faster. Internet Explorer was the default browser for Macs from 1998 until the release of OS X Panther with Safari in October 2003 as part of a five-year agreement between Apple and Microsoft.

In a January 2003 press release, Jobs said: “Safari is the fastest browser on the Mac, and we predict that many people will think it’s the best browser ever. We’re building the first browser in years. A whole new browser brings innovation back to the category”.

A public beta of Safari was released on OS X Jaguar in January 2003, with key features including the WebKit rendering engine for faster browsing, Google search functionality integrated directly into the toolbar, improved bookmark management, optional pop-up ads interception, easier file download process, and more.

The mobile version of Safari was released on the iPhone in 2007 and on the iPad in 2010. The browser continues to use WebKit on all of Apple’s platforms.