Apple today released a beta version of their upcoming Safari 4 Web Browser. The new version offers a host of improvements over Safari 3, aswell as some very tasty new features. Safari 4 uses the latest JavaScript engine, dubbed ‘Nitro’. It is said to render JavaScripts 4.2x faster than the previous Safari.

Here is a full rundown of the latest features in Safari 4 beta.

- Top Sites, a display of frequently visited pages in a stunning wall of previews so users can jump to their favorite sites with a single click;
- Full History Search, where users search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages to easily return to sites they’ve seen before;
- Cover Flow, to make searching web history or bookmarks as fun and easy as paging through album art in iTunes;
- Tabs on Top, for better tabbed browsing with easy drag-and-drop tab management tools and an intuitive button for opening new ones;
- Smart Address Field, that automatically completes web addresses by displaying an easy-to-read list of suggestions from Top Sites, bookmarks and browsing history;
- Smart Search Field, where users fine-tune searches with recommendations from Google Suggest or a list of recent searches;
- Full Page Zoom, for a closer look at any website without degrading the quality of the site’s layout and text;
- Developer Tools - built-in web developer tools to debug, tweak and optimize a website for peak performance and compatibility; and
- Windows-native look in Safari for Windows, that uses standard Windows font rendering and native title bar, borders and toolbars so Safari fits the look and feel of other Windows XP and Windows Vista applications.

I will post my impressions of the Safari beta once I have had time to use it, needless to say most of the scripts people use will be broken for a couple of days. Also, I find it interesting that Apple have decided to go with the native OS look for the XP and Vista versions? I didn’t think they would lower themselves to that level! All for the sake of market share I guess. Anyway, get downloading!

Download Safari 4 beta