Apple unveiled their newest version of the Safari browser yesterday albeit a beta. There has been a huge buzz about it on Twitter so obviously I had to go and download it for myself. Safari 4 beta is available for both Mac and Windows computers, which is good news for me.

First impressions of this new browser are that it is shiny and polished with a host of new features, for instance Top Sites.  Top Sites displays a thumbnail of your most visited sites in a nicely 3D styled window for you to choose from with a single click. Apple have included Cover Flow in this new browser too, which for me is a welcome addition. It allows you to scroll through your bookmarks and history as you would on you iPhone or iPod touch.

There are other little improvements in this new beta version of Safari which I am yet to discover fully for myself, but I’m liking the browser already. There are obviously some flaws in the browser, it is after all a beta version but these are few and far between in my experience of using it. I have had the browser crash on me a couple of times but nothing more really.

Safari is becoming a serious contender to both Internet Explorer and FireFox and version 4 is closing the gap dramatically. I for one will keep it installed on my machine for the foreseeable future. You can download it from the Apple website now!