I’ve been using Safari since day one. I’ve always found its speed, system integration, font display, and overall minimalism to be a perfect mix for me. Other browsers may be one or two of these things as well, but as a whole, there is really nothing that quite matches up as an entire package.

Well, that might be changing with the soon-to-be-released Safari 4 browser.

When the browser’s beta version was released a while back, I had some initial reactions that I still stand by. They were trying to do too much with the new ‘tabs on top’ interface, and they actually created a frankenstein browser that breaks so many UI rules that it’s not even funny.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed, but something I have been doing a lot lately is using the Firefox 3.5 betas and the ‘GrApple Crisp’ theme. This is a ‘tabs on top’ version but it’s actually done correctly in my view.

• The titlebar stays intact
• Click-through is respected
• Clicking anywhere on the bar that is not a tab creates a new tab

Worth a look if you’re in the market for something different.