Apple released Safari 3.1 this past Tuesday, among speed increases and support for HTML5 and CSS2, Apple included a few more enhancements not known to all.

Safari 3.1 was released on Tuesday via Software Update to both Mac and PC’s.

Today, I’m going to be giving a couple small hints regarding Safari 3.1. If you have already software updated to get it, good for you! Otherwise, I recommend you do a Software Update, or check out Apple’s website for the installer.

One of the most interesting, and certainly attractive features of 3.1 is the Element Inspector. Meant for developers, you can select individual items and see its place in the code. This can particularly useful when debugging a website across multiple browsers or looking at why something doesn’t appear correctly. There is also a host of tools that allow you to see how large your website is to load, how long it took your computer to load scripts, images and more!

You can access the element inspector by right clicking an item on a page in Safari after running this command in Terminal (and then quitting and relaunching Safari, if it is open):

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitDeveloperExtras -bool true

Not only does Safari 3.1 improve upon the already rich experience in Safari, it takes the Safari for Windows out of beta! In version 3.1, Safari on Windows has transformed into a very rich browsing experience- and this isn’t just Apple speaking. Over the course of the past few days, I have read numerous reports about Safari’s growing strength on Windows- how it has become a real contender to Firefox and Opera.

You might have also heard about the recent controversy surrounding Apple Software Update for Windows. Basically, Apple is pushing Safari 3.1 upon anyone who has Apple Software Update installed- making it appear as an update to QuickTime or iTunes would. While I think the concept of spreading Safari for Windows is good, I feel that Apple should have only suggested users download Safari. Either way, Apple is seriously preparing to increase competition in the Windows and Mac browser market.

You can look at some recent reviews of Safari 3.1 for Windows:
PC Magazine
ArsTechnica

Or read about the controversy surrounding Apple Software Update and Safari:
Macworld

–Matt Dodd