Don’t succumb to peer pressure.

We’re only about an hour from Apple’s big “unveiling.” Early reports are it’s the gadget of the year… maybe of the decade. Follow the up to the minute Live blog with The Times.

Google Earth? Who needs it when we have… well, apple.

So over the past 18 months or so I’ve become obsessed with finding just the right browser for my tastes. I’ve dabbled with damn near everything from IE8 to Opera to Flock to SpaceTime to Pogo. Since Chrome came out, my search has ended as Chrome has the simplicity I look for in the aesthetics of Safari, the functionality of Firefox and the speed is unparalleled as of yet.

Still, when a new incarnation of a browser makes its way into my inbox, I’m always eager to check it out. Particularly when said browser is the next evolution in my second choice for browsers: Apple Safari.

Apple claims that the software runs 4 times faster than the previous generation of Safari and faster page loading times than either IE7 or Firefox (it didn’t say anything about beating out Chrome).

For iTunes fans, you’ll instantly recognize the “cover flow” feature which shows your browsing history in a series of screenshots that you can flip through, just like your home LP collection (or iPod album cover flow).

As innovative as Apple has been, they seem to have taken a few cues from other browser innovations however. For instance, Chrome seems to be ripe for the rip-off with the style points for the tabs feature; this includes adding the ‘+‘ sign to add tabs and also putting the tabs at the top of the screen rather than underneath the browser buttons. Also like Chrome, your home page can be set to a series of screen shots representing your most frequently visited sites (aptly named “Top Sites”); a feature I quite like… alot. Though with my particular download, this feature seems to be a bit buggy and all of the screenshots are invisible. Something Chrome doesn’t do with this feature that the new incarnation of Safari does, is implementing a feature that shows if one of these Top Sites has published new content since the last time you visited by adding a white star on a blue background that appears in the upper right-hand corner of the view for that site. Nice.

While I’m still getting used to the slightly different features of Safari 8, so far I think it’s a really nice piece of browsing software. Despite the bugs (that I’m sure are either only temporary or only affecting my specific download/computer), it does seem quicker than every other browser I’ve used (except Chrome). The tabs are gigantic and taking some time to get used to; including the “closing X” being on the opposite side that I’m used to and I can’t move the tabs around simply by grabbing them – you have to grab only the corner of the tab to move it. And you can’t move it into its own window like Chrome enables you to do.

If you wanna try out the new Safari, which again, Apple claims is still in BETA (which is code for, if there’re any bugs, don’t complain cause its in BETA), you can DOWNLOAD IT HERE. While it may not be completely up to snuff (so far), it’s worth a go – especially if you’re using that piece of shit called Firefox.