Swift – Webkit for Windows

Tuesday, August 15th, 2006

I recently stumbled upon a very interesting find: the Swift web-browser. It is essentially a port of Apple’s webkit to windows. Here’s a screenshot of it right after startup:
The Swift browser

My first impression is that it is definitely alpha, VERY alpha (it is only the 0.1 release after all). It’s also a much larger download, 15mb, compared to Firefox, 5mb, or Opera, 6mb.

Good Points

  • Its page rendering is exceptionally fast, even more than Firefox
  • Tabs, but that isn’t anything to incredible

Areas that need work (I won’t say bad points, after all it is only alpha)

  • Crashes regularly on complex pages
  • Password inputs are not supported
  • Anchor links (page.htm#section) are not supported
  • Acid 2 doesn’t work (probably due to the previous)
  • Lack of any preferences whatsoever

Overall, I would say Swift is a great effort and it looks promising, but at the present state of development it is little more than a proof of concept, and definitely not practical for normal use.

4 Responses

  1. Mark - August 26th, 2006 at 7:27 am

    I think it’s a great idea since there is no current way to test websites with webkit in Windows. This could possibly result in more Safari compatible websites.

  2. Dakota - August 26th, 2006 at 10:00 pm

    That is interesting! I know that many companies, such as online banks and retailers (and nearly all the MLS listings for some reason) often don’t support Safari. It’s annoying to say the least. I would be very happy to see Safari better supported.

  3. Chris - December 20th, 2006 at 12:41 pm

    Anything new? I tried to get 0.2, but the download link is broken 🙁

  4. Madd the Sane - January 9th, 2007 at 3:10 am

    If you want to get version 0.2 go to http://www.happyandlost.co.uk/media/misc/swift/swift_0.2.msi I don’t know why it doesn’t link there…