Today, it’s been 20 years since Apple co-founder Steve Jobs introduced Safari for Mac at the Macworld Expo 2003 in San Francisco. At the time, Apple declared Safari “the fastest web browser ever made for Mac”.

Apple says the original version of Safari loads pages three times faster than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer on the Mac. Internet Explorer was the default Mac browser from 1998 until the release of OS X Panther with Safari in October 2003 as part of a five-year agreement between Apple and Microsoft.

“Safari is the fastest browser on the Mac, and we predict many will think it’s the best browser ever made,” Jobs said in a January 2003 press release. “We’re bringing innovation back to the category with the first completely new browser in years.”

A public beta version of Safari for OS X Jaguar became available in January 2003, with the WebKit rendering engine for faster web browsing, Google search features integrated directly into the toolbar, improved bookmark management, additional pop-up ad blocking. , simplified file upload process, etc.

A mobile version of Safari was released for the iPhone in 2007 and for the iPad in 2010. The browser continues to use WebKit on all Apple platforms.

Safari was eventually overshadowed by Google’s Chrome, which was released in 2008 and is now the world’s most popular web browser on all PCs and Macs. Despite this, Apple says that Safari remains the world’s fastest desktop browser, loading frequently visited websites on average 50% faster than Chrome on Mac.