Apple has released a press release stating that Safari 4 has been downloaded over 11 million times in just 3 days.

Breaking these down, there were 6 million downloads for Windows and 5 million downloads for Mac OS X.

To compare, Firefox 3 was downloaded 20 million times in 7 days, so the numbers from Apple seem quite reasonable.

Apple claims that Safari 4 is “nearly eight times faster than IE 8 and more than four times faster than Firefox 3. Safari quickly loads HTML web pages more than three times faster than IE 8 and three times faster than Firefox 3”.

Safari 4 can be downloaded for Windows and Mac from the Apple Safari website.

At today’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC), Apple announced the immediate availability of Safari 4 final for both Mac and PC.

Safari 4 contains over 150 new features, including a screen reader, basic HTML5 support, and a much improved JavaScript engine. A full list of new features can be found online.

The latest release is now the first browser not in beta to score a full 100% in Acid3 tests, which tests a browsers support for JavaScript and CSS3.

Safari 4 can be downloaded from the Apple Safari website.

Browser market share results have been released for May 2009 thanks to Market Share by Net Applications, and no surprises as Microsoft Internet Explorer loose another 0.5% of it’s market share, dropping back to 65%.

Firefox had a steady month, still with its 22.5% share. Apple’s Safari has jumped from 8.2% to 8.4% this month, while Google Chrome has seen a jump from 1.4% to 1.8%.

Opera has also stayed steady, with 0.7% of the pie. Microsoft should be concerning, with the recent release of Internet Explorer 8 hoping to patch the trickle of users flocking to other browsers.

The full detailed statistics for May’s results are available online.

Along with Apple’s release of 10.5.7 yesterday, Apple has also quietly updated Safari 4 and 3 with security patches.

The update for Safari repaired input validation and memory corruption issues which could have allowed hackers to plant malicious code on websites.

The update was included for Mac users who have already installed the 10.5.7 update, or an updated version of the browser can be downloaded and installed manually from the Apple Safari website.

Both Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome have continued their upward trends through April, increasing their market share. Firefox increased it’s share to 22.5%, up half a percent on last month, while Google Chrome was up around a quarter of a percent to 1.4% share.

Internet Explorer on the other hand continued to bleed users, slumping for another month. Despite the release of Internet Explorer 8, the browser lost almost three quarters of a percent to finish of the month with 66.1% market share.

Both Apple’s Safari and Opera stayed steady for the month, with 8.2% and 0.7% market shares respectively.

More detailed results can be seen using Market Share by Net Applications.

A new patent has surfaced from Apple hinting that volume control is coming to Safari.

Safari browser with audio controls mockup

The filling should give surfers the ability to apply controls to audio streaming in from the web.

The patent also appears to give surfers the option of storing audio preferences for different site, allowing users to mute all websites by default, but allow audio from say YouTube.

“When using a web browser application (e.g., Microsoft Internet Explorer.RTM., Apple Safari.RTM.), audio sources (e.g., websites) will often provide audio signals (e.g., music, noises) which may or may not be welcomed by the user. While operating system desktops often provide audio controls (e.g., volume controls), such audio controls adjust all audio signals playing on the host device, including desirable audio signals such as music the user desires to play from their music library while browsing the Web. Accordingly, if desktop audio controls are used, then desirable audio signals, as well as undesirable audio signals, will be adjusted together which may not be the intent of the user” the patent reads.

No word yet from Apple on when we can see this innovative idea in Safari.

Apple has released Safari 4 beta to the public.

The release is incredibly impressive, with over 150 new features, including support for some HTML5 elements along with improvements in the rendering engine.

Safari 4 also scores an impressive 100/100 in Acid 3 which tests a browsers standards compatibility. Opera 10 alpha and Safari 4 beta are now the only two main web browsers to reach this feat.

Safari 4 includes a new JavaScript rendering engine called Nitro. It’s claimed to be 4 times faster than Firefox 3.1 and 6 times faster than Internet Explorer 8. Benchmark results should be out soon.

Users can download Safari 4 beta for both Windows and Mac today.

Apple has issued an update to its Safari browser for Windows users.

The browser, with version number 3.2.2, fixes an RSS vulnerability found in the browser mid January.

You can read the full details of the update in the support article. The update should be pushed out to Windows users, or users can download the update manually from the Safari website.

Apple has begun approving 3rd party web browsers for the iPhone and iPod touch. The move comes after speculation that Apple was denying apps that competed with it’s own.

It is hoped that this move could allow Opera Mobile to make finally make debut on the iPhone. Current web browser apps include Edge Browser, Incognito, Shaking Web and WebMate: Tabbed Browser.

There are fears Apple’s restrictive SDK may still hold back a fully featured version of Opera Mobile.

With the recent relaxation of approval rules, there are still hopes yet for a good range of web browsers on Apple mobile devices. The future is starting to look a little brighter.

A serious security flaw has been found in Safari’s RSS reader. The vulnerability could allow a malicious website to gain access to sensitive user data, and affects both Mac and Windows versions of the browser.

“Apple’s Safari browser is vulnerable to an attack that allows a malicious web site to read files on a user’s hard drive without user intervention. This can be used to gain access to sensitive information stored on the user’s computer, such as emails, passwords, or cookies that could be used to gain access to the user’s accounts on some web sites. The vulnerability has been acknowledged by Apple” said discoverer Brian Mastenbrook.

A time frame for a fix is still unknown.