The software contains built-in web search powered by Google Inc, tabbed browsing, popup advertising blocking, and sophisticated bookmark management, Apple said.

A software development kit is also being released, designed to allow Mac application developers to use the Safari rendering engine in their software. Safari is based on the open-source KHTML rendering software.

Since its beta release in January, Safari has been downloaded for free by millions of Mac users, Apple said. The 1.0 release comes soon after it emerged that Microsoft Corp will no longer make browsers for the Mac.

Source: Computerwire