Fix Safari 3.1 Fails Acid3 Test to 100/100 with New WebKit Download

Apple’s latest web browser Safari 3.1 can pass the Acid2 Web Standards Project test suites that identify web page rendering flaws in web browsers and other applications that render HTML and CSS, and in fact is the first browser that able to pass the test. However, in Acid3 test from the Web Standards Project that checks how well a web browser follows web standards, especially technologies related to DOM and JavaScript such as ECMAScript, DOM Level 2,Scalable Vector Graphics, XML and data: URIs., Safari 3.1 fails the linktest with score of 75/100 on sub-tested passed.

However, the WebKit, an open source web browser engine that Safari depends on, has managed to fix the browser engine to produce a correct rendering and get a score of 100/100 in Acid3 test sinch WebKit build r31356. However, the new WebKit core engine hasn’t been implemented in latest version of Safari available, i.e. version 3.1.

Thus to fix the Safari 3.1 fails Acid3 test, and make the Safari pass the Acid3 test successfully, use the following trick to replace and update the Safari core browsing engine with a newer version from WebKit nightly build.

1. Download WebKit-SVN-r31436.zip. You can also download the newer build version if available.
2. Unpack and extract the content of WebKit-SVN-r31436.zip or other nightly build WebKit zip file.
3. Close and exit from Safari browser.
4. In the WebKit-rxxxxx (where xxxxx is build number) folder at the folder which the files from the new WebKit engine zip archive is extracted, locate the following files and folder:

   WebKit.resources folder
   WebKit.dll file
   WebKit.pdb file

5. Copy the WebKit.resources folder to replace and overwrite the folder with the same name under the Safari installation folder, i.e. C:\Program Files\Safari.
6. Copy the WebKit.dll and WebKit.pdb and paste to Safari installation folder, i.e. C:\Program Files\Safari. Note that only WebKit.dll exists originally.

Now run the Safari again to run the Acid3 test suite at Acid3 test page, and voila, Safari now 100% Acid3-compliant with 100/100 score rating.