Interesting topic.
Safari is Apple's browser for Mac, although it nowadays also exists for Windows.
I have Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.6 and have been using both. FF certainly feels faster than IE. But when it comes to speed, I understand that Google Chrome is supposed to be even faster.
Chrome was first released only 2 years ago and was originally a bare-bones browser, but it is my understanding that it has taken great leaps also in the functionality available. Version 6 was released just two days ago, and inspired by this thread I downloaded it today. I will try it out and see what I think. One thing one notices immediately is that there is more screen space available. Chrome's market share is steadily increasing and is now approaching 10%, so I think it is a player to reckon with.
When it comes to Internet Explorer, there are apparently many companies that are stuck with IE6 solutions, and that version is really outdated and unsafe. I don't think IE8 is so bad though, although I can understand why it has lost market shares to Firefox and Chrome.
But this month the first public beta of Internet Explorer 9 is being released, and it is supposed to be faster and improved in other ways as well. The official version is expected in 2011. And already in November 2010, Firefox 4 is expected to come out, and it is also supposed to be faster and have various improvements. Time is certainly not standing still in browser development, as it more or less was for some years after Internet Explorer had won the browser war against Netscape and had over 90% of the market.
By the way, I remember that when I in the mid-90s for the first time surfed the Internet, it was with Netscape 1.22. Those were the days.