Latest release of Apple’s web browser claims to be nearly twice as fast as Firefox at loading web pages and up to six times faster at running Javascript – provided you’re running Windows XP, that is.

Apple has released the latest version of its Safari web browser for Mac OS X and Windows computers. The new Version 3.1 release claims to have lightning speed, opening up web pages 1.9-times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and 1.7-times faster than Firefox 2.

In announcing the release, Apple is also claiming that it runs Javascript up to six times faster than other browsers however it’s worth noting that those results are based on its testing with VeriTest’s iBench Version 5.0 on 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac running Windows XP with 1GB of memory.

“Safari 3.1 for Mac and Windows is blazingly fast, easy to use and features an elegant user interface,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “And best of all, Safari supports the latest audio, video and animation standards for an industry-leading Web 2.0 experience.”

What Apple makes less of a song and dance about is the fact that Safari 3.1 also includes a number of security fixes, particularly for Windows XP and Vista users.

Those security issues include the ability for a hacker to make an “untrusted” certificate appear as though it was “trusted” status, allowing the user to be redirected to a fake site where user information could be collected. This also includes proxy servers being able to do the same thing.

All up, there are 13 security flaws affecting Windows and Mac OS X computer systems. Information on the security update can be seen at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307563 and Safari 3.1 can be downloaded free from Apple’s website at www.apple.com/safari.

At time of publishing, Apple has made no statement about comparative HTML or Javascript performance when running on Mac OS X or Windows Vista.