Not only can you see previews of your favorite sites at a glance, Safari will also let you know which of those sites have updates--a corner peel with a white star denotes an updated page. Visiting any Top Site is as simple as clicking one of the icons; the icon will expand to replace the Top Sites page with the clicked page.

Search party

Another feature on the Top Sites page is a search box for searching your surfing history. Click in the search box, and you'll see a Cover Flow-like view of web pages you've visited. As you type your search terms, the number of displayed sites decreases as sites are eliminated.

Safari 4 not only searches titles and URLs, but also the full text of the pages you've visited. So you don't need to remember something that was in the title or URL of the site you're looking for; any term that was on the page will work just as well.

You'll also see a Cover Flow-like mode while viewing your History or Bookmarks pages; just like in the Finder, Cover Flow in Safari shows thumbnails (of sites, in this case) above the usual list-like view showing the title and URL for each site.