Apple on Tuesday introduced the latest version of the Safari Web browser.

Safari 3.1, which is available at no charge for Mac and Windows PCs through Apple's Web site, supports additional Web standards. It also loads Web pages and runs JavaScript faster than previous versions.

On the standards front, the upgrade supports new video and audio tags in HTML 5, and animations created through the use of cascading style sheets. The browser also supports CSS Web fonts.

"Safari supports the latest audio, video, and animation standards for an industry-leading Web 2.0 experience," Philip Schiller, senior VP for worldwide product marketing, said in a statement.

Besides better standards support, the latest version also includes new drag-and-drop bookmarks, easy-to-organize tabs, and integrated search that shows the number of matches in a page. In addition, there's a built-in RSS reader for news feeds.

On the Mac, Safari 3.1 requires Mac OS X Leopard or Tiger version 10.4.11 or higher. The browser needs 256 MB of memory and can run on an Intel-based or PowerPC-based Mac. On Windows, the upgrade needs the same amount of memory, Windows XP or Windows Vista, and at least a 500-MHz Intel Pentium processor.

Besides making the browser available through its Web site, Apple also plans to distribute it to Mac users through the company's software update application. In terms of market share, Safari trails Microsoft Internet Explorer, the most popular Web browser, and Mozilla Firefox.

Apple in December released a security patch for several serious flaws in Safari. If exploited, the vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution, denial of service, data exposure, cross-site scripting, privilege escalation, and file deletion.