Safari 5 is out!

Apple - Safari - Browse the web in smarter, more powerful ways.

gogogo.

and be sure to try out the new READER functionality. it's awesome.

 

Yeah, I saw that, trying it out right now. UI hasn't changed at all, unfortunately, and still clashes horribly with the Windows UI as a result. It doesn't even seem to follow the standard Aero window animations, just snapping in and out of place and flashing me back to XP. The pointless shortening of some (but not all) long file names on the bookmarks bar is retained from Safari 4...for example, I have a folder named "Comics" which is "shortened" to "Co...cs." Hey Apple, protip: That isn't shortening anything. Yet links like "Twenty Sided" are left intact (though "MMO-Champion" is similarly not-actually-shortened to "MMO-C...mpion"). It's just bizarre and incongruous.

There's some token jump list support now though (only "Recent"), and the addition of that "multiple tabs = multiple panes in taskbar preview" thing that IE uses is a nice touch.

HTLM5Test indicates Safari 5 outperforms the latest Chrome stable in terms of HTML compliance, but only just. No support for WebM or Ogg though, surprise surprise. Chromium dev build still retains the highest score.

Extensions are the most promising part, but the wording of the press release makes it seem like there's going to be an App Store-esque approval process, which almost guarantees no ad blocker.

Safari probably remains an also-ran on the Windows side of the browser wars, regrettably. It's probably rosier from the other side of the fence. I'll have to wrestle it onto my Leopard install and see what it looks like form there.

Update:

What is this I don't even.

 

Finally, Safari 4, was terrible, to say the least.

 

you guys MUST try out Reader mode.

sweet mana from heaven.

 

i'll try it out... but not sure why people hate on Safari 4... been running great since I started using it in beta...

(I don't run Windows)

 

I like the filling blue-on-URL while page-loading, instead of the little grey box on the side on version 4. Only thing, it broke my 1Password extension but the guys at 1Password were quick and released yet another update today to fix it (good on their part).

 

It seems the OSX version is a much smoother experience; UI integration is better (indeed, large swaths of the UI are totally different due to the menu bar), the odd text-chopping issues aren't present, etc. I still don't see Adblock in Safari's future and for that reason alone Chrome or Firefox is probably still a better choice. The RSS reader is some nifty razzmatazz, though. MobileMe is a silly way to do bookmark sync since it costs money (but then again, maybe that was the point?) but at least the feature is present.

Major gripes on OSX: Lack of adblock, no middle-click-to-close on tabs, and of course dat font smoothing. Also, rebooting a Unix OS to install a web browser? That's...a thing.

 

bro, install AdBlock then. I see no ads.

configure it with BTT.

can't help you there.

 

I'm not a fan of ad blocks, most sites only make money and stay alive because of those ad's.

 

except that flash ads warm your machine up, slow your browsing down, and often times intrude on your experience.

my favs are those Apple Flash ads that move the menu bar around while it flashes gigantic flash animations.

no thanks.

 

Then don't go to those sites, since you are not going to help support them, don't use their bandwidth.

 

I've never seen those ads.

 

how does "Reader" work?

No matter what I do or where I go, the "Enter Reader" option is grayed out.

EDIT: never mind.. I smoked it all and reinstalled and it seems to work now....

 

lol. you have no idea how internets work, do you? no idea how website analytics contribute to their ability to get companies to place ads? do you think you support their sites by seeing but never clicking on ads? or are you also going to suggest you click through and sign up for lots of products being sold on websites via ads? really?

what a dumb argument to even try to suggest people that block ads shouldn't visit their websites. it's dumbfoundingly ignorant d and logically embryonic. conflating two separate issues and metrics as one in the same shows not only how little you know, but how willing you are to believe what you think you know when you know little. embarrassing.

I can't even believe I read that. I might put it in my signature. It's priceless.

protip: your traffic supports these websites in more ways that you'll apparently ever realize or know. it's your traffic that matters.

be glad. they infected sites like ESPN so much that I refused to visit them with any browser that didn't have AdBlock installed. it was ridiculous.

go to a news website. CNN.com. MSNBC.com. IGN.com. click on an article. the reader option will be available.

basically, any website page that the browser interprets as an "article", it will give a reader mode option.

 

Same here.

 

ugh. you guys. examples:

2010 NBA Free Agents: To woo LeBron James, David Geffen seeking 51 percent of Los Angeles Clippers from Donald Sterling - ESPN Los Angeles

Scientists challenge BP containment claims - Disaster in the Gulf- msnbc.com

Gamasutra - Features - True Evolution: A Peter Molyneux Interview

just about any page with an article will work.

 

^^^

OK, thanks. It's very cool.

I guess all the sites I tried it out on didn't have articles.

 

ha. probably. but yea, it's so much easier to read with this function. especially on these high-res macs where the fonts are so small.

 

No need to try and insult me.

Traffic matters when there are ads, if there are no ad's on a site how would traffic bring in money? Yeah I know that visits and people linking to your site may help get better ad's, and expose the site to more people, but if your blocking those ad's why does it matter if they get better ad's if no one is seeing them? If everyone blocks ad's then it doesn't matter if the sites get's 1 million hits if no one clicks on those ad's (if they are pay per click) then explain to me how they would get money? Even if the ad's are not pay per click, if a advertiser notices a poor return from the ad they won't pay to advertise on that site anymore.

Ad blockers are BAD for the internet, if you don't think so, well, I don't know what to say.

I even click ad's on purpose to help a site I like.

 

*yawn*

let's move on. it was an unnecessary conversation that you started. I'm done with it. it was a waste of your time and mine.

 

I reacted to this as well, I actually had to lean closer to the screen and read it again to make sure I saw correctly.

About the AdBlocks, personally I really don't mind ads as long as they are not flash ads. ClickToFlash solves this issue quite well imho.

 

For those who haven't seen both versions and are curious about just how massive the difference in UIs is between the OSX and Windows versions of Safari, this ought to give you an idea:

The Windows UI is virtually unchanged since Safari 4, and remains basically a carbon copy of the Chrome UI with a different tab bar. The OSX UI...well, it's also largely unchanged since Safari 4, but utilizes the standard OSX menu bar ans loses the configuration widgets from the address bar as a result. Tab names are center-aligned on OSX and left-aligned on Windows. It also doesn't do that bizarre shortening of random things on the bookmarks bar on OSX. On the other hand, the Windows version can use the standard Windows ClearType font smoothing, whereas the OSX version obviously can't. Middle-click to close tabs works out of the box on Windows, but not on OSX, and I couldn't find a configuration option to enable it.

The big difference is that the OSX version integrates fairly smoothly into the UI, while the Windows version continues the irritating tradition set in place by iTunes of doing its own thing. Jump list support is limited to recent documents - as in locally-stored HTML documents, not web pages, and the color scheme is a light gray that would have been right at home on Windows 9x but just looks weird on Vista/7.

Nothing bad about it, mind, but nothing really worth moving from Chrome (which has better tab management and still retains the JavaScript performance crown) or FF (still far and away the most customizable and extendable browser).

Edit: For those who haven't seen it in action, the reader thing works on the front page of this site. It's pretty snazzy.

 

Been playing around with the Reader function for the last couple of hours and I'm totally impressed by it that I'm now surprised Apple didn't make a bigger deal of it when Safari 5 was announced.

 

Too bad Apple didn't put out a Linux version.

 

Oh, and Safari 5 appears to have hardware acceleration on Windows. It's hit-or-miss though, as though it's not always enabled and sometimes forgets to kick in when needed, resulting in the typical horrible performance on the test page. This doesn't happen with the IE9 PP2, but I trust it's an issue they'll sort out.

Interesting side note: My desktop runs on a 3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo, conveniently the same used for both Microsoft's and Apple's Sunspider tests. My results for IE9, FF 3.6.3, Chrome 5.0, Safari 4, and Opera 10.5 all jive quite well with Microsoft's numbers. Apple's numbers are radically different, however, getting a faster time for Safari 5 than I did (by about 50ms) and slower times for all of Chrome, Opera, and Firefox - by about 30, 50, and 100ms respectively. The only difference is Apple used OSX for their test (naturally). Food for thought.

 

thats one thing I really hate about Apple...

They really should make a Linux version of iTunes and Safari.

 

Boredom + insomnia provides fruits:
Major browser JScript benchmarks
Safari 5 is a pretty strong performer, overall.

Edit: Intriguingly, it appears extensions don't require signing as predicted, at least for now. Here's an archive of some Safari 5 extensions, including a port of Chrome's AdBlock. That's one annoyance resolved, at least.

 

Yeah you figure their OS is based on Unix, why not make a Linux version?

 

Keeps the ads out

 

Exactly, the problem is the kid in the cookie jar syndrome, i.e. they don't know when to quit so you have to cut them out.

I don't have a problem with ads but when i'm trying to read something and stuff starts flashing and moving across my screen, that's when I either use adblack or better yet, turn off Javascript.

 

Why would Apple care about open source software?

 

First...how do I upgrade if I ALREADY have Safari 4?

Is there someway to upgrade from within the program? Or do I really have to go to Apple's website and download it from scratch like I did for 4?

Sorry I recently just converted to Safari so I'm still tinkering with it.

2 other things that are bugging me

1) When I click on links (any link even in my Gmail) it opens it up in a new window. UNLESS I right click and select "open in new tab"

HOW in the world do I get it to automatically and by default open all new links in a new TAB

2) Whenever I open up a new tab from my current window and its something related to what I'm viewing I'd LIKE the new tab to be right next to the current window I'm in. However Safari opens it up in a new tab that is far down the list....which is annoying when I've got like 8 tabs at once.

How do I set it up to where a new tab is automatically opened up right NEXT to the old tab from where it came?

 

To show they have the best browser. They say they have the fastest/best browser, then prove it.

Firefox and Opera are available for Linux as well as a few unknown browsers like Arora.

 

They should, considering how much of it they've <s>stolen</s> borrowed. WebKit, which is itself largely developed by the open source community now, is forked from KHTML. OSX is based on BSD and OPENSTEP. Printing is handled by CUPS. The terminal client runs Bash. Etc.

Indeed, Apple does make a token display of supporting open source. Critics argue, however, that Apple drags its feet far too much on complying with the open source licenses it uses. For example, we haven't seen a release of the kernel since Tiger ( Apple blames pirates, of course).

 

Can anyone answer my question?

 

Launch Apple Software Update (just Software Update on a Mac). It should be right there. If on a Mac, you need to be on at at least OSX 10.5.8 before you can install Safari 5, for some reason.

Preferences -> Tabs -> Open pages in tabs instead of windows: Always

This is not presently possible, to the best of my knowledge. Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and IE all behave this way by default, however, if it's a make-or-break issue.

Edit: On a different note, Safari seems to have some odd behavior regarding extensions. Specifically, all of mine disappeared at some point between last night and today, without a trace. Looking into it.

 

Thanks for replying...

I"m no Windows 7 however...so I don't have Apple Software Update...at least I don't think so.

 

Is the "reader functionality" included by default, because I don't know if thats right...

I mean an ad blocker add-on is fine, because the people who use them aren't exactly the people who would be clicking ads. But the web is powered by ads, and ads are the mains source of revenue for most websites.

Now I know Safari isn't a largely used browser, and we defiantly don't have to worry about Firefox or Chrome (especially) blocking ads. But if I.E. jumps on board with "reader mode" aka no ad-mode thats 60% of browsers that will see no adds on websites. Then we can kiss good bye to a lot of free on-line services that are powered by ad revenue. A website's traffic means nothing if only 40% can see their ads.

Hopefully I.E. doesn't do this, but they seemed to follow in Apple's footsteps by refusing to support open source video codes for HTML 5. Which is a whole other issue (I think if Apple wants to back up their claims of supporting open standards, we should at least see support for OGG in Safari 5). But if I.E. copies them it could equate to 60% drop in ad revenue to sites where people use "reader mode".

The reader mode is defiantly a good feature, but I'm not sure if its fair to web publishers. I guess in the end if they though it was hurting their business they could just deny access to any Safari users, but thats a little extreme.

 

It's installed with every piece of Apple software. Start -> All Programs -> Apple Software Update (should be near the top)..

I think history has taught us that more powerful ad-blocking software just means more intrusive ads. IE has included a pop-up blocker for some time now, but that certainly didn't stop the advertisers from finding ways around it. There are plenty of ads that get around ABP already. Even if something like this reader mode becomes common place, they'll find a way around it. They always do.

 

you're overstating it a bit. you'll see the ads before you select reader mode. in order to navigate the website, you have to disengage reader mode.

it's purely to make articles easier to read. that's it. chillax.