Apple Releases Safari 4.0.4

[wizard]

Welcome aboard.

Getting ready to switch to Mac...will be looking for advice.

it will be worth what you pay for it.

Any advantages of going with Safari vs Firefox (besides the fact I am used to Firefox).

Thanks all in advance.

There are several that I can think of.

1.
Safari is generally faster.

2.
Safari tests well for compatibility getting 100% on the acid test.

3.
Run your machine in 64 bit mode, with 64 bit Safari and you end up with Flash running as a separate process. Ideally this means that bad Flash does not kill the browser.

4.
Fewer questionable plugins work with Safari. Some would see this as a disadvantage but Safari is pretty stable running clean.

5.
Integration with Mobile Me and iPhone / Touch. This is surprisingly handy as your bookmarks sync. That means if you are out mobile, saving a bookmark allows you to find a site on your big machine latter with ease.

6.
We mentioned the speed above, much of which is due to one snappy Javascript engine. This has a huge impact on web apps over browsers like IE. Look at Safari as one of the best platforms for web apps.

That is a half dozen good reasons right off the top of the head. Hopefully others can add to the list. What you need to realize is that a lot of the above doesn't matter if you have a personal preference. I'd give Safari a chance though, I use to use Firefox a lot but no more.

One thing to realize, is that if you are into plugins the Mac platform is a whole new ball game.



Dave

 

[philosopherdog]

Give GlimmerBlocker a try, I made the switch and never looked back.

Thanks.

I wanted it to work, but it was causing Safari to have long stalls when loading pages. Since removing it Safari has smoked.

 

[apull]

it will be worth what you pay for it.


There are several that I can think of.

...
2. Safari tests well for compatibility getting 100% on the acid test.
...
6. We mentioned the speed above, much of which is due to one snappy Javascript engine. This has a huge impact on web apps over browsers like IE. Look at Safari as one of the best platforms for web apps.

* It might not be worth what you pay for it. think again about getting a PC, seriously--both my macs (mac mini running an upgraded 2.16 C2D/2GB/Leopard and macbook w/ 2.0 C2D/4GB/Leopard) have given me way more problems in the last two years than my PC ever has. People blame it on the fact that I actually use those USB ports on the back to plug things into, and that I expect my Targus bluetooth mouse to work every time. problem is, if you run into a problem, you're pretty much SOL, because if you're lucky apple might fix it in six months. of course, if you like spending money, you will get a nice-looking machine.

2. Nobody really cares about getting 100% on the new acid test. Stick with firefox if you like it.

6. JS speed is already sufficient in firefox. heck, even ie8's performance is tolerable. you'll find that flash performance on your mac, however, unilaterally sucks.

if you really MUST drink the kool-aid, please don't turn into a pretentious jerk (ducks). learn how to use terminal, NeoOffice is nice for a free office suite, growl is a handy little app, and virtualbox does virtualization quite well for free. if you get used to it, Quicksilver is awesome. Caffeine is a useful utility, dropbox can keep your important docs in sync between all your pcs and mac, and VLC works great for actually playing videos.

 

[overcast]

3.
Run your machine in 64 bit mode, with 64 bit Safari and you end up with Flash running as a separate process. Ideally this means that bad Flash does not kill the browser.

You don't have to boot into the 64bit kernel for the plugin processes to be separate. That is a feature of Snow Leopard in general.

 

[Bodie]

Performance tip

I haven't tried this upgrade yet. But 4.0.3 was acting sluggish, so this is what I did and it made a vast improvement.

user/library/safari

I deleted everything but Bookmarks.plst

Now Safari is much faster.

Mac Pro: 10.5.8

 

[overcast]

6. JS speed is already sufficient in firefox. heck, even ie8's performance is tolerable. you'll find that flash performance on your mac, however, unilaterally sucks.

if you really MUST drink the kool-aid, please don't turn into a pretentious jerk (ducks). learn how to use terminal, NeoOffice is nice for a free office suite, growl is a handy little app, and virtualbox does virtualization quite well for free. if you get used to it, Quicksilver is awesome. Caffeine is a useful utility, dropbox can keep your important docs in sync between all your pcs and mac, and VLC works great for actually playing videos.

Already sufficient, wtf? So because Mpeg3 is "already sufficient" for encoding video, even HD content. We shouldn't bother using Mpeg4?

As for your closing remarks, I can only imagine you're trying to push some non user friendly desktop OS onto this user. For what reason would any average user need to learn how to use terminal? Linux/Unix and all of the variants have their uses, but they are not for the desktop, and certainly not for 99.9% of the average PC users.

Maybe you should stop drinking the Kool-Aid yourself.

 

[j33pd0g]

"Clear Recent Searches" has reappeared in the safari recent searches drop down.

Sweet. I didn't enjoy having it lumped in with the history.

 

[apull]

Already sufficient, wtf? So because Mpeg3 is "already sufficient" for encoding video, even HD content. We shouldn't bother using Mpeg4?

As for your closing remarks, I can only imagine you're trying to push some non user friendly desktop OS onto this user. For what reason would any average user need to learn how to use terminal? Linux/Unix and all of the variants have their uses, but they are not for the desktop, and certainly not for 99.9% of the average PC users.

Maybe you should stop drinking the Kool-Aid yourself.

let me rephrase:
javascript on firefox is already sufficient for current web applications. you don't need a dodge viper to get groceries from the local store. using safari's super-quick javascript will not change your life.

learning to use terminal is different from using terminal. the first time something breaks or you want to do something neat and that post somewhere says "open terminal and type..." you don't need to freak out.

all the other apps i listed are completely user-friendly, and free.

 

[johny5]

oh nice, after this update my one day old magic mouse isnt so magic anymore.
I dont have the facility to swipe back and forth with it in Safari

 

[Paradigm]

Actually opened a lot quicker for me on my MBP. Two dock bounces as opposed to 4 or more previously.

One bounce for me, 17" 1.83Ghz Core 2 iMac. Page loaded before the bounce was completed. I did slim it using Xslimmer, slimmed to 64bit Intel only.

 

[overcast]

let me rephrase:
javascript on firefox is already sufficient for current web applications. you don't need a dodge viper to get groceries from the local store. using safari's super-quick javascript will not change your life.

learning to use terminal is different from using terminal. the first time something breaks or you want to do something neat and that post somewhere says "open terminal and type..." you don't need to freak out.

all the other apps i listed are completely user-friendly, and free.

Ok, so you're comparing a $60,000+ car to a free web browser, got it. It's a browser, it's free and offers potentially much faster page rendering times. What exactly is your argument here. You're right, I don't NEED a Viper to drive to the grocery store, but if it's free or I already own it, you're damn right I would.

 

[Erunno]

it will be worth what you pay for it.
2.
Safari tests well for compatibility getting 100% on the acid test.

Yet you are likely to have better real world compatibility with Firefox since due to its 25 percent market share most sites will at least be tested with Internet Explorer and Firefox, something that can't be said for Safari (although the situation is improving).

3.
Run your machine in 64 bit mode, with 64 bit Safari and you end up with Flash running as a separate process. Ideally this means that bad Flash does not kill the browser.

You can also run Flash in a separate process without going 64 Bit as Google Chrome perfectly demonstrates. Firefox will likely get out of process plug-ins with 3.7 as this is needed to build a 64 bit browser which still supports 32 bit plugins.

4.
Fewer questionable plugins work with Safari. Some would see this as a disadvantage but Safari is pretty stable running clean.

Questionable? Nobody forces you to use any extensions with Firefox. Actually, the extensions for Safari are far more questionable since contrary to Firefox Safari does not support any kind of extensibility of the browser.

5.
Integration with Mobile Me and iPhone / Touch. This is surprisingly handy as your bookmarks sync. That means if you are out mobile, saving a bookmark allows you to find a site on your big machine latter with ease.

You can also use MobileMe sync with Firefox although not directly: Install XMarks for Safari and Firefox and the bookmarks will be kept in sync on both the iPhone as well as Firefox.

6.
We mentioned the speed above, much of which is due to one snappy Javascript engine. This has a huge impact on web apps over browsers like IE. Look at Safari as one of the best platforms for web apps.

I wish Apple would also invest time to make the UI more responsive as it is currently rather easy to provoke a beachball when a tab is stalling. What good is a fast JavaScript engine if the browser is unresponsive? Chrome actually is far better in this regard and also Firefox is less prone to beachball.

 

[LAS.mac]

Well, I really hope this update will fix the issue I have with Safari when I try to access my bank account web pages. I can enter-access-operate with Camino or Firefox. I simply can't with Safari 4.0.3

 

[rubenerd]

Harder not being a Safari user now

Each new release of Safari makes it even harder to be a Firefox user, and 4.0.4 is no exception I'll tell you that. Its beautiful and fast even on my 32bit Core Duo MBP

The only thing holding me back still is a lack of a NoScript alternative for Safari. Having got used to blocking JavaScript and selectively enabling it only on sites I trust in Firefox for so long makes me nervous about using anything else.

Unless there is a Safari extension/plugin that does offer that functionality that I'm not aware of, granted it's been a while since I've really checked.

 

[thebill]

Repair Permissions *Whew!*

Just used Disk Utility to repair in 10.6.2 after this Safari update......man!! The list of "Help" fixes is a mile looooooooong. Glad I did it.
Hadn't done the repair for awhile......maybe this is from another past update?

 

[dmaxdmax]

I haven't tried this upgrade yet. But 4.0.3 was acting sluggish, so this is what I did and it made a vast improvement.

user/library/safari

I deleted everything but Bookmarks.plst

Now Safari is much faster.

Mac Pro: 10.5.8

What do you lose/change by this?
+++++++

Never mind - I looked.

 

[vamsivvk]

In safari 4.0.4 Keychain access is not working

(A keychain cannot be found to restore "username")

can anyone help me..

And also two finger scrolling is not soft (page up & down its zig zag) after using safari for some time. (only in safari)

 

[roadbloc]

it is certainly snappier. good update

 

[nefan65]

4.04 is garbage. I updated, and now when I start Safari the fan runs constantly, and crashes often or hangs making me do a force quit...

What gives?

UPDATE:
I deleted everything under /user/library/safari, excluding the bookmark one. Why would those files cause the fan to run??? I can see the crashes...but the fan??? ODD..

 

[cibby]

I'm noticing the same issues with Safari and flash too. When I play a Facebook game, I get activity monitor showing above 100%.

Any suggestions on how to fix it, or is this an apple issue still?

 

[rdlink]

* It might not be worth what you pay for it. think again about getting a PC, seriously--both my macs (mac mini running an upgraded 2.16 C2D/2GB/Leopard and macbook w/ 2.0 C2D/4GB/Leopard) have given me way more problems in the last two years than my PC ever has. People blame it on the fact that I actually use those USB ports on the back to plug things into, and that I expect my Targus bluetooth mouse to work every time. problem is, if you run into a problem, you're pretty much SOL, because if you're lucky apple might fix it in six months. of course, if you like spending money, you will get a nice-looking machine.

2. Nobody really cares about getting 100% on the new acid test. Stick with firefox if you like it.

6. JS speed is already sufficient in firefox. heck, even ie8's performance is tolerable. you'll find that flash performance on your mac, however, unilaterally sucks.

if you really MUST drink the kool-aid, please don't turn into a pretentious jerk (ducks). learn how to use terminal, NeoOffice is nice for a free office suite, growl is a handy little app, and virtualbox does virtualization quite well for free. if you get used to it, Quicksilver is awesome. Caffeine is a useful utility, dropbox can keep your important docs in sync between all your pcs and mac, and VLC works great for actually playing videos.

Please let me know if you would like to sell those two machines. I'll even throw in a Dell with Windows 7 to sweeten the deal. You told me everything I needed to know about yourself when you used the word Targus.

 

[Stridder44]

javascript on firefox is already sufficient for current web applications. you don't need a dodge viper to get groceries from the local store. using safari's super-quick javascript will not change your life.

Right, so we should just stop making things faster/better, because everything is already fast enough.

Your analogy doesn't work either. A Viper is a $60,000+ CAR, Safari is a free BROWSER. For the Viper, any updates/upgrades come at an additional cost. For Safari, additional updates/upgrades are free. Not to mention they both do entirely different things.

 

[philosopherdog]

Fix Flash Plugin!!

If only they would fix that nasty flash problem that has my cpu sitting at around 8% doing nothing with Safari running. Nonsense.

 

[50548]

I'm noticing the same issues with Safari and flash too. When I play a Facebook game, I get activity monitor showing above 100%.

Any suggestions on how to fix it, or is this an apple issue still?

ABSOLUTELY NO ISSUES to report, as usual; the 4.04 update IS recommended and Javascript performance DOES show performance increases, as below indicated with SunSpider:

** TOTAL **: 1.03x as fast

BEFORE: 395.8ms +/- 1.1%
AFTER: 383.4ms +/- 1.6% significant

p.s.: DON'T FORGET TO REPAIR PERMISSIONS after updating...Disk Utility reports and corrects a lot of permission changes to Safari localized files.

 

[cibby]

I will try to repair permissions, but I'm noticing the same flash behaving before/after.