Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 109 With Upcoming Safari 14 Features

[MacRumors]

Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced four years ago in March 2016. Apple designed the Safari Technology Preview to test features that may be introduced into future release versions of Safari.

Safari Technology Preview release 109 is the first version built on the new Safari 14 update included in macOS Big Sur. It supports Safari Web Extensions imported from Chrome, Firefox, and Edge and converted using Xcode 12, plus it adds the Privacy Report feature that shows the trackers that Intelligent Tracking Prevention is blocking.

Tab previews are available so you can preview tabs to find the one you're looking for, and tabs also support favicons by default. In Safari 14, Adobe Flash is no longer supported.

Safari Technology Preview will also now notify users when a saved password in iCloud Keychain has been in a data breach, and Web Authentication using Touch ID has been implemented, as has support for PIN entry and account selection on external FIDO2 security keys.

Along with these major new features, the update introduces bug fixes and feature improvements for Web API, CSS, Web Animations, SVG, IndexedDB, Scrolling, Layout, Media, WebRTC, Back-forward Cache, JavaScript, Editing, Accessibility, Apple Pay, Web Inspector, and Web Driver.

The new Safari Technology Preview update is available for macOS Catalina and macOS Big Sur, the newest version of the Mac operating system that's set to be released this fall.

The Safari Technology Preview update is available through the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences to anyone who has downloaded the browser. Full release notes for the update are available on the Safari Technology Preview website.

Apple's aim with Safari Technology Preview is to gather feedback from developers and users on its browser development process. Safari Technology Preview can run side-by-side with the existing Safari browser and while designed for developers, it does not require a developer account to download.

Article Link: Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 109 With Upcoming Safari 14 Features

 

[SergZzz]

Is it faster then normal version of Safari?

 

[Tekguy0]

Dang, that purple logo looks nice.

 

[petitpiton]

When I have 2 tabs open and then click in the search bar of the second tab to enter a different url, Safari Tech Preview (14.0) crashes every time!

 

[warriors2017]

When I have 2 tabs open and then click in the search bar of the second tab to enter a different url, Safari Tech Preview (14.0) crashes every time!

Top sites still available?

 

[OSXATL]

<Downloads New Safari Technology Preview>
<Checks Out New Features>
<Smiles appropriately>
<Checks out YouTube>
<Sees that Safari Technology Preview still can't play 4K videos on YT>
<Uninstalls Safari Technology Preview>

Seriously, when I heard that AppleTV was gaining the ability to play YT videos in full 4K, I hoped that Safari would also finally gain that ability as well.

Better luck next year kid.

 

[techpr]

Top sites still available?

I don't see it in 14.0

 

[FNH15]

<Downloads New Safari Technology Preview>
<Checks Out New Features>
<Smiles appropriately>
<Checks out YouTube>
<Sees that Safari Technology Preview still can't play 4K videos on YT>
<Uninstalls Safari Technology Preview>

Seriously, when I heard that AppleTV was gaining the ability to play YT videos in full 4K, I hoped that Safari would also finally gain that ability as well.

Better luck next year kid.

It's Google’s problem, not Apple’s. If YouTube doesn’t want to use standards compliant codecs for 4K video, that’s not Apple’s problem...

 

[petvas]

<Downloads New Safari Technology Preview>
<Checks Out New Features>
<Smiles appropriately>
<Checks out YouTube>
<Sees that Safari Technology Preview still can't play 4K videos on YT>
<Uninstalls Safari Technology Preview>

Seriously, when I heard that AppleTV was gaining the ability to play YT videos in full 4K, I hoped that Safari would also finally gain that ability as well.

Better luck next year kid.

Maybe this will come on maOC Big Sur. Let's wait and see.

 

[FNH15]

Top sites still available?

It's called “frequently visited” on the new tab homepage now.

 

[warriors2017]

It's called “frequently visited” on the new tab homepage now.

Does it show preview thumbnails or just plain icons?

 

[FNH15]

Here’s what it looks like - keep in mind this is macOS Big Sur. You can turn off the Favorites section to make it a de facto Top Sites view.

 

[Pujones1]

39 trackers prevented on Mac Rumors. I’m liking the preview.

 

[tgwaste]

Took about 5 minutes for CPU to spike and the browser to freeze

If you disable website icons in tabs they go back to their old behavior of hiding behind one another (which is the worst thing about safari imo). Apple.. just copy google with regards to tabs. It shouldn't take a decade for you to get tabs right. Maybe your engineers only have 5 tabs open but in the real world we have 30 tabs open.

There is no obvious way to see what tab is causing the CPU spiking (again... JUST COPY GOOGLE).

 

[ipedro]

Does this mean that Macs left out of the upgrade to macOS 11 and stuck on Catalina will be able to at least get the new Safari?

What other macOS11 features might an older Mac take advantage of without upgrading to Big Sur?

 

[CarlJ]

Sadly, they turned off Mojave support for Safari TechOlogy Preview recently. As the app frequently informs me (“click here to upgrade to Catalina”). I’ll need to switch back to regular Safari until Big Sur (or, more likely, 11.0.2 or 11.0.3 or so). Skipping Catalina.
[automerge]1593110793[/automerge]

Does this mean that Macs left out of the upgrade to macOS 11 and stuck on Catalina will be able to at least get the new Safari?

Going by past experience (had this happen several times), Catalina should be able to run the latest Safari Technology Preview until around next WWDC (and it won’t stop functioning at that point, it’ll just stop getting updates on Catalina, and bug you to upgrade OS).

 

[nutmac]

<Downloads New Safari Technology Preview>
<Checks Out New Features>
<Smiles appropriately>
<Checks out YouTube>
<Sees that Safari Technology Preview still can't play 4K videos on YT>
<Uninstalls Safari Technology Preview>

Seriously, when I heard that AppleTV was gaining the ability to play YT videos in full 4K, I hoped that Safari would also finally gain that ability as well.

Better luck next year kid.

Apple typically adds new codec to operating system, not Safari. For what it's worth macOS Big Sur is adding VP9 codec.

 

[luvbug]

<Downloads New Safari Technology Preview>
<Checks Out New Features>
<Smiles appropriately>
<Checks out YouTube>
<Sees that Safari Technology Preview still can't play 4K videos on YT>
<Uninstalls Safari Technology Preview>

Seriously, when I heard that AppleTV was gaining the ability to play YT videos in full 4K, I hoped that Safari would also finally gain that ability as well.

Better luck next year kid.

It's a technology preview, a.k.a beta level software. Jeez ...

 

[zorinlynx]

For what it's worth macOS Big Sur is adding VP9 codec.

IT'S ABOUT FREAKING TIME APPLE!

Apple being stubborn about supporting the VP codecs has been frustrating. I mean, they're open source and royalty-free, what the heck was the holdup? I'm glad they finally got around to it.

 

[supremedesigner]

I can no longer update this Safari Technology Preview on my Mojave (work computer) :\ Last week were the last update but the latest one (this one) won't allow me.

 

[gk4]

I really wish Apple would reconsider safari on windows. No matter how much money I decide to throw at Apple, I will never convince my company to switch the computer I use for 8 hours a day to a MacBook. I would switch to using Safari full time if I could just get tab/history syncing in Window's - but without that I'll be one of the many ditching Safari on even there iOS devices this Spetember.

 

[warriors2017]

Here’s what it looks like - keep in mind this is macOS Big Sur. You can turn off the Favorites section to make it a de facto Top Sites view.

View attachment 927639

I'll give it a try. I'm holding my nose though...

 

[nvmls]

Oh boy, they keep putting out half baked crap. One thing is to gather feedback but this level of crashing is not even worthy of a beta version.

The dev tools are sloooow, they freeze and crash a lot, how can you put out junk like this claiming to gather feedback from devs? lol over and over and over...

Within 2 minutes of use you can make the dev tools panel crash by simply clicking the blue brackets icon.

 

[Bokito]

Took about 5 minutes for CPU to spike and the browser to freeze

If you disable website icons in tabs they go back to their old behavior of hiding behind one another (which is the worst thing about safari imo). Apple.. just copy google with regards to tabs. It shouldn't take a decade for you to get tabs right. Maybe your engineers only have 5 tabs open but in the real world we have 30 tabs open.

There is no obvious way to see what tab is causing the CPU spiking (again... JUST COPY GOOGLE).

It's easy to see in Activity Monitor as every tab is running in it's own process. So you should actually see what process (website) is causing the issue. Copying Google is the worst thing they can do imho. They do certain things right, but they do a whole lot wrong (eat your memory and battery for example).

 

[mortenb]

All I wish for is icons (and no text) in the favorites bar. Still only thing that keeps me from switching from Chrome.