Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 204 With Bug Fixes and Performance Improvements

[MacRumors]

Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser that was first introduced in March 2016. Apple designed Safari Technology Preview to allow users to test features that are planned for future release versions of the Safari browser.

Safari Technology Preview 204 includes fixes and updates for Accessibility, CSS, Forms, JavaScript, Service Workers, Web API, Web Driver, Web Extensions, and Web Inspector.

The current Safari Technology Preview release is compatible with machines running macOS Sonoma and macOS Sequoia, the newest version of the Mac operating system.

The Safari Technology Preview update is available through the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences or System Settings to anyone who has downloaded the browser from Apple's website. Complete 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 it is designed for developers, it does not require a developer account to download and use.

Article Link: Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 204 With Bug Fixes and Performance Improvements

 

[Chungry]

when will Apple stop dragging their feet on the lack of improvements that artificially make the web a second class citizen? I though the Michael Tsai blog post on this was illuminating and a pretty damning reason to allow non WebKit browsers.

 

[dogolaca]

Safari under Sequoia is constantly crashing for me. Have they fixed this?

 

[Chungry]

Safari under Sequoia is constantly crashing for me. Have they fixed this?

Same here. It’s bad. Really bad.

 

[maxdefcon]

I wish they would push updates to Safari, stable channel, more often than they do.

 

[rotvaldi]

iOS 18.1 beta 6 when

 

[Chungry]

I wish they would push updates to Safari, stable channel, more often than they do.

I wish all the system apps could be updated outside major OS updates. Mail still wouldn’t get love outside its 8-10 year schedule but I can hope.

 

[heretiq]

Same here. It’s bad. Really bad.

Odd. Sorry you’re encountering issues. I assume you’ve done the customary clear cache, delete web data, .. ? Thankfully I’ve had zero issues with Safari on Sequoia.

 

[Scott6666]

Crashes on iOS every news site I read. Too much JavaScript

 

[JosephAW]

No love for Ventura

 

[Chungry]

Odd. Sorry you’re encountering issues. I assume you’ve done the customary clear cache, delete web data, .. ? Thankfully I’ve had zero issues with Safari on Sequoia.

I did, chalked it up to initial release jitters.
I think as someone below said there’s some devilish JavaScript overloading safari. Chrome and Brave seem to handle it without issues. No clue where the fault lies as I’m not a web dev

 

[Chungry]

No love for Ventura

Keep that stability. Don’t have fomo on this area you’re better off where you are!

 

[Adora]

Safari under Sequoia is constantly crashing for me. Have they fixed this?

Normal Safari never crashes. Not even in the first beta. But this TP gets always unusable if it is behind in the build number and now it was even still on 18.0. While Safari already is 18.1 since weeks.

 

[Adora]

iOS 18.1 beta 6 when

Maybe tomorrow together with macOS 15.1 Beta 6 and this will be outdated in one day and might not be usable anymore. I stopped using it because it's most of the time behind.

It's even still on 18.0. Very bad, when you have Safari 18.1. It's nothing for beta testers it seems.

I thought even on macOS 15.0 it's already Safari 18.1.

 

[Adora]

No love for Ventura

In the Developer Portal is a Beta 2 of Safari 18.1 for Ventura.

Or you could use the formerly black Webkit browser instead. What now is just the latest version of Safari plus a very small change every few hours when there is a new build. But you can't run it with Safari at the same time, because it's blue now too.

And it is a little strange to open, there is no app-file just a binary that starts it automatically from Terminal when you click on it after unzipping. You always have to use this to run it. Not that Dock icon with the alias arrow, if you pin it.

Somehow a few older versions are on top of the list. The ones starting with 2844 are the latest.

WebKit Build Archives

SequoiaSonomaVentura 284471@main September 30, 2024 at 05:25 PM PDT 284470@main September 30, 2024 at 05:17 PM PDT 284467@main September 30, 2024 at 04:19 PM PDT 284466@main September 30, 2024 at 04:09 PM PDT 284465@main September 30, 2024 at 03:02 PM PDT 284464@main September 30, 2024 at 02:42...

webkit.org

 

[MrNomNoms]

when will Apple stop dragging their feet on the lack of improvements that artificially make the web a second class citizen? I though the Michael Tsai blog post on this was illuminating and a pretty damning reason to allow non WebKit browsers.

Not just when it comes to standards there is also Apple dragging their feet every step of the way when it comes to implementing Webextensions APIs - just have a read of the WECG meeting minutes on how Apple engineers drag their feet every step fo the way, dreaming of unrealistic scenarios in justification of why they refuse to implement a particular feature that both Chrome and Firefox developers agree to. It is the reason I gave up on Safari a long time ago - I just hope that Apple is forced to open up iOS to competing web engines so it finally forces them to get their act together.

Edit: If people want to see where they are standards compliance wise they can check out this:

web-platform-tests dashboard

Given the number of tests Safari is failing Apple need more programmers getting it sorted out in a timely manner.

 

[heretiq]

I did, chalked it up to initial release jitters.
I think as someone below said there’s some devilish JavaScript overloading safari. Chrome and Brave seem to handle it without issues. No clue where the fault lies as I’m not a web dev

For what it’s worth I use Safari with Private Relay and ProtonVPN with block ads and malware options selected and have had zero issues. I had not given much thought to why, but based on your JavaScript comment I suspect ProtonVPN probably tames JavaScript behavior by blocking problematic scripts at the source.

 

[PsykX]

Safari under Sequoia is constantly crashing for me. Have they fixed this?

For me it's been crashing on a regular basis under iOS since... ugh... iOS 16 maybe ?
Even if I disable my only extension (Noir).

I have an iPhone 14 Pro right now.

 

[nt5672]

Safari under Sequoia is constantly crashing for me. Have they fixed this?

For me in Sonoma, it consistently just displays a partial page and becomes unresponsive. Safari is really the worst performing of the major browsers at this point.

 

[nt5672]

Odd. Sorry you’re encountering issues. I assume you’ve done the customary clear cache, delete web data, .. ? Thankfully I’ve had zero issues with Safari on Sequoia.

So Microsoft quality is good enough these days?

 

[Chungry]

So Microsoft quality is good enough these days?

Barney: “haaaaave you met my friend MacOS?”

 

[macsoundsolutions]

Safari in Sequoia has major issues for me. If I do a clean install and skip logging into iCloud, then it works but if I log into iCloud during sequoia install which syncs all my bookmarks etc, I can’t load websites and it also messes up my router so other devices cant get on the internet and I have to reboot my router. My fix was log into iCloud after install and it worked for a full day but then I got a message from iCloud there was a log in issue and to add my password again, then the safari bug was back…. Firefox works fine as long as I don’t launch safari. So icloud and Safari seem to be the issue for me. I have three iCloud email address @icloud, @me ,@Mac. It lists my @Mac as the primary I think I logged in with @Me. So maybe it needs to be the primary. I have no issues with Sonoma and safari.