Apple Updates Safari 5 to Officially Activate Extensions

[MacRumors]

Apple today announced that it has released Safari 5.0.1, officially launching the "extensions" feature that it partially activated last month with the initial release of Safari 5 to permit developers to begin work on their plug-ins. Extensions from third-party developers allow users to extend browser functionality far beyond that offered in the basic application.

Apple today released Safari® 5.0.1, turning on Safari Extensions and introducing the Safari Extensions Gallery. Apple introduced extensions support in Safari 5 in June so developers could begin creating extensions with HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript web standards. With Safari Extensions Gallery, users can quickly find extensions that add powerful new features to Safari, from toolbars that display live web feeds to sophisticated programs that filter web content. Safari 5.0.1 allows users to download and install extensions either from the Safari Extensions Gallery or directly from a developer's site.

"Safari 5 has been a big hit, and user response to the innovative new Safari Reader has been fantastic," said Brian Croll, Apple's vice president of OS X Product Marketing. "We're thrilled to see so many leading developers creating great extensions and think our users are going to love being able to customize Safari."

Apple has also launched its Safari Extensions Gallery, allowing easy access from the "Safari" menu for users to browse and install featured extensions. The gallery already features extensions from such companies as Twitter, The New York Times, The Weather Channel, Amazon, and eBay, as well as a host of smaller developers.

Apple has been inviting developers to submit their extensions for consideration for inclusion in the Safari Extensions Gallery and has thus been able to hit the ground running with a significant library of plug-ins. Users are not limited to extensions featured in the Safari Extensions Gallery, however, as extensions are hosted by the developers themselves and users are free to install them from anywhere.

Article Link: Apple Updates Safari 5 to Officially Activate Extensions

 

[adztaylor]

About time!

 

[cleanup]

Finally! Firefox and Chrome have been leaps and bounds above Safari for me for precisely this reason.

 

[mikes63737]

Hopefully there are some stability updates included as well...

 

[darthraige]

Hope this fixes all the crashes its been having.

 

[Max(IT)]

In my experience extensions lead to instability, so I'm not sure about what to do.

 

[mobi]

Hopefully it took so long because it will trump all others?

 

[tallyho]

Hmm so this will allow me to recreate that authentic Internet Explorer experience by having a million crappy toolbars taking up nearly all of my browser window! Yay...

 

[Shanpdx]

hope this fixes DNS related slowness ...

downloaded and checking, still looks same

reset safari, reset airport extreme

hmmm, not sure safari slow or just macrumors site is slow

 

[UkMacFan]

Please let it sort out speed and crashes as well!

These are the notes with the update

New in this update:
Safari Extensions
Customize Safari with features created by third-party developers
Find extensions in the Safari Extensions Gallery, accessible from the Safari menu and extensions.apple.com

This update also contains improvements to stability, accessibility and security, including the following:
More accurate Top Hit results in the Address Field
More accurate timing for CSS animations
Better stability when using the Safari Reader keyboard shortcut
Better stability when scrolling through MobileMe Mail
Fixes display of multipage articles from http://www.rollingstone.com in Safari Reader
Fixes an issue that prevented Google Wave and other websites using JavaScript encryption libraries from working correctly on 32-bit systems
Fixes an issue that prevented Safari from launching on Leopard systems with network home directories
Fixes an issue that could cause borders on YouTube thumbnails to disappear when hovering over the thumbnail image
Fixes an issue that could cause Flash content to overlap with other content on http://www.facebook.com, http://www.crateandbarrel.com, and other sites when using Flash 10.1
Fixes an issue that prevented boarding passes from http://www.aa.com from printing correctly
Fixes an issue that could cause DNS prefetching requests to overburden certain routers
Fixes an issue that could cause VoiceOver to misidentify elements of webpages
For detailed information on the security content of this update, please visit this site: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

 

[Shanpdx]

Fixes an issue that could cause DNS prefetching requests to overburden certain routers

this item i thought causing safari 5.0 to slow on iMac/Airport Extreme

let me see few days whether this fixed or not...

Safari 4.x was darn fast on iMac, not sure what happened with 5.0

 

[Salacion]

Yes Finally! I've been waiting forever for this.

What extensions do you want to see? Mine:

Combine Search and Address Bar.
Tabs Up Top.
Ignore Webpage Font.

So far though, all I see are News/Sports/Website Feeds. Very few actual alteration extensions for Safari. Maybe I need to look harder.

EDIT: Actually, there's some pretty cool extensions.

 

[AAPLaday]

Hope this fixes all the crashes its been having.

Agreed, i been getting crashes 3-4 times a day

 

[oahazmatt]

I don't think I'll be installing any extensions. I've seen fresh installations of IE and Firefox go straight to performance hell the moment someone installs a toolbar for something or other.

 

[Orion27]

I moved away from Safari because it became such a memory hog. Firefox seems to handle memory, incrementally, more efficiently.

 

[3583582]

Yes Finally! I've been waiting forever for this.

What extensions do you want to see? Mine:

Combine Search and Address Bar.
Tabs Up Top.

Definitely. That's what I need to leave Chrome for Safari again, and I do badly want to make that switch.

 

[Cynicalone]

Not much in the gallery yet. But the MLB and TWC Extension's are nice enough I suppose.

 

[adztaylor]

So far I've only installed the WOT security extension, just puts a simple button next to the web bar and warns you if a website has a poor reputation. Nothing else I particular want from there.

 

[Compile 'em all]

In my experience extensions lead to instability, so I'm not sure about what to do.

What experience is that exactly? Have you had extensions in Safari before?

 

[Stella]

Hopefully it took so long because it will trump all others?

I doubt it - extensions in other browsers are far more flexible than what you can do with Safari.

Hmm so this will allow me to recreate that authentic Internet Explorer experience by having a million crappy toolbars taking up nearly all of my browser window! Yay...

Well, you have to install them yourself, so if you do end up with 'millions of crappy toolbars', then you have only yourself to blame!

 

[sacredgeometry]

Whilst its exciting to know i can now make plugins for my goto browser, the only plugin i would want in safari is stumble button (oh and 64bit support for divx). once thats there i can uninstall firefox for good.

 

[sswanky]

Hope this fixes all the crashes its been having.

Amen! While the addition of extensions is interesting and all, it's all for not if Safari 5 wigs out regularly. Not only does it crash, but Safari 5 seems to have particular trouble with Flash (bag of hurt, I know). The big for example for me is running Pandora while working/surfing on the net. Pandora staggers, hiccups, chokes, skips while other pages open and/or refresh. Never a problem on Safari 4 (or 3...). My (temp) solution is to run Pandora in Firefox while surfing in Safari. Not ideal but it keeps Pandora from stuttering.

 

[Morod]

I loves me some updates!

I installed the Safari AdBlocker. Let's hope it works.

 

[overminer]

Much snappier!

 

[knightlie]

Great.

I'm looking forward to the extensions that appear. I'm already using Feedly and Adblock. I've finally dumped FireFox and it's bloaty and unnecessary features.

I just wish Safari's Reader indicator was a little more visible, I keep forgetting it's there. I need to get used to checking more often.