New Safari Web Browser Features Coming in macOS High Sierra

[djlythium]

I thought Safari in Sierra had Stop Autoplay already, but I guess it was just stop plug-ins. This new feature seems way more useful. Maybe it will finally stop stupid Yahoo videos, amongst others.

 

[truthertech]

How did you get Ghostery installed?

I checked the site, and it’s very outdated. It’s for Safari 5.4.10, Chrome 7.2.2, and Firefox 7.2.2. On my Mac, I have Safari 10.1.1, Chrome 57.0.2987.133, and Firefox 53.0.3.

That's just poor choice of wording on Ghostery's site. They should have worded it as it's version 5.4 of Ghostery for Safari , but they wrote "Ghostery for Safari 5.4. Ditto for Firefox, as it is Version 7.2.2 of Ghostery for Firefox and works with Firefox 48 I believe. If you check their website, they update all the time with Firefox. They are going to correct their wording to avoid confusion.

Ghostery works beautifully well and is actually the database that others, I believe Adblock Plus?, use as the most up to date for trackers. Once you use a tracker blocker like Ghostery, you'll never go back as it opens your eyes to how pervasive and intrusive they are. It also will educate you how dangerous Google's efforts are as whether or not you are using a Google product, they are the primary installer of trackers. I guess that's why Google had to drop their corporate motto of "Do No Evil." Remember, if you use Adblock Plus, check your settings and consider not allowing "acceptable ads," as that let's Google and Facebook through. The two biggest abusers of privacy on the planet.

For example, if I turn off blocking on MR, you'll see that they are allowing over 20 trackers to be installed! Even though I don't use Google products, Google tries to install these trackers on me on this web site. We need legislation to make everything opt in. Google "does" Evil.

Google Adsense
Google Analytics
Google Publisher Tags
Google Safeframe
Google Tag Manager

 

[ghostface147]

Cnn.com is a big offender.

 

[DrewDaHilp1]

The preset zoom mode will probably lead me back to Safari. That is the only reason I use Chrome.

 

[BWhaler]

That's what tracking prevention does.

Though only for sites you don't directly interact with; you probably wouldn't want to continually lose settings for sites you actually use.

This new system may stop pervasive tracking as currently architected on the web, but the reality is right now every single Ad Network + Google + Facebook + Verizon, et al. are working with the betas to find work-arounds. And you won't really know if Apple's approach has been cracked or is even working.

I want the ability to crush all cookies, all cached data at a set interval. This stops all tracking from all parties, including first party.

For me, and I may be a rare exception, but it is reassuring to know that at a set interval my entire online tracking presence disappears to firms I have not agreed to do business with or for companies like Google and Facebook who do not share the extent of their tracking beyond what you can see in your account. Because Safari saves passwords, it's not a big deal to re-login—just hit return at the login screen—once a week or once a month in the name of increased privacy,

There are OK solutions for this in the App Store, but they don't work perfectly, and I'd love to see Apple solve this one and for all.

 

[Sasparilla]

Its nice to see Apple continuing to put the time and energy into Safari, its a nice browser.

Cnn.com is a big offender.

It's interesting, with them and alot of other sites, if you have Ghostery you'll see a good amount of tracking cookies trying to be loaded and blocked, but if you turn it off (and let it continue counting them) they really shoot up. So CNN was showing 16 cookies (most blocked) with Ghostery on, but disable it for CNN and that numbers go up to 26 and I've seen other news sites (like LA times etc.) with numbers over 50 (and it takes time to load all that tracking goo on your machine).

It'll be interesting to see how Apple's solution works, but in the mean time Ghostery keeps the tracking low and the page load times lower (its noticeable). At this point, except for my banking (which I use a separate browser user instance with its own settings for that keeps its cookies around) on my daily driver I have my cookies wiped away every time I close my browser. YMMV..

 

[philipmv]

Still no favicons for easy tab identifying.

 

[allanfries]

I'm looking forward to this one, for sure!

 

[Lennyvalentin]

I want the ability to crush all cookies, all cached data at a set interval. This stops all tracking from all parties, including first party.

Er, just open a privacy mode window and surf away. Then when you want to purge everything, you close the relevant tab(s)...

What I would like to see is blocking for iOS Safari as well - maybe that's coming, I didn't see it specifically pointed out. Often these days when I'm surfing on my phone and a video ad appears on a page, the music in my earphones stop, even though the video itself isn't running. This means I need to swap back to Spotify and manually re-start the music, then return to Safari to continue reading, until the same thing happens again...and again and again.

Really irritating.

 

[Spendlove]

All great features. The one that stood out for me the most was the opening a page in readable format instantly. Now that is a game changer right there which will cut out the guff from a web page.

Thank you Apple x x x

 

[sw1tcher]

One feature I would absolutely love to see in Safari is the ability to blacklist cookies for specific sites like you can in Firefox. I like using Safari as it's pretty darn fast and light weight, but until Safari gets this option, Firefox will continue to be my main browser.

 

[Michael Goff]

That's just poor choice of wording on Ghostery's site. They should have worded it as it's version 5.4 of Ghostery for Safari , but they wrote "Ghostery for Safari 5.4. Ditto for Firefox, as it is Version 7.2.2 of Ghostery for Firefox and works with Firefox 48 I believe. If you check their website, they update all the time with Firefox. They are going to correct their wording to avoid confusion.

Ghostery works beautifully well and is actually the database that others, I believe Adblock Plus?, use as the most up to date for trackers. Once you use a tracker blocker like Ghostery, you'll never go back as it opens your eyes to how pervasive and intrusive they are. It also will educate you how dangerous Google's efforts are as whether or not you are using a Google product, they are the primary installer of trackers. I guess that's why Google had to drop their corporate motto of "Do No Evil." Remember, if you use Adblock Plus, check your settings and consider not allowing "acceptable ads," as that let's Google and Facebook through. The two biggest abusers of privacy on the planet.

For example, if I turn off blocking on MR, you'll see that they are allowing over 20 trackers to be installed! Even though I don't use Google products, Google tries to install these trackers on me on this web site. We need legislation to make everything opt in. Google "does" Evil.

Google Adsense
Google Analytics
Google Publisher Tags
Google Safeframe
Google Tag Manager

People throw out evil far too readily. Also, making everything opt in would be pointless.

 

[macguru212]

Great feature - auto play videos should be made illegal!

 

[pgwalsh]

The Brave browser is faster than Safari and it performs blocking very well. I hope it gets more popular.

 

[truthertech]

People throw out evil far too readily. Also, making everything opt in would be pointless.

Creating massive databases on individuals throughout the world that link every email sent or received, who they associate with, every photograph, everywhere they drive, what they read, watch, listen to, every document, what sites they visit, what they post, etc., so that is available to law enforcement, totalitarian governments, intel agencies, hackers, criminals, insurance companies, etc.? I'd call that evil.
[doublepost=1497303394][/doublepost]

Creating massive databases on individuals throughout the world that link every email sent or received, who they associate with, every photograph, everywhere they drive, what they read, watch, listen to, every document, what sites they visit, what they post, etc., so that is available to law enforcement, totalitarian governments, intel agencies, hackers, criminals, insurance companies, etc.? I'd call that evil.

And what shows you how wrong you are about "opt in" is how desperately Google, Facebook and others fight against it and spend huge amounts of money to stop. The best thing about opt in is the awareness it creates. I dare say that if every person who used gmail had to click off on an affirmative statement that they were giving Google permission to scan and keep forever every email sent and received, many would think twice. Or, if they had to affirmative agree to give Google a perpetual worldwide license to use their photos, including that of their kids, in exchange for using Google Photos for "free" they'd think twice. And if they had to give Google permission to link all of their information with a "universal identifying" number, many would not agree. Or if Google had to tell them that law enforcement could get all of that information with a subpoena. Or if Google had to tell them that there is nothing to keep them from selling/transferring that data to other companies in the future, and the terms of use could change at any time as long as they were given a copy of the new privacy policy.

 

[Michael Goff]

Creating massive databases on individuals throughout the world that link every email sent or received, who they associate with, every photograph, everywhere they drive, what they read, watch, listen to, every document, what sites they visit, what they post, etc., so that is available to law enforcement, totalitarian governments, intel agencies, hackers, criminals, insurance companies, etc.? I'd call that evil.
[doublepost=1497303394][/doublepost]

And what shows you how wrong you are about "opt in" is how desperately Google, Facebook and others fight against it and spend huge amounts of money to stop. The best thing about opt in is the awareness it creates. I dare say that if every person who used gmail had to click off on an affirmative statement that they were giving Google permission to scan and keep forever every email sent and received, many would think twice. Or, if they had to affirmative agree to give Google a perpetual worldwide license to use their photos, including that of their kids, in exchange for using Google Photos for "free" they'd think twice. And if they had to give Google permission to link all of their information with a "universal identifying" number, many would not agree. Or if Google had to tell them that law enforcement could get all of that information with a subpoena. Or if Google had to tell them that there is nothing to keep them from selling/transferring that data to other companies in the future, and the terms of use could change at any time as long as they were given a copy of the new privacy policy.

I don’t think you know how Google works or why they do what they do.

 

[steve333]

Does this mean I don't need ghostery anymore? I like ti but many website functions don't work with it fully enabled so I have to allow some beacons, etc.

 

[Howl's Castle]

This really makes me wish Apple would continue making Safari for Windows. I hate using Edge/IE/Chrome/FF/etc. I always loved Safari.

 

[UL2RA]

Still no favicons for easy tab identifying.

I think it's funny that we all have our preferences. I hate favicons because they take up too much room on the favorites toolbar.

 

[steve333]

How did you get Ghostery installed?

I checked the site, and it’s very outdated. It’s for Safari 5.4.10, Chrome 7.2.2, and Firefox 7.2.2. On my Mac, I have Safari 10.1.1, Chrome 57.0.2987.133, and Firefox 53.0.3.

Get it at the app store
[doublepost=1497309531][/doublepost]

Worse yet is that Apple has put these webpage/websites on notice so they will have 4 months to find a way around this and trust me they will.

It will be interesting once High Sierra rolls out because it would be a major accomplish by Apple if they can make browsing even faster because generally when you put as blockers and other blocking stuff turned on it generally slows down your browsing not speeds it up.

I find ghostery speeds it up unless there is a beacon or widget that I have to unblock for certain websites. That can be a pain

 

[truthertech]

I don’t think you know how Google works or why they do what they do.

Oh, I know exactly how Google works, I work closely with folks who operate in the same area, and it's no secret why Google does what they do. Like Facebook, they would go out of business overnight if they were unable to sell access to advertisers.

Over 90% of Google's revenues comes from the ad business; thus they are not only incentivized to gather every single bit of data about everyone, they can't survive without it. Most advertising dollars are wasted in that they reach people other than their intended audience. As Google builds ever more intrusive dossier's through the use of a "universal identifying number" the value of that data increases exponentially. For example, a divorce lawyer who specializes in high value divorces who advertises to a "generic" audience is wasting a lot of marketing budget, but if Google can provide a list of people that Google knows from their emails are going through marital problems, that have a certain level of income and assets, that live in a certain area, etc., now that's gold. Having your photo linked to that information is even more powerful as Google can tie into store cameras, etc., to let a store know your profile when you enter, or are nearby, etc. Since Google knows everywhere you drive, they can sell access to you to the stores along your route . The potential is limitless.

Of course, once that data is collected, Google isn't going to sell the data itself, at this point, only access to it. However, once that data is assembled, of course it is subject to release upon court order, or to hackers, or intel agencies or evil governments, or future transfer/sale, e.g., insurance companies who only want list of "healthy" individuals, not folks who smoke, drink excessively, don't exercise, etc., all of which Google knows about you, and without legislation, you can't unring that bell once Google/Facebook, etc., have created that dossier on you.

 

[DoctorTech]

This will continue to be a battle -- the advertisers will not take this sitting down. MarketingLand published "How Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention works & why Google/Facebook could benefit most" two days after the keynote. As noted in this WebKit blog article "Intelligent Tracking Prevention", there is a 24-hour window where cookies will be more widely available. The marketeers will exploit this window -- count on it.

Apple: please give users the option of shutting down this window. Consider making it the default behavior.

MarketingLand also notes an article by a blog article by privacy expert Alexander Hanff "Apple Safari's Intelligent Tracking Prevention can not prevent tracking." Apple's changes will clearly help, but we may need to have legislation to stop certain server-side tracking.

I switched from Chrome to Safari about 6 months ago. It took time to adapt, but I'm glad I did it. I also use DuckDuckGo as my default search engine. Every little bit helps.



Follow the links above to see what the industry is saying about it. I'm certain the marketeers have "developer" accounts and have already started poking and prodding the macOS and iOS betas.

I agree completely, every little bit does help. A good VPN service is another step (my personal favorite is privateinternetaccess.com). VPNs offer an additional layer of privacy with a minimal hit to speed and a nominal annual cost).

 

[Michael Goff]

Oh, I know exactly how Google works, I work closely with folks who operate in the same area, and it's no secret why Google does what they do. Like Facebook, they would go out of business overnight if they were unable to sell access to advertisers.

Over 90% of Google's revenues comes from the ad business; thus they are not only incentivized to gather every single bit of data about everyone, they can't survive without it. Most advertising dollars are wasted in that they reach people other than their intended audience. As Google builds ever more intrusive dossier's through the use of a "universal identifying number" the value of that data increases exponentially. For example, a divorce lawyer who specializes in high value divorces who advertises to a "generic" audience is wasting a lot of marketing budget, but if Google can provide a list of people that Google knows from their emails are going through marital problems, that have a certain level of income and assets, that live in a certain area, etc., now that's gold. Having your photo linked to that information is even more powerful as Google can tie into store cameras, etc., to let a store know your profile when you enter, or are nearby, etc. Since Google knows everywhere you drive, they can sell access to you to the stores along your route . The potential is limitless.

Of course, once that data is collected, Google isn't going to sell the data itself, at this point, only access to it. However, once that data is assembled, of course it is subject to release upon court order, or to hackers, or intel agencies or evil governments, or future transfer/sale, e.g., insurance companies who only want list of "healthy" individuals, not folks who smoke, drink excessively, don't exercise, etc., all of which Google knows about you, and without legislation, you can't unring that bell once Google/Facebook, etc., have created that dossier on you.

So why are you acting like Google has a database “on individuals” instead of the “groups to sell spaces for ads”. They don’t exactly have a folder named Michael Goff and a long list of things about me.

 

[cruggles]

"Privacy Badger detected 17 potential trackers on this page."

This is from MacRumours main page.

 

[Erdbeertorte]

Disclaimer: Of course it is disabled on MacRumors. And because I am a demi-goddes I rarely see any ad anyway...



Everything you need is Adguard (Pro). I just got a life time licence for just a little more than 5€. But you need to find it by yourself how it works that cheap. And one year is free + a free beta version of Adguard Pro if you participate in the TestFlight program.

With the systemwide application enabled it looks like that for third party ad/strackers:

And with the free browser extension alone it's a little more:

Ghostery has problems with the new Safari APIs, so it's still in version 5.4.10, they explain it somewhere on their website but I can't find it at the moment. It's still working like always with:

Only the new design layout is missing.


You could also install that one now:

https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/releases


But please don't use it on MacRumors. It's against the forum rules even to write about content blocking, at least if MR could be involved.

I hope my post won't get deleted because of that...


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Julie Blulie
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Edit: I am using Chrome Canary or even the latest unstable build of Chromium, sometimes Vivaldi or Opera (without any blocker enabled most of the time)

Safari is getting worse and worse with every new version. It can't even play some YouTube videos without stopping the picture and going on with the sound. Some websites look also like a mess. Everything was fine on my almost 6 Year old fasted MacBook Pro I could get until some Safari updates ago.