Safari 3.2.1 in Software Update

[Catfish_Man]

]Some of us KNOW that Unix based systems simply DO NOT NEED to reboot to install new software or hardware drivers or pretty much anything. There's a way to remove and reinstall everything without the downright ANNOYING need to reboot

This is untrue. Interestingly, the mach kernel design actually does allow this in most cases, but it ended up being too slow, so a moderately large number of drivers are in-kernel now. Doesn't apply to a Safari/WebKit update, since that's a higher level framework, but it does apply to some of the other updates.

Theoretically for this one they could have done a "please relaunch all apps that use webkit now" of course. It'd be difficult to make automatic though, and most people have no idea which apps use WebKit.

As an aside, "unix based" is a silly phrase. I sorta wish Apple would stop using it. "A weird mixture of mach, freebsd, netbsd, openbsd, some gnu stuff, and a lot of apple stuff" is a lot more accurate, although it doesn't really roll off the tongue. There's "unix certified" I suppose, but that doesn't say anything about kernel architecture or need to reboot.

And despite what some people seem to think, Safari is *NOT* part of the Apple operating system

This is untrue as well (see /Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework, and check the modification date). The bulk of Safari's functionality is in WebKit, and WebKit is updated with every Safari update. Just in case... before you try to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about here, please check for my name in file:///Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Resources/Acknowledgments.html .

<edit> heh, I assumed my name was in my profile here... guess not. I'm the David Smith in the webkit contributors list in that file </edit>

 

[Neil321]

Downloaded it last night, no problems here to report

 

[RichardI]

Humor me. Why shouldn't I use Safari.... or better yet what makes firefox better?

1. Speed - both starting up, and surfing from site to site. Noticeable difference.
2. Compatibility - there are still way too many web sites that do not recognise Safari and so don't work properly under it. Some that I visit regularly.
3. Features - Firefox has a lot of really useful features that Safari doesn't have. Mostly in the Preferences settings, but also under-the-covers security stuff.

I suggest you download it (it's free) and compare yourself.

Rich

 

[MrM]

For whatever reason, this update made Safari extremely laggy for me. It hangs up while loading pages. The 3.2 update ran perfectly fine for me...

 

[Stridder44]

1. Speed - both starting up, and surfing from site to site. Noticeable difference.
2. Compatibility - there are still way too many web sites that do not recognise Safari and so don't work properly under it. Some that I visit regularly.
3. Features - Firefox has a lot of really useful features that Safari doesn't have. Mostly in the Preferences settings, but also under-the-covers security stuff.

I suggest you download it (it's free) and compare yourself.

Rich

Oh please, I've been using Safari since it was first released and you've just spouted nothing but BS.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

1. Speed - both starting up, and surfing from site to site. Noticeable difference.
2. Compatibility - there are still way too many web sites that do not recognise Safari and so don't work properly under it. Some that I visit regularly.
3. Features - Firefox has a lot of really useful features that Safari doesn't have. Mostly in the Preferences settings, but also under-the-covers security stuff.

I suggest you download it (it's free) and compare yourself.

Rich

You didn't have a single specific point in there. And right now, at this moment, with the most updated nonbeta Safari and most updated nonbeta Firefox, Safari is faster at starting up and loading pages. Sure tomorrow Firefox might be faster, and Firefox has been faster in the past, but right now Safari is ahead. As for point 3, don't make me laugh. Undercover security stuff? Like what? and what would you need that for on a Mac? And point 2, the sites that don't recognize Safari are pretty likely to not recognize anything that isn't Internet Explorer.

 

[clevin]

As for point 3, don't make me laugh. Undercover security stuff? Like what? and what would you need that for on a Mac?

laugh? laugh because of what?

because safari can't do this, then this function MUST be USELESS.

pathetic logic.

features?
remembering multiple password on same page.
show WYSIWYG editor on this very macrumors forum
EV security
download manager resume download even after computer reboot, browser crash, OS crash
single click for your most visited website
out of box single window mode.

...

useless? when you gonna stop the ....... logic? I'm sorry I wasn't here for months to counter the self-righteous logic against non-apple products, but com'on, do you guys not feeling this type of statements childish?

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Theoretically for this one they could have done a "please relaunch all apps that use webkit now" of course. It'd be difficult to make automatic though, and most people have no idea which apps use WebKit.

Ok then, please enlighten us which *Apple* apps use WebKit other than Safari itself. I'm not really interested in 3rd party apps since I probably don't use them.

As an aside, "unix based" is a silly phrase. I sorta wish Apple would stop using it. "A weird mixture of mach, freebsd, netbsd, openbsd, some gnu stuff, and a lot of apple stuff" is a lot more accurate, although it doesn't

Calling Unix 'type' operating systems "something else" to avoid being sued by AT&T is what is silly, IMO. *ALL* of those are Unix based (as in derived one way or the other from the original Unix, even if reverse engineered). Everything else is semantics, IMO. They're all close brothers to each other and it's very easy to port software between them, relatively speaking.

This is untrue as well (see /Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework, and check the modification date). The bulk of Safari's functionality is in WebKit, and WebKit is updated with every Safari update. Just in case... before you try to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about here, please check for my name in file:///Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Resources/Acknowledgments.html .

So now we're talking about semantics over what's "part of the OS"? So it's in a directory and that makes it part of the Operating System? As in the core operating system? As in Finder is part of Safari or vice versa. I see no evidence of that. Compare that to Windows where Explorer and Internet Explorer ARE connected directly. What relation does Finder have to Safari? None that I can see. Heck, it might be better if it was.

Finder is pretty dated. Like I said, Pathfinder is MUCH better and if a 3rd party company can make a better finder than Apple in a short amount of time, what does that say about Apple's OS team? People have complained for YEARS about Finder and Apple have done almost nothing over that time. Adding the Dual Pane feature alone would make a HUGE difference (even my Amiga had dual-pane options with Diskmaster 2 and/or Directory Opus). I hate having to open two windows to move files easily from one place to another (without creating shortcuts for everything in the side-bar). You can't even sort by file size. Apple thinks you don't need options. They remind me a lot like McDonalds. You get it their way. If you like their way, everything is fine. If you don't, you have to jump through hoops to get what you want. While OS X is miles beyond Linux in many user friendly operations, themes and configurability is one area where both Windows and especially Linux wipe the floor with OS X. You don't even get the option to use the older Aqua look if you don't care for the metal grey look of Leopard. No options. I'm afraid we're dealing with Jobs of Borg. You will all be assimilated. Your desktop will all look the same except for the background picture. Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't try to force his favorite for that on everybody too.

 

[Catfish_Man]

Ok then, please enlighten us which *Apple* apps use WebKit other than Safari itself. I'm not really interested in 3rd party apps since I probably don't use them.

Help Viewer, Aperture, iChat, Mail, Xcode, Dictionary, DashCode, Dashboard (part of Dock.app), QuickLook (used in Finder.app among others). NSAttributedString (part of Cocoa) also uses WebKit internally.

Calling Unix 'type' operating systems "something else" to avoid being sued by AT&T is what is silly, IMO. *ALL* of those are Unix based (as in derived one way or the other from the original Unix, even if reverse engineered). Everything else is semantics, IMO. They're all close brothers to each other and it's very easy to port software between them, relatively speaking.

The differences between *nix systems can actually be very large. Considering something like say... Darwin/L4 (to use an exotic example) to be a descendant of AT&T UNIX is only true in the loosest of terms. Yes, the posix API that Darwin's libraries implement is descended from UNIX, but they're utterly different OS designs, with very different design tradeoffs involved.

So now we're talking about semantics over what's "part of the OS"? So it's in a directory and that makes it part of the Operating System? As in the core operating system? As in Finder is part of Safari or vice versa. I see no evidence of that. Compare that to Windows where Explorer and Internet Explorer ARE connected directly. What relation does Finder have to Safari? None that I can see. Heck, it might be better if it was.

The Finder is not part of the core operating system. It's just an app that happens to launch by default and gets a few extra privileges. For a while my brother replaced it with Terminal, actually. Safari isn't a core part of the OS either, but WebKit definitely is. So are expat, AppKit, libc, and all the other libraries included in OSX. Since WebKit is updated with every Safari update, I consider it part of Safari for purposes of software update discussion (i.e. this thread).

 

[nick9191]

Ah remember when Apple used to laugh at Windows users for having to restart over every damn thing.

 

[Neil321]

Ah remember when Apple used to laugh at Windows users for having to restart over every damn thing.

Why is everyone so bothered with their up time ? its a restart not the end of civilization

 

[RichardI]

He he. I always love the reactions of the fanboys whenever even the slightest hint is made that something Apple does isn't quite as good a someone else's.
Clevin, you are wasting your breath, that's why I just post and leave it at that. Details aren't really required - they know them as well as I do. I am a strong supporter of Apple's hardware and their OS. But there are some things that need improvement, or could be better, period. And there is nothing wrong with criticism - if Apple can't take criticism, they should get out of the business - that's how they get better. I have both Firefox and Safari installed on my Mac, but the one I use is Firefox.
We don't want Apple to become the MS of the 21st century do we???

Rich

 

[nick9191]

Why is everyone so bothered with their up time ? its a restart not the end of civilization

Doesn't bother me at all, in fact I enjoy it, it feels fresher after its been on a few days and you give it a nice restart. Stupid I know, although there is possibly some truth to it regarding the way OS X handles errors within the system.

I was just mocking the fact that not so long ago, one of the selling features of a Mac was not having to restart all the time.

Now if Apple could build an application that after an application install, would simply close and relaunch the relevant services, that would be amazing.

 

[megfilmworks]

For whatever reason, this update made Safari extremely laggy for me. It hangs up while loading pages. The 3.2 update ran perfectly fine for me...

Same here. More lag on page loading, more "beachball from hell" too.

 

[Jackal-Head]

You can't even sort by file size.

Say WHAT? Oh dear, that means I must have imagined sorting by file size in Finder all the time when I had been doing something else entirely.

 

[trondah]

Finder is pretty dated. Like I said, Pathfinder is MUCH better and if a 3rd party company can make a better finder than Apple in a short amount of time, what does that say about Apple's OS team? People have complained for YEARS about Finder and Apple have done almost nothing over that time. Adding the Dual Pane feature alone would make a HUGE difference (even my Amiga had dual-pane options with Diskmaster 2 and/or Directory Opus). I hate having to open two windows to move files easily from one place to another (without creating shortcuts for everything in the side-bar). You can't even sort by file size. Apple thinks you don't need options. They remind me a lot like McDonalds. You get it their way. If you like their way, everything is fine. If you don't, you have to jump through hoops to get what you want. While OS X is miles beyond Linux in many user friendly operations, themes and configurability is one area where both Windows and especially Linux wipe the floor with OS X. You don't even get the option to use the older Aqua look if you don't care for the metal grey look of Leopard. No options. I'm afraid we're dealing with Jobs of Borg. You will all be assimilated. Your desktop will all look the same except for the background picture. Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't try to force his favorite for that on everybody too.

And what makes you different from Apple? You want it your way. Did you ever stop to think that not everybody likes dual pane? It's a matter of opinion, not everybody can have their way. Most people are satisfied with the choices Apple made, that's why they are enjoying success.

FYI, they are rewriting Finder for Snow Leopard. Oh, and you should probably take a closer look at Finder, you can definately sort by file size.

 

[dejo]

As for point 3, don't make me laugh. Undercover security stuff? Like what?

features?
remembering multiple password on same page.
show WYSIWYG editor on this very macrumors forum
EV security
download manager resume download even after computer reboot, browser crash, OS crash
single click for your most visited website
out of box single window mode.

Only 2 out of those 6 have to do with security, let alone undercover security. The ones in bold don't.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

And what makes you different from Apple? You want it your way. Did you ever stop to think that not everybody likes dual pane? It's a matter of opinion, not everybody can have their way. Most people are satisfied with the choices Apple made, that's why they are enjoying success.

What makes me different is I don't try to CRAM my preferences down other people's throats like Apple does. If I were in charge, I would offer a CHOICE. Pathfinder has a button you click to engage dual-pane mode, for example. It doesn't FORCE you to use it. It offers you more choices than Apple's finder. What I find ridiculous is why fanboys are consistently more interested in being apologists or attacking other people's legitimate complaints about Apple's operating system than offering suggestions on how Apple could IMPROVE it. I guess this is because they believe that everything Apple does is perfect and doesn't need any improving or to offer more choices to its users. As for enjoying success, that depends on how you measure it. Apple measures it by dollars made by monopolizing their hardware market for OS X. They do not do it by having all that large of a percentage of the operating system market in general. Clearly, you measure it by dollars also, not happy users.

As for sort by size, I guess I misread the complaints people had with finder they were discussing on the Pathfinder review. I'll have to take another look at the article.

 

[PrinceAlexander]

Same here. More lag on page loading, more "beachball from hell" too.

Yeah, I'm having the same issue. I'm not sure what the hell happened with this update, but it is much much worse.

 

[mca2]

Yeah, I'm having the same issue. I'm not sure what the hell happened with this update, but it is much much worse.

Same problem here. Ever since i updated to 3.2.1 on my 1.33GHz iBook Safari freezes whilst generating an awful lot of hard disk noise. Just like it's swapping memory or something. Restarting, clearing cache etc hasn't helped me so far.

So i ditched Safari for the moment and back to Firefox.

Any suggestions?

 

[Catfish_Man]

Same problem here. Ever since i updated to 3.2.1 on my 1.33GHz iBook Safari freezes whilst generating an awful lot of hard disk noise. Just like it's swapping memory or something. Restarting, clearing cache etc hasn't helped me so far.

So i ditched Safari for the moment and back to Firefox.

Any suggestions?

You could use the fs_usage command (or Instruments if you have it installed) in terminal to watch what files it's reading and writing. Be aware that the output is pretty spammy and a bit hard to interpret though.

 

[OldGuyDave]

I have had frequent Safari crashes that started with 3.1, now seem even more frequent with 3.2. Seem to happen more or less 15 minutes into browsing. As far as I can tell, no specific sites. Have new iMac with latest Leopard 10.5.5. Is this common? Is there a quick or relatively easy fix? Thanks.

Oh oh, I have exactly the same problem in the same type of system, 15 min. surfing and then it crashes.
Damn I didn't expect this from Apple! I loved Safari till the update.
Back to Firefox i guess!

 

[OldGuyDave]

Oh oh, I have exactly the same problem in the same type of system, 15 min. surfing and then it crashes.
Damn I didn't expect this from Apple! I loved Safari till the update.
Back to Firefox i guess!

While browsing here I had two crashes! This is NOT normal. Does anyone know how I can downgrade, please? This is a total catastrophe!

 

[Catfish_Man]

Post crashlogs please? I can probably figure out what's going on.

 

[OldGuyDave]

Post crashlogs please? I can probably figure out what's going on.

Well there pretty long, post it here?