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Uninstall Safari from Lion

L

Lunarstone

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 12, 2011
29
0
Singapore
Help! I don't care what happens or any consequences! I just want to completely remove Safari from my Mac! :confused: I've already downloaded the latest version of Safari from Apple.com
 
There's a 99.999% chance removing Safari will break AT LEAST one thing in OS X.

But if you really feel the need to remove Safari:
  1. Quit Safari and Restart
  2. Open Terminal
  3. Type: cd /Applications/
  4. Type: sudo rm -R Safari.app
  5. Enter your password
  6. Type: cd /private/var/db/receipts/
  7. Type: ls -al
  8. Make note of the Safari BOM's
  9. Remove them One by one Typeing: sudo pkgutil --forget PkgNameHere (ex: sudo pkgutil --forget com.apple.pkg.Safari)
Click to expand...

Next open Finder and delete:
(Note that ~ is your Home Folder.)
  • ~/Library/Safari/
  • ~/Library/Application\ Support/Safari/
  • ~/Library/PubSub/
  • ~/Library/Cookies/
  • ~/Library/Favorites/
  • ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/
  • ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.PubSubAgent/
  • ~/Library/Caches/WebProcess/
  • ~/Library/Caches/Safari\ Webpage\ Preview\ Fetcher/
  • ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/
  • ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.safari.savedState/
  • ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.PubSubAgent.plist
  • ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist
  • ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist
  • ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginHost.plist
  • ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess.plist
Click to expand...
I'm sure there are other files, but this should be most of them.


If you decide you do want Safari:
  1. Open up Terminal
  2. Type: cd ~/Downloads
  3. Type: curl -O "http://appldnld.apple.com/Safari5/041-2421.20111012.Mxtov/Safari5.1.1Lion.dmg"
Click to expand...
This will download the Safari 5.1.1 to your Downloads folder and then you can install it (Remember to repair disk permissions afterwards).
.​
 
Last edited:
yetanotherdave said:
*popcorn*
this will not end well.

Why not just not use it?
Click to expand...

I get this from customers a lot (as well as how to remove Quicktime.) With OSX its important to note that a lot of the base installed applications are core components. Removing Safari may seem harmless but Safari is so deeply integrated it could cause issues along the way. If you don't like Safari (which I hate) use something else. Firefox and Chrome both work great on OSX.
 
Mattie Num Nums said:
Drag and drop it into AppCleaner. It does a pretty thorough job if you are scared of the command line.
Click to expand...
Actually, it's not thorough at all. In most cases, app removal software doesn't do a thorough job of finding and removing files/folders related to deleted apps. For more information, read this.

The most effective method for complete app removal is manual deletion:
 
I am curious about what happened after Safari was removed?

I recently signed up for iTunes Match and it was not working at all.
The reason was that I had the privacy settings in Safari set to block all cookies.
It took me a couple of days to figure it out, Apple support docs are not helpful at all, and don't make any reference to this for Mac OS X, but one doc about Windows mentions something about cookies.

Anyway, if I block the cookies in Safari again, immediately get the message that iCloud services stopped working.

So, as posted above, Safari is an integral part of the internet services provided by Apple.

There is no obvious disclosure that Safari and the cookies are actually needed to run some of these Apple services.
 
Thank You!

Thank you very much for your help, I followed your instructions and I was able to remove Safari from my Mac.
 
How about stopping it from running?

Is there a way to stop Safari from running as a browser - without ripping it out of the OS? Can it be added to a 'disallow to run' list - maybe under Parental Controls?
 
I guess you can change the permissions therefore only the user(s) you want can run it.
To hide it from the finder change the name in the terminal to begin with a "."
 
Of course...now I feel stoopid!

... but it is an application that launches Safari to show its help pages, not a user that I want to block. Will keep you posted..
 
Sorted

Thank you. That has done the trick. Set Everyone to no permissions and app doesn't launch.
 
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