Appletell

Safari has recently made the news quite a bit, but not for reasons Apple should be proud of.  First, back in February, Safari was caught red handed using undocumented API’s that were not yet available to third party developers.  These frameworks were said to give Safari a speed edge over other browsers and sparked a minor controversy stating that Safari was “crippling” other browsers.  Then, in March, iTunes users on PC’s received a nice little surprise in the Apple Software Updater.  What was this?  Apparently, Safari 3.1 was included with the iTunes update, causing Windows users and the Mozilla’s CEO to accuse Apple of “forcing” the download on their customers.  Not to shortly after, also in March, a MacBook Air was the first to fall in this year’s Pwn2Own hack contest.  How did this happen?  The hacker, Charlie Miller, achieved access of the system through a Safari security bug that involved opening a port the hacker could telnet through.  Soon after this, in April, some Firefox users ran tests with the new Firefox 3.0 beta 5 and found it to be faster than Safari 3.1, just shortly after Apple claimed Safari was the “fastest browser.” That’s three bad months in a row.  Get it together, Apple.  If you claim Safari is, “[T]he world’s best browser,” on your site, make sure it is.  Right now people are really upset with it and that’s no way to get its market share up.

However, despite all this bad news, Safari is still a great, functional browser.  Getting a 100/100 on the most recent Acid 3 Test proves one of Safari’s strong points, web standards.  This is great for web developers and really eases the process of making a website.  Another area Safari is glowing is the mobile browsing marketplace as it is the most popular mobile browser in the US. So come on Apple, you can do better.  I love Safari, so give me more reasons to stick with it.

Macworld has posted a great tip for users of the latest Safari 3.1 in Leopard. If you double-click in an empty space in the tab bar, Safari will create a new empty tab - it’s that simple. Prior to 3.1, you would have to use a third-party plugin like Saft for this to work - but in 3.1 it is included. This is a very useful trick that will save you time creating new tabs. I personally like using the keyboard shortcut: Command+T for creating new tabs, as it works in Firefox too, and is very similar on Windows (Control+T). Of course, for this trick to work, you’ll need to have the tab bar visible; you can do this by going to View>Show Tab Bar. Safari will now remember that you have the tab bar visible, even after you quit Safari. To hide it, just go to View>Hide Tab Bar.

Via [Macworld]

This Tuesday’s Apple release is not a hardware product, but a much-needed update to its Safari browser: 3.1. The update “is recommended for all Safari users and features improvements to stability, compatibility, JavaScript performance and security.” Some new improvements in Safari 3.1 include:

• Better JavaScript performance, site compatibility and application stability
• Support for CSS 3 web fonts, transforms and transitions
• Several developer features such as access to Web Inspector and Network Timeline, support for custom user access string and improved snipper editor
• Double clicking on the Tab Bar opens new tab (goodbye, Twicetab—you’ll be missed)
• Opens Download and Activity window in current Space
• Shows Caps Lock icon in password fields
• Improved security

If you haven’’t already downloaded it, you can do so by opening Software Update (Mac or Windows), or alternatively going to Apple’s Safari website.

Via [MacUser]