Anyone dare to try Safari 4 beta?

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

I want faster but I don't think I'm going to do a beta.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

After reading this?

<http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20090225001025963>

Don't think so!

:(

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

After the Firefox 3.0.5 disaster, I won't even look at 3.0.6.
Doesn't Apple even try this stuff? Sure it's beta , but it's not supposed to be fatal.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

I have Firefox 3.0.6.

No problems noticed so far.

[PSh...@adobeforums.com]

No problem with Safari 4 here after two days. Actually, it rocks! Much faster than any other browser I've used, including all versions of Firefox. It really is fast.

Not crazy about some of the GUI changes like having the tabs on top, but thankfully, there's a way to change it.

<http://www.macworld.com/article/139004/2009/02/safari4_tabbar.html>

[Unknown]

Wow, even this forum loads fast.
Glad to see that SafariBlock still works with Vb4.

[Gary_P...@adobeforums.com]

I've been using Safari 4b on my home machine since it became available. Seems very stable, and very fast. No problems yet. I will wait a while before I decide if I want to risk installing it on my work machine.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Can Safari accept add-ons like Greasemonkey, Forum Toolbar, etc.?

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Lundberg02,

There were no problems with Firefox 3.5. You happened to have a bad install or problems with your setup. Firefox 3.6 has no problems either.

[Welles_...@adobeforums.com]

Safari 4 is great for visually oriented GUI fans. Oh yes it is by far the fastest render in cyberspace. I've used it for two days. Knew enough to get rid of all my old input items and Safari mods first so no crashes here. I'm particularly fond of Top Sites and cover flow History. Unlike some I like the tabs at the top. They are simply placed in the location of window title bars which does make sense to me.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Knew enough to get rid of all my old input items

?

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

Ramon, tell that Firefox story to any of the hundreds of complainers on the bitchfest web sites. FF 2 has never had a problem. 3 was a FPOC.
I'm going to wait for Safari 4.2.1, even though my hatred of 3.2 whatever grows by every passing minute.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

You're the first one whose complaint about FF 3.5 I've ever read, Lundberg02. :/

[PSh...@adobeforums.com]

Welles -

Unlike some I like the tabs at the top. They are simply placed in the
location of window title bars which does make sense to me.

I told myself I'd give it some time to get acclimated but the tabs at the top just felt wrong. I realize you gain a bit of vertical space but with my default page of 15 tabs, it felt really cramped up there. I also kept thinking I had a single page open because there were no tabs at the bottom.

One other thing I changed was to revert back to the old way of the blue page-loading progress bar in the URL area, rather than the small spinning wheel off to the right. It was just too subtle. The only problem in doing this is that you no longer have a reload button, but I use a programmed mouse button for that anyway.

I'm still exploring but I do like the top sites feature.

The customized CSS style sheet I use to block ads works as usual. Didn't even think to disable it prior to install and there were no problems.

Overall, it's a great upgrade. The speed is fab! :-)

-phil

[Wade_Zi...@adobeforums.com]

It is speedy I just installed and except for the fact that I can't restart my Mac or launch any other applications and lost most of my archive data and images and it fried my flash cards and my iPod will not play music after I disconnected it from the Mac and I have been attack by at least a half dozen hackers through various security leaks and they have gone an spent over a $100,00 on my credit cards and emptied my bank accounts, it seems to be working fine and as Phil wrote it works really fast as all of the above happened in the last five minutes.

Hey, but there is always a price for progress.

[Phosąfour dots]

There's also a price to be paid for being a super-early adopter who installs stuff without taking proper precautions, and without being prepared for disaster.

Then, there are some of us who wait, and read user reports and info from reliable sources about how to mitigate disaster, how to fix problems, and/or how to avoid problems altogether.

Have at it, my sweet, sweet herd of personal Beta testers!

%D :)

[Wade_Zi...@adobeforums.com]

It works fine, and is fast.

I have been beta testing software for over twelve years and my Mac would be more likely to go down then anyone if there were something wrong I constantly have untested software of all kinds on this Mac and all is excellent.

[PSh...@adobeforums.com]

Then, there are some of us who wait, and read user reports and info from
reliable sources about how to mitigate disaster, how to fix problems,
and/or how to avoid problems altogether.

Then, there's another group of us who've been around long enough to know that 99% of ALL user reported problems are caused by said user. If my installs lived or died by the MacFixit sword, I'd never install a thing.

I take user problem reports with a huge grain of salt. Good thing ... I mean, just LOOK at all these Photoshop problems being reported here!

There's a difference between being cautious and overly paranoid. When you have proper backups, cautious is more than you need.

But you're welcome ... ;)

-phil

[Phosąfour dots]

It's not about paranoia, Phil, but about efficient use of my time.

Jeebus knows I've installed a bargeload of betas, games, shareware, demos, and even some blackhat stuff.

But when it comes to the major apps—ones I already have now or might like to depend on in the future, I like to watch and wait a little bit. I read the reports so that I'm forearmed. If I have a problem I usually remember reading about it, and I'll know just where to go to find out if it's fixable, and what the steps are.

[Wade_Zi...@adobeforums.com]

Phil's point is that the software may is usually not the problem, but if you are one of those people who always encounters problems then you are best to stay away.

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

Safari tabs are so annoying in the first place that I don't give a damn where they put them.
I use Firefox for real work.
I may make a bootable backup on one of my spinning spares and install the beta just to check the speed and then wait for the first gold release.

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

Safari has been so damn slow lately that I decided to install the 4 beta on one of my internal backups and test it. The first discovery was that it won't install if you haven't installed 2009-1 Security, so I did that and the Java and iTunes 8.1.
The 4 beta was next and I opened it. It gives you a start page of blocks of websites you visit, for some reason that I didn't initiate. Why it selects in the order it does is also unknown. The page is also black for a long time before the pages show up as miniatures. Very slow. I clicked on the >> to pull down my bookmarks and they were all there, thank God, but as usual I got the multicolored wheel for a minute before I could select one, so no improvement there. I picked the incredibly slow website The Superficial.com to see if it loaded and backed
faster in 4. Same slow load, but the back arrow function was noticeably faster.

No reason to upgrade that I can see.

Some other things happened I won't bore you with. The whole process was so ------ annoying ii wasn't worth it to find out, even.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

the incredibly slow website The Superficial.com

Not inclined to try the Safari beta after your glowing report XD, Lundberg02, but "the incredibly slow website The Superficial.com" intrigued me. Alas, the page loaded instantly in Firefox 3.0.7. Clicking on any of the links was like changing channels with the remote on a TV.

[Unknown]

Here, Superficial>super fast>Safari b4.

[PSh...@adobeforums.com]

Here, Superficial>super fast>Safari b4.

Ditto.

If someone is continually experiencing the spinning beach ball from simply evoking the Bookmark menu, their computer has problems. On this machine, that didn't happen with the old version of Safari and it doesn't happen with the new version. (or any other browser)

The Top Sites feature ("blocks of websites"), is not a start page. It only shows up without user input on the first launch - otherwise it will only appear when you want it to. It also loads pretty much instantaneously after it has a history to work from. I like it because it shows at a glance which pages have new content and the locations for each page is fully editable. And of course, you're not required to use it.

If you're going to "review" an application, it helps if you actually know how it works.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Safari 4 is superfast (MUCH faster than 3.x was) and totally trouble-free here — and has been since I installed it a couple of weeks ago.

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

I'll zap my pram and see what happens.

[Ralph_E...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks to the all the brave testers, I'm going to give it a try.

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

I tried a new user, and if anything Safari 3.2.1 was even slower than the normal account.
I've read all kinds of suggestions on the intertube and haven't found anything meaningful. Stuff about Autofill making a few seconds difference. Believe me that ain't the problem.
Safari is SLOW. Lots of people say the same.

[Buko]

can you go back if the Beta does not work?

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Then it is your ISP service which is slow because Safari 4 is instantaneous for me but I do have a fast Cable connection.

[Buko]

Lundy has problems with everything.

Reading his posts makes me chuckle.

[Buko]

So I just decided to try the Beta.

Its ripping fast.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

It is for me too. And also much less crash-prone.

[Buko]

Can't say I had any crashing problems with the old Safari.

[PSh...@adobeforums.com]

Can't say I had any crashing problems with the old Safari.

Me neither - and the beta is just as stable.

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

I have 5 mbps and it tests perfectly. This slowness began with the first 3 beta, and has continued through all versions and the 4 beta.
Nothing else is running. I have a 1.3 ghz processor and 1.5gB RAM which is kept clear. Emptying cache and clearing history do not help.
Firefox is not slow. My g4 mini does the same thing and has the same history.

This isn't really a problem, Buko, it's just stupid and many many people complain about Slowfari.
It's probably generic to the g4 era. My last problem was also g4 related. I installed a 500 gB HD only to find out that g4s are limited to 128 per partition, so now I have 4 parts on it.

[Ci...@adobeforums.com]

Hmmmm. Trying the beta after using Firefox for so long and I must say it is fast. I think I am going to use it for a while and see how it performs over time.

[R_Av...@adobeforums.com]

Can you import bookmarks into Safari from Firefox?

[Ci...@adobeforums.com]

Can you import bookmarks into Safari from Firefox?

You can drag them over from one browser to another.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

The bookmarks are not a problem. Safari even has a pretty good bookmarks import/export feature in the File menu, though you have to activate it separately, which at one time I did through Cocktail > Interface > Safari > CHECK "Show Debug Menu". Maybe it's there by default now.

But the bookmarks are trivial. What puts Safari out of contention altogether for me are the many excellent add-ons I have in Firefox, for many of which there are no Safari equivalents.

[PSh...@adobeforums.com]

I installed a 500 gB HD only to find out that g4s are limited to 128 per
partition, so now I have 4 parts on it.

That's not really a "G4 problem", it's a limitation of the IDE controllers of the time, which also affected PCs. (wasn't all G4s either - my 2002 Quicksilver didn't have the limitation and neither did the newer "mirrored drive door" G4s)

At any rate, a simple PCI-IDE card would let your G4 see all 500 GB.

[PSh...@adobeforums.com]

Back to the Safari 4 beta -

I have found one glitch that affects web-based hotmail accounts. (I have several that I use as spam receptacles)

You can log in and enter your in-box just fine but clicking on an email link does nothing. Hovering above the link produces the normal "link cursor", but nothing happens when you click on it.

The solution is to change the User Agent (Develop > User Agent) to something other than the Safari 4 beta.

-phil

[Ralph_E...@adobeforums.com]

The Safari 4 beta seems to work very well, and as has already been amply reported above, it is fast. Thanks to all for pointing it out.

PShock - 3:39am Feb 26, 09 PST (#13 of 42)
"One other thing I changed was to revert back to the old way of the blue page-loading progress bar in the URL area, rather than the small spinning wheel off to the right. It was just too subtle. The only problem in doing this is that you no longer have a reload button, but I use a programmed mouse button for that anyway. "

If you did this through a Terminal command line or third-party software (as I did), you can get the reload button back (although I realize Phil that you don't need this) by customizing the toolbar once you've made your previous changes.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Cmd [ to go back a page;
Cmd R to refresh a page …

No Toolbar icons needed.

:)

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

After reading all these enthusiastic reports, I thought I might give it a whirl. However, I aborted the installation of the Safari 4 beta the instant it notified me a restart would be required.

I most certainly don't want a browser that messes with my OS, especially not a beta version, and most especially not an Apple beta.

To install Firefox you just drag the application icon from the dmg to your Applications folder and you're done.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

The restart is necessary so that the new Safari 4 can update itself from your saved Bookmarks and Histories etc. and move the old code to the trash.

It's painless and does not upset OSX at all … well it didn't on my machine anyway.

I almost certainly Repaired Permissions after installing it too which I normally do anyway.

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks, PShock, I may just do that.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

The restart is necessary so that the new Safari 4 can update itself from
your saved Bookmarks and Histories etc. and move the old code to the trash.

That can be done on a single relaunch of the browser application, and other browsers, like Firefox, accomplish it without having to reboot the machine.

Nope, Apple is up to no good there—again. :/

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

I only know that both Mail and Safari come as part of OSX and not installed as separate applications so that is probably why you need to reboot — just as you do after installing nearly all OSX updates and Security Patches.

Re-booting certainly caused me no problems.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

both Mail and Safari come as part of OSX

Precisely. That is the problem.

Rebooting by itself is not a problem, but the need for rebooting after an installation tells me that said installation is messing with my OS, and I want no part of it. My system is behaving extraordinarily well for me to risk messing with it on account of a browser I've never really liked—even if I believe that this unsightly slug has all of a sudden picked up speed. ;)

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

In other words, if the installation were not messing with the OS, there is no reason why a reboot would be necessary.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Don't you do any of the OSX upgrades though — because most of them require a reboot.?

I don't think that it is a case of "messing with the OS".

What I am fairly certain is happening is that when you choose to install new OSX software, the package is downloaded but the actual installation takes place during the reboot when old modules are removed and replaced with the new ones.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Ann,

Seems I am not getting through to you. :(

I have absolutely nothing against rebooting. Nothing at all.

What disturbs me is that the Safari installer messes with my OS to the extent it requires a reboot. That kind of deep intervention is not warranted, justified or tolerable for a simple installation of a gosh-darned web browser.

Of course I apply OS updates and Security updates, but I take it for granted that those updates will mess with my OS, that's what they're supposed to do, that's why I run them, to update and patch the OS.

A lowly web browser has no business doing that. Period. To me it means Apple needs to modify the OS for the darned Safari to run. It's just not worth it.

I reboot on many occasions. Several nights a week I leave Cocktail running when I retire and it shuts down my machine when done. I don't fear rebooting. Rebooting is my friend.

[Buko]

It came with an uninstall so its no big deal.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

It came with an uninstall

That doubles the chance of malfunction. :D

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Well I am happy with Safari 4 anyway — and my Mac OSX is showing no signs of ill health!

:)

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Ann,

Good for you. I'm not saying that Safari 4beta is necessarily evil either, just that it presents a risk that Firefox, Opera and iCab do not. That's why I'm not inclined to install a beta that goes into the entrails of my OS.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Incidentally, Ann, you may have forgotten your own post #1 at the very top of this thread. ;)

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Nope! But that was three weeks ago.

Once a week had gone by, and others had reported that Safari 4 was working for them, I installed it too.

[PSh...@adobeforums.com]

Wow ... such FUD.

The restart is likely necessary because it's not just Safari that's being updated, but WebKit as well. WebKit is the rendering engine for Safari and IS tied to the system ... it's probably the very reason performance has been much improved.

This is like worrying about installing a high performance carburetor because you have to remove some bolts.

[Buko]

The only problem...is that you no longer have a reload button,

the reload button is there, its at the right, inside of the address window.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Reload?

Cmd R

I never use the buttons.

[Buko]

that maybe, but the comment was made its not there, it is.

[Unknown]

When you reinstate the blue progress bar, the reload button can be dragged to the toolbar.

[PSh...@adobeforums.com]

Cmd R?

Too much energy. Unless I'm typing (like now), I use a mouse exclusively for web surfing. To reload a page, I simply press the scroll wheel button which is configured to reload the page. With additional buttons configured for back, forward, page down, and page up, the mouse is extremely efficient for surfing.

I realize you use the pen and tablet exclusively, but it's too limiting for me for general computing.

Buko -
My comment about no reload button was made because when you alter the default behavior of Safari 4 beta to bring back the blue progress behavior (as I did), the reload button in the URL window disappears. However, as Ralph and Tom have said (thanks), you can bring back the old Reload button (ala Safari 3), via the Customized Toolbar menu option. (which I discovered a few hours after I made the comment.)

I don't use the reload button to refresh a page, I really only use it when I want to STOP a page from loading.

-phil

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

The Customized Toolbar doesn't appear to offer those options in Safari 4 when run on OSX 10.4.11 — not that I want or need a Refresh Button anyway.y

[Unknown]

It's there for me.
Have you put back the blue progress bar?

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

I don't know how to do that — but I don't really want either the progress bar or the Refresh Button in the Tool Bar anyway.

(I haven't added any of the optional buttons to the Tool Bar because I do everything via keyboard shortcuts anyway.)

I was only exploring the Tool Bar options out of curiosity because of this thread!

:)

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

It's probably too blue for you anyway.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Definitely too blue!

And talking about "blue", have you seen the horrendous "New & Improved" Forums?

Yuk!

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

For-------sake, do they think that wasted space doesn't cost anything?

[Ci...@adobeforums.com]

Why is it with Safari 4 beta I am not able to view or download a pdf? I must be missing something.

[Ci...@adobeforums.com]

Oh Gees! Never mind. I am so used to Firefox....Control click did it. But isn't there a way that you can view them in the browser?

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Just click on a PDF file on a web site and it should open in Safari.

Have you got: "Open Safe Files" checked in Safari's Prefs./General/?

[Ci...@adobeforums.com]

Just click on a PDF file on a web site and it should open in Safari.

That is the way it is supposed to act but does not

Have you got: "Open Safe Files" checked in Safari's Prefs./General/?

Yes.

But it does not matter. I am back to using Firefox because it works better in the new stinking forums.

[Ci...@adobeforums.com]

When I click on the pdf I get a screen that looks like this:

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1MiHrLs8U0mAnE7gtXd07BpC7hd9G01>

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

See if you have:

HD/Library/Internet Plug-ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin

[Ci...@adobeforums.com]

HD/Library/Internet Plug-ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin

Yes I do.

[PSh...@adobeforums.com]

This must be another Tiger problem - it's working fine in Leopard. :)

Try removing the plugin. Apple has an incorporated PDF viewer in Safari and the Adobe plugin might be interfering. Quit Safari first though.

-phil

[Ci...@adobeforums.com]

Try removing the plugin. Apple has an incorporated PDF viewer in Safari
and the Adobe plugin might be interfering. Quit Safari first though.

That did the trick! Thanks. Do you know if that plugin is used for anything other than Safari?

[PSh...@adobeforums.com]

It's probably used by Firefox but I'm not sure. Even if so, and you don't want to lose PDF capability in FF, you should have plenty of other PDF options with FF's add-ons community.

-phil

[Ci...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Phil. I will check it out.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

I think that it is part of Acrobat Pro.

I do have it installed and it is not conflicting with Safari 4 on a G5 running on 10.4.11.

[Ci...@adobeforums.com]

Maybe it is an Intel thing Ann.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Could be!

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

My ceaseless struggle for survival in a world of crappy software led me to update Opera to 9.64 and try that. The good; Don't have to constantly login to this forum. About 25% faster than Safari.
The bad: Does not download reliably. 8 out of seventeen downloads terminated after around 240k. Also the downloads manager does not appear, you have to hunt for it under transfers in the Window pulldown, where you will see that they terminate early with no explanation other than "error". Safari has no problem with the same files. Also there is an extra time wasting step. Every file brings up a window as though you had selected "download linked file as...."
I would use Firefox except that it is setup for work and I don't want it cluttered with bookmarks and extra tabs.
Flock is ridiculous. I may try Camino.
I guess there are couple other amateurish efforts at browsers. How damn many people are there at Mozilla anyway?

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Lundberg02,

If you're shopping around, try iCab. I'm very favorably impressed by it.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Opera to 9.64 The bad:

The REALLY Bad?

Opera is not Color Managed.

[Paul M Norman]

Ramón,

Just tried iCab. Very speedy! Thanks for the info.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

iCab is Color Managed.

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks, Ramon, you have mentioned iCab before, I'll try it today, it was on my list.

Ann's superhuman powers can't tolerate unmanaged color, but I really don't need it much.

Same issue of SciAm has an article on green lasing that indicates we will be able to watch
disgusting commercials in ProPhoto in the very near future. Yay!

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

Holy speed check, Batman!

None of the annoying things about Safari are there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But there's a new annoying thing I can live with if i have to.
The font size in this box is absurdly small. The forum font size is fine.

Maybe the prefs can fix it somehow.

Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen I'll be here all week tip your waitress.

Ramon, you may have saved my sanity and people will hate you for it.

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

Ramon, I have tried everything I can think of to get iCab help to tell me anything about its color management , to no avail.

And the reply box font size is in Prefs>Fonts and languages> minimum font size

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Lundberg02,

iCab menu > Preferences (or Command , [comma]), then:

a <http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1Uo8PpzvdJAfVxtYelCNYVYBUUdZX1>

[Unknown]

Had to revert to Safari 3 because 4 was interfering with the preview feature in Rapidweaver software.

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

As I said , the "minimum font size" box will fix reply box font size , up to the point where it conflicts with standard.

Still can't find any reference to color management, in Prefs, help or in google. Also no reference as to what you get when you pay for iCab.

Hard to figure out bookmarking and especially tabs so far, maybe it will suddenly come to me. It is noticeably faster than Safari 3, but the fundamental problem is still there.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Lundberg02,

Still can't find any reference to color management,

First of all, you can easily test color management here, in seconds:

<http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter>

Second, here's an excerpt from an email from the developer:

iCab 4 uses WebKit, the same rendering engine that is used by Safari.
So iCab and Safari should both behave in the same way here.

I have verified that Color Management is on by default in iCab4, it works and cannot be turned off.

Also no reference as to what you get when you pay for iCab.

A clean conscience if you use it regularly. No additional features.

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

A clean conscience is very important to me, as I expect to be nominated for treasury secretary soon.
I saw that WebKit note, didn't know it implied color management, thanks. You would think there would be a preference, though.
Nice test site, Ramon. I was hoping there was something like that, although g has a page that rolls over if I remember correctly.

I just tried a usability test on Safari 3.2.1. It has been slow as molasses ever since the 3 beta. Safari 2 was reasonably fast but crashed. Anyway it was a minute 15 from click to bookmarked page load. Google showed many many complaints about 3, and one of the suggestions was to use OpenDNS. Improvements using that are only a few seconds. This slowness has to be a g4 problem. I have a 1.3 ghz cpu and enough RAM. Safari 3 must be optimized for g5 and leopard, and Safari 4 even more Leopardy.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

I have put Safari 4 on a friends G4 and it is fine. But, like me, they do have a fast Cable connection.