We were a bit surprised when Apple announced the release of Safari 5. We hadn’t heard rumors about the new version, or the features that it contained. This update is not just simply a rehash of the previous version of Safari, though. It includes all new features and some never-before-seen things that make Safari 5.0 our favorite little browser on the Mac.
We’ve split this article about the cool features of Safari into two sections: Apple-added features and features you can get by downloading extensions. As it turns out, some of the cooler features in Safari 5.0 don't come from Apple, but from developers who are making some really interesting extensions.
Apple-added Features in Safari 5.0
Extensions... Finally, Extensions!
The ability to customize Safari by installing extensions is a feature that we’ve been waiting a long time for. While the process is similar to what you might find in other browsers (like Firefox or Chrome), the way Apple is handling development makes extension developers have more accountability.
When you install an extension, you get a new tab in your Safari preferences that allows you to manage installed extensions. We really like the ability to turn off all extensions with a single click of the mouse.
If you try to install an extension and get an error saying that extensions have not been enabled, then you can go to Develop > Enable Extensions. If you don’t have a Develop menu, you can enable it by visiting the Advance tab in Safari Preferences.
When you download and try to install an extension, Safari will alert you to make sure you really want to install that particular extension. This is similar to the way Dashboard handles installing widgets.
You will most likely need to refer to the extension website to find out how to use the extension as Apple has enabled developers to put options in a few different places. You can most commonly find installed extensions in the toolbar or as a right-click option.
More Support for HTML5
It’s the future of the web, and Apple is embracing it wholeheartedly with Safari 5.0. This new version contains support for many new HTML5 features like full screen video, closed captioning for video, draggable attributes, and form validation. These features will allow web developers to continue innovating the Internet.
Rarely does the consumer care about the technologies surrounding the creation of different online tools, but HTML5 is something that will definitely benefit everyone soon. It allows for a richer web experience than you’ve experienced before. You can see this in the
HTML5 demos that Apple posted last week that showcases some of the strengths of HTML5.
Safari Reader: For Better Online Reading
Reading online articles can be quite a misadventure for some, especially for those used to reading news on paper instead of in a web browser. That’s why Apple created the Safari Reader feature.
This feature (similar to the Readability bookmarklet from Arc90 Labs) lets you click on the Reader button in the address bar to read an article in a distraction free space. The background dims out and you’re left with simple text on a white background.
When mousing over the bottom portion of the Reader page, you get 5 options: Zoom out, zoom in, email, print, and close. When emailing or printing using these options, you only print the text and graphics related to the article, not ads or other useless information.
Faster JavaScript Engine Leaves Your Pages Snappier
Sure, it’s not something that you can physically see in Safari 5.0, but it is something that you can feel. When loading a page that contains a lot of JavaScript (such as Aviary’s many products or Google Docs), then you can definitely notice faster speeds.
According to Apple’s specs page for Safari 5.0, the new Nitro JavaScript engine means that Safari 5 runs 30% faster than version 4 and 3% faster than Chrome 5.0. That makes the JavaScript engine in Safari 5 the fastest when compared to Chrome, Opera and Firefox.
DNS Prefetching and Improved Caching
To make pages load faster, Apple is using something called DNS prefetching. This is also coupled with an improved caching system to make overall page loads faster. All of this translates into a faster web browsing experience because Safari will automatically search through links on the page, look up the addresses, and load cached items on the pages.
Improved Address Bar
Apple has improved the address bar in this version of Safari, allowing you to not only type in an address, but also type in keywords to match against titles of web pages you’ve visited in the past.
This is very similar to what Firefox does with it’s so-dubbed "
awesome bar." In addition to offering up pages in your browser’s history and bookmarks, the address bar will also still match URLs as the previous version did. This feature will no doubt save you some typing.
Better Tab Settings
If you’ve ever used Safari as your main browser before, then you’ve probably been annoyed when you click a link in another program and it opens in a new window instead of a new tab.
If you’re a fan of tabbed browsing, then you can now select a setting where all links will be opened in a new tab and never in a new window. To do this, head over to your Tab Preferences (Safari > Preferences > Tabs) and select Always from the drop-down menu that says Open pages in tabs instead of windows.
You will most likely get a pop-down menu that asks if you’re sure you want to change this setting. By selecting Always Create Tabs, Safari 5 will open everything in new tabs instead of new windows.
And if you accidently close a tab, Command+Z reopens the tab. Magical.
An Improved Web Inspector Means Better Web Development
A lot of web developers use Firefox because of the web development plugins that you can download to extend debugging and development. Apple, however, has upped the game with their web development tools called “Web Inspector.”
Right-click anywhere on the page and select Inspect Element to instantly view code from the web page (you can run your mouse over the parts of code and it will highlight elements on the page), resources files, scripts (JavaScripts), check profiles, storage, and see a log in the console.
This is a great resource for developers and Apple made it better by adding a timeline view that lets you track your website loading times for loading, scripting, and rendering.
Bing Support for Searching
As mention in the WWDC Keynote for iOS 4 devices, Apple is now supporting
Bing for search in Safari. To switch your search preferences, you can visit Safari > Preferences > General. Select Bing from the drop down menu that says Default search engine.
Google will remain the default, but you can now select between Google, Bing, and Yahoo. More choices are better after all, right?
Hardware Acceleration for Windows
For Windows users, they have a great new feature: hardware acceleration support for a speedier experience. This means that things on webpages like media and interactive graphics will load faster and provide a streamlined experience to the user. Apple doesn’t give much information on this, but we’re assuming that this will only work on hardware that supports hardware acceleration offloading.
Private Web Browsing More Apparent
Safari 4 introduced the ability to use private browsing. By turning on this feature in Safari, you are able to browse the web without logging any cache files, cookies, or history.
With Safari 5, however, you can see a small icon in the address bar that will let you know with one glance if your web session is being logged. When you’re done privately browsing, you can click the icon and Safari will ask if you wish to end your private session.
HTML5 includes the ability to detect your location using the Location Services in Mac OS X Snow Leopard. This means that applications like Google Maps can directly ask Mac OS X to give it the location of your computer in the world, allowing websites to pinpoint your location.
If you wish to have location services enabled all the time, you can visit Safari > Preferences > Security and check the box labeled “Location Services: Allow websites to ask for location information.”
Note that location services doesn’t provide completely accurate location information due to the way it retrieves this information. Your computer is tracked via your IP Address, which could be off depending on where your ISPs central office is located.
iPad-Specific User Agent
Apple has added a new iPad-specific User Agent to Safari 5.0. A user agent is the bit of information that is sent to a website to let the site know what browser you’re using. Under the Develop menu, Apple has had a few different user agents to switch between, but now you have an iPad-specific one to choose from.
What does this mean to you, the user? Well, it means that you can go to Develop > User Agent > Mobile Safari 3.2 - iPad and be able to load iPad-specific websites, such as Apple’s own documentation that is specially formatted just for the iPad.
To the developer, this means that you can test your websites built for the iPad without having to actually own an iPad, or fire up the iPad simulator. You can play around with user agents to get to websites that are built for other platforms, plus there’s even user agents for Windows.
Extensions to Add Features to Safari 5.0
Disable Ads with Extension
One of the more popular plugins for Chrome is now available for Safari called AdBlock.
AdBlock for Safari lets you do just what the title says, block advertisements on websites.
When you download and install the plugin from the developer website, you’ll get a button next to the address bar that looks like a stop sign with a hand on it. By clicking this button, you’ll see a myriad of options.
In the General Options, you can select to have text ads on Google search results disappear, and you’ll also have the ability to block ads inside of YouTube videos. Please note, however, that these features are in beta and might not exactly work for every video.
Under Filter Lists, you can subscribe to ad blocking lists for your country of choice. These lists are updated every 5-days or manually as you wish. On the Blacklist tab, you can manually block ads by their CSS selector, or you can have the software do it automatically by pressing Ctrl + Shift + K on any page that still has ads on it. This will add the page to your filter list.
Under Whitelist, you can specify websites where you actually wish to view ads (this would be a good place to add your favorite website, Mac|Life.com). You can add these manually, or have AdBlock do it for you by pressing Ctrl + Shift + L.
Download YouTube Videos
Do you like a particular YouTube video so much that you would like to engrain it onto your computer for an eternity? Well, with an extension called
YouTubeDownloader you can do just that.
After you’ve downloaded and installed this extension, you can visit any YouTube video. When you do, you’ll notice two new buttons near the top of the video. One will let you download an FLV (Flash video) file of the video, and the other will allow you to download the video as an MP4.
Sync it to your iPod and you’ll never be without a Rick Roll again!
Save Your Tabs in Between Safari Sessions
One of the biggest drawbacks to using Safari over Firefox for many is that Safari won’t ask to save your tabs when you close the application and have multiple tabs opened. With the
SaveTabs Safari extension, however, you will be able to back up and restore tabs at will.
Once installed, you will have two new buttons next to the address bar, one shows a tab with a down arrow and one with an up arrow. When you’re ready to save your session and quit Safari, click on the down arrow and close the application. When you reopen Safari, click the up arrow and Safari will be populated with the tabs that you previously had opened.
Better Sorting for your Netflix Queue
When you’re browsing your Netflix queue, you don’t have a simple sort option that will let you see your queue based on item availability, title, or instant availability. With the
Netflix Queue Sorter extension though, you gain these and many other sorting options.
When installed, the Netflix Queue Sorter will let you sort by title, instant, star rating, genre, and availability date. This extension allows you to see at a single glance what’s arriving soon or what’s now available to play instantly on your computer.
Your Netflix queue browsing session will never be the same again.
This Safari is the best trip you'll ever take
So there you have it, 17 of the most notable features in the new Safari update. As we have shown, extensions are a huge part of this release and will most likely prove useful time and time again for Safari users.
