Safari

My Favorite Safari 5 Extensions

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One of the best features to come with Safari 5 is the addition of Extensions. If you’re unfamiliar with Safari Extensions, they basically add functionality – either to Safari itself, or to specific websites.

Here’s a list of some of my favorite extensions:

  • Lucidica: Restyles and simplifies Google Reader.
  • Pure Reader: Similar to Lucidica, but it gives Reader more of a desktop-app feel.
  • Flickr Original: Right-click on Flickr thumbnails to download the original file.
  • Pure Flickr: Removes clutter from Flickr.com
  • YouTube5: Replaces YouTube’s Flash player with an HTML5 player
  • YouTube Video Downloader: Adds a button to download YouTube videos.
  • TinEye: Right-click on any image to search for that image using TinEye.
  • SaveTabs: Saves all open tabs in the current browser window and allows you to reopen them later.
  • Mail Open Tabs: Creates a new email message containing the addresses of all open tabs.
  • ExifExt: Right-click on any image to view it’s EXIF information.
  • BetterSource: Styles, color-codes, and numbers HTML source code.
  • Facebook Neue: Cleans up Facebook (removes ads, etc…)

There’s a wide variety of Safari Extensions out there. Two good resources for finding them are Apple’s Extensions Gallery, and a Tumblr blog aptly named, Safari Extensions.

If you know of any other resources, or extensions that you find useful, leave a link in the comments.

Important! Safari RSS Security Risk

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If you use a Mac, it’s very important that you read this, even if you don’t use Safari.

Republished from Brian Mastenbrook:

Disclosure of information vulnerability in Safari
Posted on Sun, 11 Jan 2009
Last edited Tue, 13 Jan 2009

I have discovered that Apple’s Safari browser is vulnerable to an attack that allows a malicious web site to read files on a user’s hard drive without user intervention. This can be used to gain access to sensitive information stored on the user’s computer, such as emails, passwords, or cookies that could be used to gain access to the user’s accounts on some web sites. The vulnerability has been acknowledged by Apple.

All users of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard who have not changed their feed reader application preference from the system default are affected, regardless of whether they use any RSS feeds or use a different web browser (such as Firefox). Users of previous versions of Mac OS X are not affected.

Users of Safari on Windows are also affected. Users who have Safari for Windows installed but do not use it for browsing are not affected.

The details of this vulnerability have not been made public to the best of my knowledge, but secrecy is no guarantee against a sufficiently motivated attacker. Because this vulnerability could be exploited by a phishing site in a way that would not cause affected users to suspect their information had been stolen, users of Mac OS X Leopard should protect themselves until a fix is issued by Apple by choosing a default feed reader other than Safari, such as Mail. To select a different feed reader:

  1. Open Safari and select Preferences… from the Safari menu.
  2. Choose the RSS tab from the top of the Preferences window.
  3. Click on the Default RSS reader pop-up and select an application other than Safari.

The only workaround available for users of Safari on Windows is to use a different web browser.

Apple has not made information available on when a fix for this issue will be released. Users with questions or concerns should contact Apple as I have no additional information about this vulnerability which can be shared at this time.

iPhone copy/paste between Safari and Mail with pastebud

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pastebud

Starting tomorrow (12/12) we’ll be able to copy and paste text on the iPhone between Safari and Mail, or between 2 web pages. And, it doesn’t require any software to be installed, or the iPhone to be tampered with.

It works by using 2 Javascript bookmarklets provided by pastebud. There’s a video of it in action over on Gizmodo (fyi… the video won’t play for me in Safari, I had to use Firefox).

All in all it looks pretty cool. I can’t wait to try it out. It is sad though that Apple hasn’t provided this ability long ago. Who knows, maybe it will be announced at Macworld in January.

via The Apple Blog

UPDATE (12/12/2008): The service went online today, and apparently there’s some concerns about security. use at your own risk.

Force Safari to open targeted links in a new tab, instead of a new window

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There is one feature in Firefox that I’ve always wished Safari had. The ability to always force targeted links (those that would normally open a new browser window) to open a new tab.

For example, if you’re viewing this in Safari and you click this link, it will open a new browser window taking you to Google. I would rather it open in a new tab instead. You can temporarily do this on a link-by-link basis by holding down the Command key when clicking the link, but I want it to work that way all the time.

Fortunately, this feature is already built into Safari (at least on the Mac), but it’s turned off by default. In order to turn it on, all you need to do is paste the following command in to the Terminal (quit Safari first):

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

That’s it. Safari should now open all links that would have opened a new window, in a new tab instead. If you want to turn this feature off, paste the same command, but replace the word “true” with “false”.

Thank you Roger Johansson!