Catching up over at Wandering Coyote’s yesterday morning I saw a post about Safari and realised that the update thingy I automatically downloaded from Apple the other day was actually Safari the internet browser – duh! I thought it was something to do with iTunes. I mean, I had heard of Safari before it just didn’t click at the time. So since I had this cute little Safari compass icon on my desktop I decided to check it out.
I switched over to Firefox from IE, oh, ages ago – can’t remember exactly when. And I love it. But I kept using IE for h2g2 because I prefer reading that site with a larger text size (and I didn’t want to keep switching text sizes on FF). But now I’ve got h2g2 set up on Safari and it’s fabulous. As a ‘back-up’ browser it’s much better and way cooler than IE.
So I was wondering how many of you out there are using Safari and if you can maybe give me some tips on some groovy-cool stuff it can do that I maybe haven’t come across yet. Or perhaps warn me about some of its glitches?
… 
in training
casa azahar 
OK – I’ve been running this a couple of days now and twice it’s pooped out on me without any reason…I wonder if there is a limit as to how many tabs it can handle at once? I have 8 going right now. That’s the only thing I can think of. Also, it wouldn’t let me open one of my banking sites just now…I wonder if there is a security setting I need to change. Other than that, I like it just fine. I do wish I could use my mouse wheel thingy to move up and down my bookmarks list.
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I’ve been using Safari for years. And I’ve been resistant to switching. The big downside that I’ve encountered is that you can’t use it for certain web-based applications. Stumble is one. Another is changing the custom header on WordPress.com blogs. (This one irritates me. Because I had a simple work-around way to do it, but then WordPress disabled the feature for Safari. Probably because they were tired of getting user questions about it “not working.”) Anyhow, for those few things where Safari won’t work, I switch to Firefox. But I do all my banking stuff in Safari. I also frequently have a gazillion windows and tabs open, often of blog posts I mean to leave comments on, but want to get back to them later to do it.
A benefit (or for me, danger) of Safari is the RSS feed feature. I have my feeds set up as bookmarks in folders on the bookmark bar of my browser window. Whenever a new post pops up, I can see a number pop up by the folder. This means that I can see when there are new posts without actually making an effort to check. (You can imagine the downside to this when using the computer to, say, get some work done.)
Okay, geek that I am, I just took (and uploaded) a screenshot of my RSS bookmark setup so you can see what I mean.
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I disabled the RSS feature because I have Google Reader, which is just awesome. Az, there is a place in Preferences to change the Font and sizes. I can’t seem to find a setting to solve the banking web site issue…
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Ah, I use Safari for all my internet banking – no security problems – and for blogging. I have Firefox too, just in case, but I don’t like it. Not really sure why, maybe its just a familiarity thing.
But Alejna – how do I get the RSS blog counter bookmark thing that you’ve got? I have never figured out how to keep up with everyone’s posts…
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I can also do my banking on Safari, WC, and I haven’t changed any security settings (I don’t think!). I found that setting to change the font and sizes yesterday but it only works until you shut down the computer – when you start up again it reverts to the default size. BUT, I also found a handy text size thingy to put on the toolbar, so now I just have to give it a couple of clicks when I open up Safari.
I found out yesterday about Safari not being able to work with some applications, alejna, when I had to use an older version of my Yahoo email account, which isn’t a problem for me. And I’ve got Stumble on Firefox. I’ve already got a whack of stuff on the bookmark toolbar and I’m quite happy with Netvibes as my feedreader. But I like your Safari skin much better than mine! Where can I get different skins?
Have you ever tried a feedreader, truce? I find Netvibes very comfortable and as you can see here I’ve organised all the blogs I read under different tabs and I have my email show up there too. It’s especially good having everything you need on one page when you are travelling and don’t want to have to go to a lot of different sites to see what’s going on. And you can also have a Netvibes public page if you want.
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I must confess to having 4 browsers installed at the moment – IE6 (can’t get my head around 7), Firefox, Safari & Opeara. Mainly because I do the scouting groups web site and like to check out in various browsers.
Some sites, unfortunately, are made for IE only. One of our banks, for example, or some of Symantec’s support function. So there I go on IE. Else, I use FF as standard. But I do like the speed of Safari – probably should give it more screen time…
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I suggest you read this review of Safari for Windows over at Wired.
When Firefox 3 is released in a couple of months, it will, according to reviews of the current beta, put Safari to shame.
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Tobymarx: thanks for that review; very interesting. He thought of things I would never have considered. I’m not all that tech savvy, though.
I still wonder why I cannot open my banking page…Very annoying!
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Firefox 3, eh? Looking forward to it.
As Safari is my backup browser it only has to be better than IE. Seems to be running a bit slow today …
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This afternoon, when I got in, Safari stopped working and closed on me with no warning. This is the 3rd time in as many days. I have no idea what’s going on, but perhaps I should report this “bug” to Apple. And I still can’t open my banking site.
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That’s so weird, WC. I haven’t had it crash once on me (uh oh, probably tempting fate by saying that).
Does your bank have pop-ups? Maybe you need to turn off the pop-up blocker.
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here’s more on Firefox vs. IE, Opera and Safari.
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Another bug: a blogfriend of mine has a Blog.com blog, and I cannot sign into her comments page or leave a comment with Safari.
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Hm…Firefox 3 is looking better & better after reading those Wired articles…
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Well, I sure wouldn’t change Firefox as my main browser. It also has the bookmark bar and it works with all applications I want to use.
But I’m quite happy with Safari as my backup browser – I like it much better than IE:
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I’ve always loathed exploiter. I used Netscape many years until Firefox entered cyberspace.
I switched the laptop into the beta of Firefox 3 a couple of days ago. Works fine so far. Unfortunately my favourite toolbar isn’t compatible, and I’ve not tried it with secure sites yet.
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OK – I’m definitely thinking of switching back to Firefox now. Too many bugs, I think…
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I have gone back to Firefox.
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It’s curious that you’ve had so many problems with Safari, WC. On the other hand, I’m not using it as my main browser so maybe that’s why some of the bugs haven’t shown up for me.
Anyhow, Firefox is best! 🙂
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