Safari 5 Released 308
pknoll writes "Apple has released the fifth version of the Safari web browser, which adds several new features. Reader mode detects multiple-page articles and displays them in their entirety at the click of a button, and most importantly, there is now an official extension API."
It's fully functional. (Score:3, Funny)
-- Begin program section
Sarcasm++
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No, just the bad words [google.hu].
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Opera is the best porn browser.
I dunno, that singing fat lady kind of turns me off.
Re:It's fully functional. (Score:4, Funny)
That's how you know it's over...
"The worlds fastest browser" (Score:3, Funny)
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webkit has a slight edge on javascript speed, I guess.. some benchmarks say so anyways..
Same as Readable App (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Same as Readable App (Score:4, Informative)
The content extraction feature sounds a lot like the Readable Bookmarlet [appspot.com] that I've been running across browsers for the last year.
With the addition of being able to extract data from a multi-page article.
Apparently it's even faster than Chrome 5 (Score:5, Insightful)
Man I love this relentless focus on browser speed over the past few years. If it keeps up for a little longer, I might even be able to browse Slashdot.
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Amazing how the two can be so different, given that they're using the same engine... You would almost think it had something to do with the Placebo Effect, or the Confirmation Bias, wouldn't you ;).
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I would think it was some sort of sample bias, but not having tried Safari on Windows, I can still believe it based on my experience with iTunes on Windows.
I use iTunes on my mac with lots of movies and tv shows and about 15000 music tracks, and it works smoothly and reasonably well (aside from movies being inside something called iTUNES). But iTunes on XP (maybe that's the problem) is a dog, slow, halting, problematic etc. And that's with comparable hardware.
Given the number of iPods and iPhones Apple ha
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Amazing how the two can be so different, given that they're using the same engine... You would almost think it had something to do with the Placebo Effect, or the Confirmation Bias, wouldn't you ;).
Except they're not. The platform-independent bits are the same, but the platform-dependent code that actually draws to the screen is completely different in Chrome to that in Safari for Windows, and that does have big effects on performance. In particular, the Windows version of Safari traditionally used a rather slow and buggy closed-source library that emulates the Mac OS X APIs for drawing etc. Chrome on the other hand is optimized to run well on Windows.
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I just ran some tests on my Mac using latest Chrome / Safari 5. Loading my Google homepage is noticeably faster in Safari 5 vs. Chrome. The average speed after 5 repetitions for loading in Chrome is just under 3 seconds, while in Safari it's about 2.5 seconds. Nonetheless, Chrome remains my browser of choice for many reasons; I prefer the tabs in Chrome to Safari, I think the address text box being included in the active tab makes more sense, I like the 4 nav buttons all together on the left as opposed t
how about long-term performance? (Score:3, Interesting)
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I don't know if you're using a Mac, but I think it's really strange how my experience of the various browsers differs from what I see here on Slashdot. In my experience, Firefox probably takes the longest to render a page (but we're still talking milliseconds here), but beats the shit out of Chrome and Safari for general responsiveness and reliability. Damn thing never crashes. Runs Flash much faster and more reliably too.
Chrome renders pages vary quickly, but can become unresponsive while chugging on graph
Re:Apparently it's even faster than Chrome 5 (Score:4, Insightful)
Firefox still beats them all with Adblock.
Chrome still lacks any real download filtering. Chrome's add block still downloads ads but it simply doesnt display them. I like chrome, but this kills it. Firefox actually performs much better because of this.
Firefox scrolls much better than chrome or safari.
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Also when you go back in firefox, it doesn't reload the page, it uses the cache. I hate that about safari.
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Bye bye input managers (Score:2)
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Input Managers can just mess around willy-nilly in your application (in any Cocoa application), how do you suppose that this could be "supported"?
Re:Bye bye input managers (Score:4, Insightful)
The extensions will be very nice
But only if they get approved for publication in the App Store.
It also adds an "option" for searching using Bing (Score:3, Insightful)
For your safety (Score:4, Funny)
You can only view pages that have been pre-approved by Apple - and Apple gets 30% cut of anything revenue generated by the page.
As an added bonus, any media gets re-routed to iTunes - where Apple will take their 30% cut and wrap it in a container that prevents you from mistakenly trying to use it on a non-Apple device.
But this is all just to protect you and preserve the user experience (patent pending), of course.
Refuse to test it (Score:4, Insightful)
Since Apple decided to push Safari out via an iTunes update without asking people, I've refused to ever install it on my box.
If I really want a Webkit browser, I'll run Chrome and/or Rekonq. Chrome already has tons of extensions, is FOSS, and runs amazingly fast.
If Chrome supported a proper adblocking solution, I'd never need another browser. And yes, I know they had an Adblock extension, but it still renders ads in the background. I want to stop the ads from being downloaded or rendered at all.
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Re:Refuse to test it (Score:5, Informative)
Chrome does have adblocking now. Does it not work for you?
Another poster explained that Chrome's ad-blocking still downloads the ad, but doesn't display it. This is a problem for anybody on a metered or low-bandwidth connection (e.g. tethering through a cell phone, as I'm doing now) who don't want to download the ads, regardless of whether or not they get displayed. Of course, most people have broadband connections and don't care what gets downloaded in the background, as long as they don't have to see it.
In theory, web sites could try to detect whether an ad was downloaded or not, and refuse to display content unless you've also downloaded the ads. In practice, this isn't normally done, but if it were, with Chrome the web site would still work.
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If Chrome supported a proper adblocking solution
If it's important enough, you can get an adblocking proxy filter that will let you use Chrome without the background downloads.
Re:If you're not on OSX (Score:4, Informative)
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Chrome has never installed a Google Toolbar, nor prompted me to install one.
Why would Chrome install a toolbar for another browser when installing a different browser?
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don't be an ass, he wanted to update iTunes and it wanted to install safari, who cares what the program is called.
Extensions and Mobile Safari (Score:2)
Re:Extensions and Mobile Safari (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed, adblockers are the killer app for the web. Without them, the web is almost -- not quite, but almost -- completely useless. And AdBlock Plus is the gold standard, even though it could stand improvement.
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It must be a miserable existence you live, where you're entirely unable to mentally block out advertising and get on with whatever it is you're doing, seeing as ads are everywhere.
I won't argue that some websites have ridiculously intrusive ads, but the simple solution there is to not visit those sites. For every website with flashy popup ads, there's another with similar content but tasteful ads.
Without advertising, half the websites out there wouldn't even exist, so I'd argue that ads make the web more us
Re:Extensions and Mobile Safari (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you for your sympathy. I probably wouldn't use the word "miserable" but it's close. I am indeed constantly annoyed at the pervasiveness of commercial messages. I do what I can to reduce the intrusion, such as enjoying radio and television programs as recordings (podcasts, DVDs, etc) so that I can skip ads; using adblockers online; discarding the extraneous packaging around many food products; declining to wear clothing with ads on them (such as the Nike swoosh and whatnot); and simply not participating in some activities which are ad-supported. It's limiting in some ways and a relief in other ways; I try to find the best balance for me.
Indeed, the "simple" way to avoid website ads is to avoid websites with ads. But you might be interested to know that with a small amount of additional effort I can also enjoy the websites *and* avoid the ads, by using an ad blocker -- thus getting the best of both worlds as it were. (I'm surprised you don't realize that, since it's exactly the topic at hand.) So, that is obviously better for me than not visiting at all. For most of those sites, I'd gladly pay the fraction of a cent per page that the advertisers pay, but I don't know many sites which offer that level of subscription.
As a last thought in regards your suggestion that websites wouldn't exist without advertising, I am reminded of the saying "...and if my aunt had a mustache, she'd be my uncle". That means, "and if everything were completely different, then everything would be completely different." I proffer that if 90% of web users used ad blockers, then almost all sites would have a micropayment option or some other kind of business model.
Anyway, I appreciate your sincere words. Be well.
Multi-page articles (Score:2)
Reader mode detects multiple-page articles and displays them in their entirety at the click of a button
That's an awesome feature, but can it reduce entire slashdot comment threads into a single comment? That would save a lot of time.
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I bet they all simply read: "FRIST POST in the year of Dying BSD on Cowboy Neal's iPad!"
FTFY
Here we go again... (Score:2, Offtopic)
You know how you can have the fastest browsing experience ever?
Browse with pictures and javascript turned off. In Opera, it's really easy to do it, and I use that "barebones mode" when I'm searching for info or doing "work-related browsing".
Still no volume control (Score:5, Interesting)
I still want a volume control to shut the web up. But still want to be able to listen to my music.
Re:Still no volume control (Score:5, Informative)
Per-application volume control is typically a sound system option; supported through Vista, Windows 7, Pulse Audio, OSS, and I assume OSX. Putting a volume control in the application itself would be redundant at this point.
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Per-application volume control is typically a sound system option; supported through Vista, Windows 7, Pulse Audio, OSS, and I assume OSX.
Wow, you're wrong on so many levels. You presume OS X has per app volume controls outside of apps, but didn't bother to check? Guess what, it does not. Each app is responsible for it's own sound controls and Safari has none. And even if it did have a control in the OS configurations, that's not very useful. Would you make the same argument that Songbird should not have a volume control, because you can just go turn it off in the OS config? That's more than a bit inconvenient don't you think?
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To respond to the second part of your post, no, it would not be inconvenient; it would be *ideal* to remove volume control from each application and have it controlled by the OS.
You talk of inconvenience and what would be ideal as though these are absolutes. But while what you describe might be your preference, it wouldn't be mine. If an app makes noise I want it to have its own volume control. If the "real" volume control is somewhere at the OS level then fine, whatever, but from my perspective as a use
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Why should the operating system be concerned with managing sound volume coming from an application?
This is just idiocy, and I'm sick of it. If your application makes sounds, *it is that application's responsibility to provide its own control for that sound.*
That's a stupid thing to say. It's the kind of thing that a sound card might handle, so the API should handle it so that if the card handles it, it can be abstracted to the hardware via the driver instead of the application via needless duplication of work. The OS already provides sound services, and you don't have to talk to the sound card directly, but that's how it used to work back in the DOS days. Back then, however, you could only run one OS at a time, so sound cards didn't even have hardware mixing.
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OSX doesn't.. but Linux and Windows both have per-application volume management... and using chrome, that becomes per-tab volume management.
I can click through again! (Score:2)
I'd all but given up on going to articles from here because I hate those annoying multipage articles that have maybe one screenful of text and five screenfuls of ads. If Safari Reader works as advertised, I can go back to reading again.
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If you (or anybody who reads this) uses Firefox, please let me recommend FastestFox, which is an extension with several features. My favorite feature is that for many popular websites, FastestFox will pre-fetch the next-in-line page and append it to the current page as you scroll down. That means when I go to Google and do a search, I see the first page of results; as I then scroll toward the bottom of the page, the next page automagically appends to the bottom and I can scroll directly to that new page, no
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I'll use Firefox when it quits being a half-assed OS X app.
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Huh, interesting. I have a fine experience using Firefox on my Mac, but everyone wants something different and each computer is a little different, so my experience doesn't necessarily apply to your situation.
Anyway I hope my tip is useful to somebody.
iPad update? (Score:2)
Any word on when it will come to the iPad? Sooner than iOS 4 I hope.
Current version on iPad is broken in a tiny but critical way (anyone know why it doesn't work with eCollege's discussion "post" button?)
Just Downloaded 5... (Score:2)
I'm skeptical of a lot of promises Apple makes, but I download Safari 5 now and after playing with it, I'm pleasantly surprised. I'm on Snow Leopard and moved from Safari 4 to the Chrome betas and to the release version of Chrome when it came out. I prefer Safari's integration into the system, but Chrome's extensions and speed make it my primary browser (but when downloading PDFs, visiting Hulu, I'd have to go back to Safari). Safari 5 may make be switch back again, depending on the extension support.
Rea
Wow this the most vacuous discussion (Score:2)
No mention of Ruby scripting, Websocket support, Geolocation or hardware accelleration in the Windows version. Nobody's reaaly looked past the extensions feature have they?
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Ugh I was lied to about Ruby scripting... it's really just the Ruby tag...
Chrome still has no color management. (Score:2)
I'll take this moment to remind GOOGLE, that Chrome still has no color management or true ad blocking capability.
Safari does have color management,
Firefox has color management
IE has color management
Chrome... nothing.
I actually like chrome in general... but I find Firefox to be much better still. Firefox performs better older hardware, and scrolls better. Firefox has better bookmark management. I do like google's synced bookmarks but I just simply use Xmarks on firefox. I wish both xmarks and google didnt sp
Reader Mode Will Get Broken (Score:2, Insightful)
Not sure why Apple is doing this, but publishers aren't going to like it. They'll find ways to scuttle it or to embed ads.
Right now, ad-blocking is a fringe activity. Places like Ars Technica suffer quite badly, but most sites don't. But Apple are giving people a heads up that lots of Safari readers won't be looking at ads - they'll be just getting the content.
I know a lot of people don't like ads, but it's what keeps a lot of sites running and "free". Without the revenue from ads, a lot of them will disapp
First official ad-blocking and auto-paging browser (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, this seems to be the first time ad-blocking and auto-paging have been built into the standard release of a browser.
Perhaps it's an Apple ploy to push publishers to iPad and iPhone apps, where their content cannot be altered.
Safari 5 fixes 48 security holes! (Score:3, Informative)
Users should also be aware that Safari 5 fixes 48 security holes [apple.com] in Safari 4.0. Therefore, if you are using Safari 4.0, you should upgrade as soon as possible. For Mac OS 10.4, there is Safari 4.1 available instead of Safari 5.0.
Re:Safari Speed & Chrome Speed (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, so Cached vs Cached (Score:3, Interesting)
Possibly, but here is an even better comparison with two cached pages. When you click "back" in Safari it loads the page layout and text first and then loads the images. Chrome loads the entire page at once, which is a lot less visually jarring. You can also notice this in the scrollbar which in Safari will keep changing sizes and in Chrome will stay the same same size upon hitting "back."
Additionally, activity monitor consistently shows Safari takes up more virtual memory and percentage usage of the CPU
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On Safari 5 on my Mac it displays cached static pages instantly when I go back and forward. Images and all. Dynamic pages load piece by piece, of course, but I honestly couldn't tell the difference watching pages load on Safari 5 vs. Chrome 5. Content shifting as a page is being loaded is a sign that the html and css didn't explicitly state the size of graphics, so the browser has to re-layout the page as it loads the images. It happens in any browser, including Chrome.
Re:OK, so extensions... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Call me when you can point to an offending element in a webpage, and have the right-click menu say 'Put this domain in my hosts file'.
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You could build this yourself with Safari Extensions.
http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/documentation/Tools/Conceptual/SafariExtensionGuide/AddingContextualMenuItems/AddingContextualMenuItems.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009977-CH4-SW1 [apple.com]
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If you don't like the adverts on a site, don't go to the site. Just spare the couple of KB, and get the site you admittedly appreciate some revenue to offset the bandwidth costs they incur to give you the information you want.
Sadly, this was OK 10 years ago. These days, websites have 1-3 flash ads with unoptimized animations. The result is that my laptop heats up and performance degrades considerably even when I'm not watching the ad.
All my local OS's block a few like ads.doubleclick.net, clk.atdmt.com, qksrv.net and ads.x10.com.
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I browse with Flash turned off. With Opera there's been Site Preferences for this for ages so I can get IPlayer and Youtube OK, and have the Enable Plugins Button on the status bar so I can toggle it on if required.
Re:OK, so extensions... (Score:5, Informative)
Well plugins like ClickToFlash still work.
Extension details can be seen here:
http://developer.apple.com/safari/library/documentation/Tools/Conceptual/SafariExtensionGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html [apple.com]
An awesome demonstration of what they're capable of:
http://www.panic.com/blog/2010/06/coda-notes-previe/ [panic.com]
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A few things worth noting -
Thanks to HTML5 offline support, designers can build web applications that store themselves on your computer, where you have immediate access to them. Along with the application, web developers can also choose to store the application’s data on your system, so you always have the information you need. Applications and data can be stored in a traditional SQL-like database serving as an application cache or as a “super cookie,” which stores data in the familiar cookie format.
When is Microsoft going to come crashing down with their patient infringement on this ...
Safari gives you even more search options with built-in Bing search, in addition to Google and Yahoo! Search. Just choose Bing in the Smart Search Field, start typing, and get search suggestions that help you find what you’re looking for fast.
Its about time someone built a browser that complies with Bing's shoddy development standards but if I was Apple wouldn't be bragging about it though :)
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Thanks to HTML5 offline support, designers can build web applications that store themselves on your computer, where you have immediate access to them. Along with the application, web developers can also choose to store the application’s data on your system, so you always have the information you need. Applications and data can be stored in a traditional SQL-like database serving as an application cache or as a “super cookie,” which stores data in the familiar cookie format.
Sounds like a malware author's wetdream..!
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Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft and Apple struck a deal for that, considering Microsoft and Google are mortal enemies, no one gives a shit about Yahoo anymore, and let's be honest here, Microsoft doesn't lose a lot of market share to Apple so they aren't as likely to be mortal enemies as fans of either company tend to be.
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Try searching for 'HTML5 database' to see what Apple has implemented.
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Can't a text file be as complicated or simple as it is?
sendmail (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you ever seen a sendmail config file?
Re:Haha (Score:5, Insightful)
Text files aren't 'complicated'. Writing the Javascript and CSS to make them work the way you want is.
I've written a few GreaseMoney scripts, but I know how to program. To the lay user, I doubt they even know what 'GreaseMonkey' or Javascript is.
I know people that would like to customize their 'browser experience' but would get lost at UserScripts.
Knowing Apple, its most likely a pretty GUI around some basic text files. I know it may come as a shock to the Slashdot crowd, but Linux, GUI, config files, etc are pretty intimidating to a newbie.
If it wasn't for OS X, I wouldn't have ever gotten into Linux, OpenSolaris, PHP, C, etc.
Terminal was always there, just never opened. I opened it a few times to move files around. Used some hints from Mac OS X Hints [macosxhints.com]. Enabled SSH, learned PHP and C through copy and paste coding until I understood how to write it on my own. Years later I run a SheevaPlug (do you honestly think a complete newbie would figure out uBoot and such?), OpenSolaris server, XBMC. Installed Ubuntu on my Girlfriend's laptop all because of Terminal.app and some natural curiosity.
If this "Simple GUI" gets some middle/high schooler or college student going "I wonder what this Plugin builder does" opening the auto-generated text and tinkering. Good for them.
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Exactly how many grannies do you know that don't mind writing a config file?
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About the same I know that care about user-defined stylesheets and scripts.
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Exactly how dumb does Apple think its users are that a text file is now considered 'complicated'?
Specifically this was for the Safari Developer program where Apple wants people to write extensions to Safari maybe like Firefox. I suppose you write all your code in notepad, vi or similar but I like having a basic UI wrapper for coding. It might not be as all encompassing as eclipse or VS but some help would be nice.
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Exactly how dumb does Apple think its users are that a text file is now considered 'complicated'?
Specifically this was for the Safari Developer program where Apple wants people to write extensions to Safari maybe like Firefox. I suppose you write all your code in notepad, vi or similar but I like having a basic UI wrapper for coding. It might not be as all encompassing as eclipse or VS but some help would be nice.
NotePad2 or HTML-Kit, but I get the point now from the responses that people have written. I guess this shows my age.
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Oh that's what I was doing, but I accidentally built a Slashdot client into the network driver, that's what happens when the source text file gets too complicated.
Re:Haha (Score:4, Funny)
No, that's what happens when you suffer from feature creep.
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The driver cant send email or twitter yet.... It is lacking in features.
Re:Haha (Score:4, Funny)
I think emacs has a macro for that.
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ctl+meta+shift+/+.
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That's cheating!
Next thing you know you're going to start using things like object oriented programming and SDKs.
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What about empty files? Or setting up an iMac?
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More or less yes. It was a joke. It was also a test to see how Slashdot group think works. People were saying things like this in the last Slashdot article about the Safari HTML 5 page and were getting modded +5 insightful saying things along the line of "Safari is proprietary"
The point of this post is, Slashdot group think has a different slant article by article. This changes what people can get away with saying.
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Then it was well played. I thought you were a troll, because of your very argument.
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Really? They use it? That's news to me.
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I skimmed the entire page with Safari 5 (cause the math content made no sense to me!) up and down several times, and reloaded a bunch of times without any issues. Obviously I haven't had it for long, but I've observed no stability problems at all. Is it possible that page is using a special font for the math symbols that may be corrupt on your system? (Wild guess) Did/do you have any Safari "enhancers" installed? Those probably aren't compatible between releases.
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The site killed Safari 5 (Mac) for me the first time I opened it, when I began scrolling before it was fully loaded. The second time I opened it I didn't touch it until the site loaded and it did not give me an issue. I do have Glims and Flashblock installed, don't know if that could be partially to blame.
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I wouldnt say Safari is constantly improving. It has remained a useless browser up until version 4. Most if everyone simply ignored version 4 and still dont use Safari.
This is Apple's 5th attempt at getting you to use your their browser. Actually you could say its the 6th attempt if you count that lame html5 feature preview stunt they tried the other day.
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Safari 5, The "Worlds Most Ignored Browser!"