The Apple Files

Written on June 27, 2006 – 8:10 pm | by iSwitch |

I have been using Safari for a good few days now and I really enjoy using it. Besides loading up a lot faster than Firefox, Safari is a lot more Mac like than Firefox. For instance, the Google homepage displays in a generic way within Firefox, as seen below:

However, in Safari, the page is more OS X like, with the blue shades outlining the text box and the round sided glass type Search and I’m Feeling Lucky buttons:



However, Safari does have its shortcomings. In fact, I feel it has quite a few missing features.

1. Tab browsing within Safari is not as configurable as I would like it to be: There isn’t an option to automatically have links open in new tabs rather than new windows. Also, there is no way to re-arrange any open tabs you have opened: no drag and drop tab arrangement.

2. Safari opens up a downloads window for every file downloaded. While this is ok, it would be nice to have an option to have this downloads window close itself automatically once the download is complete.

3. I really miss the Firefox designed Find feature that is ‘docked’ to the status bar within the Firefox window. Aside from being neater than having a pop-up window to find text within a web page, the Firefox Find feature also allows for highlighting of all the words it matched within the web page:

I find this highlighting feature really helpful when I’m scanning through a web page looking for a specific word. It’s a lot more efficient than looking searching through the text word by word:


However, there is no such feature within Safari, simply a pop-up window:


4. The Google Toolbar and Google Notebook extension for Firefox is not available for Safari.


I tend to use Google Notebook a lot when browsing as it is a lot quicker and stores a lot more infomation than manually copying and pasting content into a text editor. Google Notebook will also automatically store images within a web page, the URL as well as the text.

One more thing:

5. Safari is unable to display some types of content within a web page. I’m not sure what the cause of this Safari handicap is (limited AJAX compatibility?) but it won’t for example display the Quick Contacts item in GMail’s sidebar.

Taking all of these limitations into account, I see myself staying with Firefox for most of my internet browsing and leaving Safari only for the less intensive tasks. I do however hope that future releases of Safari will improve in those aspects and that Google will soon release more Mac compatible products. Until then, I have sent off some feedback off to Apple in regards to the limitations within Safari.

It was however interesting to note that Apple’s online feedback form didn’t have an option for the MacBook/MacBook Pro or the Mac Mini (intel) in it’s drop down menu for which computer you have: