Safari 4 Public Beta is a UI disaster

Mac Daily News ^ | 02/28/2009

[Force of Truth]

You should try FireFox on XP-Memory Leaks-Only used for youtube like downloading

K-Meleon rocks the house on XP except for Google Chrome to use with Facebook

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"You should try FireFox on XP. More friendly and customizable, far more so than Internet Explorer."

Firefox 3 is my default browser on all my machines-- due to my work, I use Windows, Linux and (my personal favorite and recommendation) Mac OS X. Firefox, with the Foxmarks extension, keeps my bookmarks in synch between all three platforms. Wonderful.

But I also have IE 7 on Windows and use it occasionally. I have Safari as well on Windows and of course Mac. No doubt about it: IE 7 is the slowest and least stable of the three. And Safari is now by far the fastest. But Firefox is the only one with versions for all three platforms and a way of keeping my bookmarks in sync, so it will remain my default. It has usually been the only browser that could stand up to my insane tab usage during my research work, when I've had more than 80 tabs open at a time. I have yet to stress-test this latest version of Safari in usage of that sort. (IE7 pukes at about ten or twelve tabs-- pathetic.) But I gotta say, this latest Safari is one impressive technical achievement. Type in a URL, hit Enter, and >bam<, there it is. Astonishing. It's just scary fast.

[dennisw]

But Firefox is the only one with versions for all three platforms and a way of keeping my bookmarks in sync, so it will remain my default. It has usually been the only browser that could stand up to my insane tab usage during my research work, when I've had more than 80 tabs open at a time.

I open up a lot of tabs too and IE7 kept on locking and crashing under Vista
Moved to Firefox and it's much more stable and passes the stress test

[Knitting A Conundrum]

And I thought I was a tab abuser...not unusual for me to have 40 open at any one time...

[SunkenCiv]

To me, it seems like Apple had heard that 'Chrome has tabs on top,' but instead of just being honest and admitting that Google got it right, they set a goal for themselves to make as many arbitrary and useless changes as possible so they could still claim they were innovating.

They hire away some programmers from MS? ;')

[snarks_when_bored]

There, the tabs are the titlebar, leading to a rather schizophrenic UI widget: it has to act as a titlebar and a tab bar, and consequently, does neither of the two very well.

As soon as I saw those tabs, I closed Safari 4 and said "bye-bye".

[jacquej]

The new tabs threw me at first, but I am getting used to them. They remind me of file folders.

When trying out any new software, there is usually a break-in period for this old woman to get used to the new way of doing things. I now kind of like having the window bar between my bookmarks bar and the tabs.

I don’t click on the wrong thing as often as I used to. I only wish I could modify the search engine. I do not trust google, and would like the default to be dogpile, just on principle.

[Terpfen]

My only UI problem with Safari 4 is that they removed the blue progress bar from the URL and replaced it with the spinning gear. The tabs are fine, and are actually more coherent from a UI point of view than previous incarnations: given the top-down hierarchy of computer UI design, the way widgets are stacked is important.

Putting the tabs on top means that the URL bar and screen area display below are associated with that tab, borrowing the paradigm of a binder tab system. It makes more sense than putting tabs below the URL bar, even if we’ve had tabs below the URL bar for 20 years.

[wastedyears]

You’ve had 80 tabs open on one browser window at a time?

[Swordmaker]

Do you know of a means to block ads in Safari on a windows box?

Sorry, Petronski, but I haven't investigated it.

[Swordmaker]

I do however miss the blue thermometer.

Enter your terminal (It's in the Utilities folder in your Applications folder) and copy and paste the following two UNIX commands after the $ prompt:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign -bool NO

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle -bool NO

hit return after each one... and you will revert to the standard URL address field with the blue thermometer.

If you don't like the tabs being on the top of the tool bar instead of below the Bookmark Bar, then also copy and paste this command at the $ prompt in terminal:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO

and press return.

[Swordmaker]

If you go to View-Customize Toolbar, you can drag the default buttons to it which includes the refresh/stop button.

AHHHH! You're right! It wasn't there when I looked for it after resetting the tool bar... but that was before I restarted Safari. Now it's there. Thanks!

[Swordmaker]

Oh, you also have to restart Safari.. or at least close and re-open the windows.

[Swordmaker]

As soon as I saw those tabs, I closed Safari 4 and said "bye-bye".

If you are on a Mac, open Terminal and at the $ prompt type:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO

And press return. You will have your tabs back where you like them.

[Uri’el-2012]

Thanks !

re-drive safari makes it work.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

"You’ve had 80 tabs open on one browser window at a time?"

Sure, something like that. Pretty often, in fact. Of course, only a maximum of a dozen are visible at any given time, but Firefox has a drop-down button thingie at the far right of the tabs which lists all your tabs in order. Handy. It's a great browser. I find it hard to fathom it's a descendant of the old Netscape browser, which was buggier than a tropical isle and a quick uninstall every time I tried it. I was therefore reluctant to try Firefox, but it's marvelous. Far, far superior to IE.

But this new Safari is noticeably faster. Just, pow. Fast.

[snarks_when_bored]

What I noticed about the tabs on the title bar was that they were hard for me to read and didn’t appear to scale well when new tabs opened. I’ll admit, though, that I didn’t give them much of a chance. I just reacted with “phew, that stinks” and closed the browser.

[snarks_when_bored]

If you are on a Mac,...

Nope, I'm on an old PC. I'll let Apple shake the bugs out of Safari 4 and try again in a few months.

[Richard Kimball]

I downloaded the tweak menu and it works well. I like the new interface, but then I’m a Mac fanboy. So, I’m waiting for my next marching orders from Apple.

[dennisw]

Fox marks will syncronize book marks across all three