I just did a check on Safari by having my program check every connection it tried to make. It made absolutely no connection upon startup on any port (not even port 80) to any IP address. And in going to Free Republic, it only did the exact connections, through the proper ports to post this particular post to you.
I can’t tell you what is going on with your particular version of Safari. I would suggest going to Apple’s Support Board and bringing it up for discussion with the other Apple posters. It’s a public board for anyone who uses Apple programs and/or computers. There are categories for the different software and/or computers. You may find someone there who knows what is happening.
All I know is that it doesn’t do it on my Safari, but I’m not using the beta version. Others may be using the beta version who are on that board. Good luck on finding some answers there.
http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa
And, by the way, I have Firefox, too, but I rarely use it. I only do so when I want to check something out on another browser, which isn’t too often. One of the things that others may not be aware of is that the reason why Apple put out a Windows version of Safari is that the “applications” that can be developed on the iPhone will require Safari to do it. So, in order to not exclude a lot of “Windows developers” from doing something with iPhone, Apple put out a Windows version of Safari.
Thanks for the thoughtful responses, ST...
Later...