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but I am concerned about this development, as there are few websites (including my bank) which don't work with Safari

Try out Safari Enhancer. It adds a debug menu to the browser that allows it to pretend it is a different browser, for example like it is IE on a Windows machine. I found that it allows me to use sites that even IE for OS X wouldn't work with for some reason. I believe that many instances where a website says it can't work with Safari, it is actually the server detecting what browser you are using and it relays that message, even if the website works fine under Safari.

if you use Safari Enhancer to alter the user agent setting to "Firefox" or something similar the page displays fine.

Not that it matters as I have moved to Firefox as my default browser. I like Safari but I want the Flashblock and AdBlock plugins for Firefox.

to coincide with Safari 2.02 and, by extention, 10.4.3. Main change is that most features now do not require admin access to enable.

Can be found at http://www.lordofthecows.com/

Tinker Tool still appears to work with 10.4.3, but it's pretty safe given that it makes changes to preference files that can also be made through terminal.

I am starting to think that both skins and customization are highly overrated. What's needed is a single good skin. The ability to custmoize is nice, but far less important than having a good skin already there.

Can't agree more. When I used windows and, especially, linux I would spend hours trying to get all the themes to look just right. Then in a few weeks time, I'd feel the need to change it all again.

Now, with OS X, everything looks just right all the time. The only thing I did was remove the brush metal from safari. Otherwise, it's perfection.


-Colin

I needed to run IE once in a while to access some sites that wouldn't allow Safari, and even then some sites wouldn't work properly on IE for the Mac surprisingly. But I found out about Safari Enhancer, which helps with the problem and is free. If you don't know about it, check it out. Turn on the debugging menu checkbox, and it automatically enables Safari to pretend it's IE on a Windows box if that's what the site needs. It proves that many of these browser incompatibility sites are actually on the server side which conviniently lock-in users to IE on Windows. There's no reason why a site without any fancy DHTML or Active X components should work on IE for Windows and not work properly on IE for the Mac, yet Safari Enhancer lets the site work on Safari. I've actually witnessed this. Just make sure you set "History Menu Items Limit" to 999, and don't leave the field blank. It doesn't completely eradicate the problem, like sites that rely heavily on IE DHTML. And strangely enough, a Whatis.com search results page would make Safari hang. But other than that, it really helps.

Safari Enhancer of course remains a must-have app for other tweaks. I also like Safari Bookmark Exporter so I can dump my bookmarks into Camino, Mozilla, and Firebird - speaking of which, where the hell is my 0.8?

Safari Enhancer of course remains a must-have app for other tweaks. I also like Safari Bookmark Exporter so I can dump my bookmarks into Camino, Mozilla, and Firebird - speaking of which, where the hell is my 0.8?

Or, you can just download Safari Enhancer, which can import bookmarks.

A very useful "no need for getting under the hood" app and worth the donation just for the Aqua.