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Apple Quietly Releases Safari 3.2
99BottlesOfBeerInMyF writes "Yesterday Apple quietly slipped out an update to their Safari Web browser to version 3.2. The notable feature is that it finally adds anti-phishing technology, an area where Safari has lagged behind competitors. Aside from that, it provides some security fixes, improved JavaScript performance, and a slightly newer version of Webkit, pulling their Acid3 score up to 77." Apple forums across the Net are reporting frequent crashes in Safari 3.2, some possibly caused by 3rd-party add-ons, others perhaps related to the anti-phishing feature.
Safari is based on Webkit, which can achieve an almost perfect acid3 score. Anyone using windows or macosx can easilly try it.
Apple forums across the Net are reporting frequent crashes in Safari 3.2, some possibly caused by 3rd-party add-on
Yep, PithHelmet (anti-ad plug-in) causes 3.2 (Mac, of course) to blow up every time when using multiple tabs. Removing its bundle from /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/ made it stable as a rock again (no problems at with about 15 tabs open, with varying kinds of embedded content), but, sadly, I'm buried with ads again.
An update addressing one of the most important shortcomings of one of the most important web browsers; I fail to fail to find this noteworthy.
It also now supports EV-SSL. That and the anti-phishing were two major beefs of companies like PayPal.
Worse, I downloaded Safari for Windows for testing and they tried to force iTunes on me. They said it was a security update. I've since removed their update 'service' (like servicing a cow) and I guess I'll have to update Safari manually.
Admittedly, this was a while back and maybe they've cleaned up their act. Then again, Firefox 3.0.4 refuses to install because I need to run as an account with more rights than a full administrator. All I need now is Opera to give me grief.
I thought it was a perfect score. Not a almost perfect score.
What I really want is some screenshots of what the anti-phishing behavior looks like. For all this talk about Safari 3.2 no one has bothered to try out the new features.
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I tell you the real annoying bug. It erases cookies sometimes. Yes, the file itself (~Library/Cookies/Cookies.plist). It was documented by unsanity and said to be fixed at least on Intel but we, poor PPC users who made the mistake of jumping to Leopard still suffer from it.
http://www.unsanity.org/archives/apple/apple_hates_bug_filers.php
Ironically, it generally hits you when you report a bug to Apple, that is where the title comes from.
I had to restore 2.2 MB of cookies from Time Machine today.
Windows version is there too and it is a serious sounding security update.
The actual release notes are at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3298
You should subscribe to Apple Security Updates mailing list for non PR infested update announcements.
http://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/security-announce
TFA doesn't call this out at all - does this update the Mac version only or is Windows also at 3.2?
TFA provides a link to download the Windows version.
The WebKit nightly builds have been passing the ACID3 test for months and are still 4 times faster than Safari 3.2 according to the SunSpider Javascript Benchmark. Why is Safari so far behind?
They're probably still working out bugs between Webkit and the applications they have that use it. As I mentioned in the summary, however, most of the javascript improvements seem to have made it in this time. On my machine Safari was getting about 11 on the sunspider test, before this update and is now getting about 3. The nightly of Webkit on the same machine comes in at 1, which is better yet, but not that significantly.
The question is: why is Apple so quiet about rolling this update out and what it fixes, and since when does a minor Safari update require a reboot?!!
It replaces more than the Safari application. It also, slightly, updates Webkit, which is a core library that numerous programs use. You can get by without rebooting if you just kill the update at the end then restart all the programs that use Webkit... but that's a bit advanced for most people and a reboot is easy.
The erratic behavior of Safari could be caused by damaged resources which were replaced in this update, making it more useful to you than the average bloke.
If a browser doesn't score a 100 on the Acid3 test, it fails. Period. A browser that scores an 18 doesn't fail any more (at least officially) than one that scores an 88. They both fail, and that's it. What's more, a browser could theoretically get a 100 and still fail the test. In order to pass, you need a score of 100 and the test page needs to look pixel-for-pixel like the reference rendering (which is a little redundant, but that's what it says on the test page itself). The higher score should raise a footnote perhaps, but you shouldn't be too concerned about it.
And it looks like once again I'll have to reboot my Leopard macbook because of an update in a fucking web browser application. I've been really quite happy with OS X for last five years but lately this all has become really rather pointless. Too many lock-ups, too many bugs, too many reboots. Didn't see any of that with my iBook running Panther before. Looks like Apple tries to compete with price and the quality is gone.
shortcoming yes, important web browser? Dude Im a mac users, a claimed Apple zealot, and all that and even I dont see the importance in Safari.
There are four major HTML rendering engines right now, two of which are commercial (Microsoft's Trident and Opera's Presto) and two of which are open-source (Mozilla's Gecko and Apple's WebKit). Of these, only WebKit is really growing right now - more and more browsers are being built on it. Safari is the reference implementation for a WebKit-based browser. That's why Safari is important.
In addition to Safari (and the mobile version of Safari used on the iPhone and iPod touch), WebKit is also used by Adobe AIR, Google Chrome, and Nokia's S60 browser. Also, Konqueror is still using their own KHTML, but they're working on switching over to Apple's fork, eventually.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Apple pushED the Safari via iTunes and QuickTime updates, but Apple has not done it long time now.
Safari is possible to install via Apple Update but you need to select it first from secondary downloads list to get it. It does not come automatically.