Safari 4's Messy Trail

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Posted by kdawson on Saturday May 23, 2009 @07:53AM from the if-disk-space-were-infinite-and-free dept.

Signum Ignitum writes "Safari 4 comes with a slew of cool new features, but extensive data generation combined with poor cleanup make for a data trail that's a privacy nightmare. Hidden files with screenshots of your history, files that point back to Web pages you've visited and cleared from your history, and thousands of XML files that track the changes in the pages in your Top Sites can add up to gigabytes of information you didn't know was kept about you." Some of Safari's bloat is kept in quite obscure locations; it takes a fairly knowledgeable user to find it and clean it up. You can avoid some of the worst of it by disabling Top Sites.

12 of 200 comments (clear)

Oh that Apple by wampus · 2009-05-23 07:59 · Score: 5, Funny

I for one like it because it is so innovative and it fits in well with my hip, young lifestyle.
At least it is not windows temp by linzeal · 2009-05-23 08:06 · Score: 5, Funny

Windows temp (/username/appdata/local/temp) which if not cleaned can hold every single unzipped file/torrent/etc since you installed the operating system. Just cleaned up a computer at a friend's house that was nearing 200 gigs in temp from mostly anime porn avi he downloaded and unzipped. I showed his gf some of the stuff thinking it was funny and was told to leave the house, he was not very happy either. Damn kids, lol.

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An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Re:Safari does clean up after itself. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-05-23 08:25 · Score: 5, Funny

Yes but that last 32k is the EVIL 32k
Re:Oh expoitable by EvilIdler · 2009-05-23 08:58 · Score: 2, Funny

Wow, that's the most paranoid thing I've read all day, and I've read at least two Slashdot articles!
Re:Safari does clean up after itself. by monktus · 2009-05-23 09:13 · Score: 5, Funny

32k of evil ought to be good enough for anybody.

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Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals... except the weasel."
Oh well... by PopeRatzo · 2009-05-23 09:16 · Score: 5, Funny

...a data trail that's a privacy nightmare...gigabytes of information you didn't know was kept about you.
Remember those famous Apple "1984" advertisements where they're the young, free person breaking out of the crushing tyranny of Big Brother?

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You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:Safari does clean up after itself. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-05-23 09:32 · Score: 2, Funny

I'm sure you had something interesting to say, but it seems you don't know how to coherently convert thoughts into English.
Re:Advert co-incidence by Silas+is+back · 2009-05-23 09:48 · Score: 4, Funny

Keywords:
Did, not, get, joke

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this sig is useless
Re:Safari does clean up after itself. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-05-23 10:05 · Score: 2, Funny

Seriously messed up. On my machine:

before: 737M -Caches- after: 815M -Caches-
Re:Safari does clean up after itself. by belrick · 2009-05-23 10:42 · Score: 2, Funny

Yes but that last 32k is the EVIL 32k
You mean each of the evil bits left over from the 129 MB of data?
Re:Oh expoitable by Anonymous Coward · 2009-05-23 11:17 · Score: 1, Funny

I have nothing to hide. Suicide Girls is art, right?
Re:Safari does clean up after itself. by CarpetShark · 2009-05-23 12:27 · Score: 3, Funny

32k of evil ought to be good enough for anybody.
Unless you're called Bill, in which case you'll want around 640k of evil.