Safari 3.0.2 beta (#2): Mailbag miscellany

[Published Monday, June 25th]

Following the release of the Safari 3.0.2 beta, which we reported Friday afternoon, readers continue to report ongoing issues. Among their laments, drawn uncritically from our mailbag, are the following:

• Autofill of passwords from the keychain does not work for some sites.

• Certain Web sites, including .Mac mail, complain that the browser is unsupported.

• The program crashes when attempting to display a PDF file.

• The program crashes after playing Windows Media content.

• The program crashes on launch, or when opening the bookmarks window, or just whenever it feels like it.

• The first attempt to load any page results in a blank window.

• Certain fonts are displayed distorted (from the reader?s screen shots, it looks like this problem involves CSS that specifies bold font weights).

• In some sites that involve file uploading, the uploading doesn?t work.

• Certain sites with possibly problematic JavaScript generate a warning dialog.

• The presence of Safari 3 may interfere with your ability to install the Security Update 2007-006.

• CPU usage rises unacceptably when many windows or tabs are open.

• Functionality of other applications, such as Mail, is interfered with.

• Some users are unable to perform the Safari 3 beta installation in the first place.

Input Manager Warning Users who are addicted to Input Manager modifications of Safari will certainly need to uninstall these until compatible updates appear. (For example, an update to Saft appeared on Saturday.) At the same time, MacFixIt continues to suggest that the Input Manager mechanism was never intended for this kind of ?code injection? misuse, and warns that Input Managers are one of the primary sources of Mac OS X instability; so our real advice would be to empty the InputManagers folders and leave them empty.

InputManagers are located in the following directories:

• /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/
• Library/InputManagers
• ~/Library/InputManagers

Install Carefully All our usual caveats about performing any installation apply here. The Safari 3 beta is not merely a stand-alone application; the installer also replaces the Dock, as well as major frameworks (WebKit and JavaScript) on which many other applications depend. The installer comes with an uninstaller package which our readers report does work just fine. So, you can revert to prior state of things if you don?t like Safari 3. Nevertheless, before installing, make a backup! You don?t want to end up like reader John, who writes:

The installation of Safari 3.0.2 beta just froze my Mac G4 Dual 1.25 MDD (running OSX 10.4.10) during the beginning of the installation process. It also destroyed my older version of Safari 2.0.4 in the process, and now I am unable to install anything else, including OSX 10.4.10 Combo updater, Safari 3.0.2 beta, or even QuickTime 7.1.6, which is already installed used just for a test.

Please do also continue to glance back at our previous coverage, which contains many suggestions for dealing with Safari 3 beta issues.

Remember: There?s a reason why this is called a beta. It?s because it?s a beta! This is not a finished application. By downloading and installing, you are implicitly agreeing to act as a risk-taking tester of functionality that is neither complete nor guaranteed. This application has a Bug button right in its toolbar. That?s because it is expected to be buggy!

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