Apple updates Safari with enhanced push notification, new security features

Apple on Tuesday rolled out an update to its Safari Web Browser for Mac, with new features like enhanced push notification settings coming to users of OS X 10.9 Mavericks.

Apple updates Safari with enhanced push notification, new security featuresApple updates Safari with enhanced push notification, new security features

Perhaps most significant among Safari version 7.0.3’s new features is greater control over push notifications, which in the past required per-website management.

With the latest release, users can simply uncheck a box for “Allow websites to ask for permission to send push notifications,” which effectively disables all incoming push attempts. In addition, the update includes a fix to an issue that could block the receipt of push notifications.

Support for webpages with new top-level domains, like “.cab” and “.clothing,” has also been added, allowing Safari to move directly to a webpage instead of initiating a Web search.

Other fixes include an problem that could cause a webpage to load prematurely when typing a search term into the address field, credit card autofill compatibility and several security issues.

Safari 7.0.3, or Safari 6.1.3 for those running older OS X versions, is a free download from the Mac App Store or Software Update.

Safari 6 Brings Omnibar, Offline Reading List, Do Not Track, and More to OS X Lion

Right alongside the freshly launched OS X Mountain Lion, Apple has released Safari 6 for OS X Lion users. Users can download Safari 6 from Software Update via the  Apple menu.

The Omnibar, which Apple calls the “Smart Search Field”, is the biggest visible change, it combines the URL bar with the Search bar allowing for a much cleaner minimalist user interface that more closely resembles Google Chrome. The Omnibar is worth the update alone in our view, but there are a handful of other nice features that are also great like Offline Reading List, which saves complete web pages for reading later when you don’t have an internet connection, a Do Not Track option for enhanced web privacy, the Password Pane management tool for web logins, Baidu search for Chinese users, and a bunch of fixes and performance enhancements.

If you’re not upgrading to Mountain Lion today, do yourself a favor and at least get Safari 6.

Safari Keyboard Shortcuts

Safari is the fast and lean default web browser bundled with Mac OS X. You probably already know a shortcut or two, but there are tons of shortcuts in Safari worth remembering that can really improve your experience browsing the web. We’ll cover 31 different keystrokes, they are grouped into different sections based on use case, and we’ve also included a few multi-touch gestures for those of us with multitouch capable Macs.

8 Shortcuts for Navigating Tabs & Web Pages

• Switch to Next Tab – Control+Tab
• Switch to Previous Tab – Control+Shift+Tab
• Scroll Down by Full Screen – Spacebar
• Scroll Up by Full Screen – Shift+Spacebar
• Go to Address Bar – Command+L
• Open New Tab – Command+T
• Open Link in New Tab – Command+Click a link
• Add Linked Page to Reading List – Shift+Click link

7 Shortcuts for Reading & Viewing Pages

• Strip Styling and View in Reader – Command+Shift+R
• Increase Text Size – Command+Plus
• Decrease Text Size – Command+Minus
• Default Text Size – Command+0
• Enter or Exit Full Screen – Command+Escape
• Open Home Page – Command+Shift+H
• Mail Link to Current Page – Command+Shift+I

5 Shortcuts for Caches, Loading Pages, Source, and Pop Ups

• Empty Browser Cache – Command+Option+E
• Reload Page – Command+R
• Stop Loading Page – Command+.
• View Page Source – Command+Option+U
• Disable Pop Up Windows – Command+Shift+K

3 Shortcuts for Finding and Navigating Found Items

• Find Text on Page – Command+F
• Navigate Found Items Forward – Return
• Navigate Found Items Backwards – Shift+Return

8 Shortcuts for Toolbars, History, and Reading List

• Hide or Show Toolbar – Command+i
• Hide or Show Bookmarks Bar – Command+Shift+B
• Hide or Show Status Bar – Command+/
• Hide or Show Tab Bar – Command+Shift+T
• Show Top Sites – Command+Option+1
• Show History – Command+Option+2
• Show Reading List – Command+Shift+L
• Show Downloads – Command+Option+L

Bonus: 4 Safari Multi-Touch Gestures

• Go Back – Two Finger Swipe Left
• Go Forward – Two Finger Swipe Right
• Zoom Out / Decrease Font Size – Pinch
• Zoom In / Increase Font Size – Spread / Reverse Pinch

Mac Lion : Inside Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: Safari adds iPad-like Downloads menu

Safari’s existing Downloads window, which lists every document, disk image or other file you’ve downloaded through the browser, is still there can be displayed using the Windows/Downloads menu option.

Safari 5.1 in Mac OS X Lion adds a new window-integrated downloads popup menu with behavior that appears to be borrowed from iPad.

However, after your first download in the new version, a new icon appears to the right of the URL and Search fields in the Safari toolbar. Clicking the button reveals a list of previous downloads and the current progress of each active download, which are displayed in an iPad-like popup menu.

Mac OS X Lion Safari-Download

The icon itself presents a progress bar that fills in as downloads complete. As with the conventional Downloads window, the integrated new popup control provides links to file or disk image downloads that have completed, including a “find” icon that reveals the item in the Finder.

Popup menus were added to iOS to support an efficient way to present a variety of options or controls which might appear in a desktop application’s floating palette windows.

Mac OS X Lion Safari-Download

On the iPad, this makes options easy to select via touch gestures, and easy to open and dismiss palettes of selections, without requiring a complex multi-windowing environment more suited to a mouse-based interface.

In Mac OS X Lion, the same types of popup menus are being used to similarly simplify the interface while still making the presentation of a variety of options possible. Apple previously adopted popup menu panels in iCal, which tie event settings and details directly to the event’s scheduled time in the calendar.