Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with mac and safari

Download it with Firefox and it's borked. Download it with Safari, and it's fine. Huh?

electric_counterpoint — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:00:19 -0800

Download a certain program with Firefox and a key feature is broken. Download it with Safari, and it runs fine. Howzzat? My school requires students to use Exam4, a sort of hobbleware text editor, for exams. It has different modes, which control just how hobbled your computer is. In all but one mode, the internet connection is disabled to prevent cheating. On Macs, starting an exam in these modes brings up a login box to authorize Exam4 to disable the computer's ethernet adapters at some low level.

For the longest time, when I would enter my credentials to do this, it would fail to disable my connection. (It would also fail to bring up the actual text editor, so I was never able to enhance my GPA with my 1337 h4X -- instead, I just managed to avoid any exam that forbade Internet access).

This time, tech support diagnosed my problem right off -- they told me to download the file again, but this time to use Safari. Sure enough, it worked straight away. My question is, how could the browser possibly affect a downloaded executable such that it would install and open just fine, but have one feature broken?

For what it's worth, the file is downloaded as a zipped archive with a single executable inside. The only possible thing I can come up with is deliberate interference -- the site could deliberately sniff out Firefox users and serve us a defective file. But that doesn't make any sense, and besides the files from each browser look identical (both are 1,002,699 bytes).

Breakups SUCK

polexxia — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:01:20 -0800

Is there a way to block a specific page only in Safari (Mac)? My friend recently went through a bad breakup and is having trouble not viewing her ex's myspace profile. I know it's possible to block ALL of Myspace, but is there a way to block JUST HIS profile? so that if she goes to look at it, it stops her from seeing it?

Disable "Inline Search" in Safari 4 Beta for Mac

Leech — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 13:19:19 -0800

Is possible to disable "find in page" on Safari 4 Beta? Hi,

I hate that the "find in page" is activated by just typing anything in the page instead of Cmd+F and then search.

On some pages that requires some keystrokes to do some actions it's annoying.

Do you know if it can be disabled to use only the Cmd+F and search box instead?

(Also I'm worried if it's a plugin I've installed functionality, so please confirm me if you're experiencing the same thing or it's only me)

Facebook, delicious and flickr not loading!

carofowler — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:30:12 -0800

My facebook, delicious and flickr aren't working, but all other sites are fine. What's wrong and how do I fix it? I have been trying for over a week to use my facebook account unsuccessfully.

I use Firefox 3.0.5 on a MacBook although I have also tried on Safari 3.1.2.

Usually, I am able to sign in and arrive at the home page successfully. Then, when I try to go into any other page, the page won't load and I get a "failed to open page" error or "page load error - connection interrupted" or something of the sort.

Clicking on links in my email to posted pictures or messages also doesn't work and the page will not load. I have tried deleting all facebook cookies, all cookies, restarting Firefox, restarting the computer and nothing has worked.

My account is working fine on other computers, but since it doesn't happen with any other site, this must be an issue with Facebook AND my computer.

Also, my delicious account won't load either. I tired on Safari and the home page loaded but none of the other pages and I get "connection interrupted" as well.

When I try logging into flickr (through the Yahoo! sign in page, which is where flickr redirects you when you click to sign in) i get sent to a blank page: https://login.yahoo.com/config/login_verify2?

These sites work fine when I sign in through other computers and all other sites and the internet in general are working fine on my computer. I have also tried deleting cookies for these. For delicious it works and allows me to enter the home page, but then I still can't access any of the other pages.

Does anyone know what is going on and how I can fix it?

Thanks!

broken NPR player woes

roygbv — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 02:55:03 -0800

NPR's media player won't work on my Mac. Why? I'm running Safari Version 3.2.1 (5525.27.1), OS X 10.5.5, and using the very very latest version of Flash player (which I just uninstalled and reinstalled according to Adobe's very careful instructions). The NPR player continues to stall out - it will load, show my item in the 'playlist' section and hang like it is buffering forever. This occurs only on the NPR site. Anyone else get this, or have any idea why I am?

Why can't I listen to conference calls on Yahoo Finance? (using Mac Safari/Firefox)

b_thinky — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:44:41 -0800

Why can't I listen to conference calls on Yahoo Finance? (using Mac Safari/Firefox) Here is a link of all the day's conference calls. When I click to listen to the audio, my browser goes to a new page and attempts to load the media. Media plays, but all I hear is some light static for a couple seconds, followed by a click - then it goes dead.

This happens in all the calls I try to listen to, whether using Safari or Firefox. Also I tried AOL finance and can't listen there either. I tried upgrading Windows Media player but still no luck. I cannot download the file - only streaming is available.

Can someone suggest a solution?

How can I get an email alert when a web page changes?

tamagosan — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:27:22 -0800

I need to automatically refresh a web page and be alerted via email (or run an applescript) when it changes. There are a few commercial apps that do this, but they're Windows based and I'm on a Mac. I'd also prefer something that's freeware. There's also a couple Firefox add-ons which will automatically check a page for changes, but none that I've found allow for an email alert (or to run an applescript).

Flash Player and Safari aren't playing together?

Kwine — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:23:21 -0800

Flash Player 9 doesn't work in Safari, but does work on Firefox on an Intel Mac. Help! This is Safari 3.1.4 and Firefox 3.0.1 on a MacBook running 10.4.11. With Safari, when I load any YouTube video, nothing happens-there's just a blank spot on the page where the video should be. It wasn't too long ago that Flash content was working in Safari, but I can't say with much precision since my girlfriend mainly uses this computer. With Firefox, Flash content seems to work perfectly. A combination of common sense, Adobe support forums, and Google has led me to try already, in every permutation and order:

-Deleting and reinstalling Safari
-Reinstallng Flash 9
-Uninstalling Flash 9 via the Adobe supplied uninstaller
-Repairing the disk permissions with Disk Utility

I'm out of ideas. Can anyone help?

Will Firefox 3.0 finally allow inline viewing of pdf's on an intel mac?

ericbop — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:31:59 -0800

Yippee - Firefox 3.0 has landed. Will this solve the most glaring problem with Firefox 2.x - unlike native Mac app Safari, Firefox can't load pdf's inline. One separate question: The other feature I love about Safari is how well spotlight handles indexing and searching web pages saved using Safari. What's the best way to archive web pages using Firefox so that I can find them with spotlight? I love Scrapbook, but spotlight doesn't.

Dam you firefox, why can't you be more like Safari?

doctor.dan — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 05:09:51 -0800

I love Firefox. I love using the Fox. I love the warm and fuzzy feeling I get from using opensource software. But, I am drawn to Safari, and for only one feature. I love the way Safari handles PDFs. I like how it opens them in the blink of an eye, letting me view the PDF and then save it with the click of a button (overlay? whatever). What I'm wondering is, is there any way to get the same behaviour in Firefox. I'm relatively new to Macs (soon to be 1 year), so I'm not too familiar with all the ins and outs, but I assume it is somehow connected to Preview.app. There was an earlier attempt at doing something similar on ask.MeFi, but that didn't really lead anywhere. Google searching doesn't help either. In case you are wondering, I like this because I deal with a lot of PDF files (journal articles, woo). I'd consider switching to Safari as a main browser if it wasn't for the little differences (FF3's address bar, Command+1/2/3/4/etc, copious amount of extensions).

Aquify Safari 3 form elements?

tepidmonkey — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:32:56 -0800

What should I put in a custom browser stylesheet to override and Aquify all web form element styles (buttons, text fields, etc.) in Safari 3.0.4? I'd like to undo custom properties like colors, fonts, and borders, and make all form elements display natively, using Aqua, like Safari used to do in previous versions. I'm essentially looking for the opposite answer to this question, using a custom userContent.css-esque stylesheet. (Thanks for your help.)

How to turn off Safari's "improved" autocomplete?

mark7570 — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 07:21:09 -0800

Is there any way to turn off Safari's "improvement" to URL autocompletion? I used to be able to type a letter in the URL field and Safari would autocomplete with my most commonly accessed URL starting with that letter.

For example, typing "t" would have Safari autocomplete the specific technorati search page for my blog.

But now, new in Safari 3.0.4, is a "feature" that screws up the autocomplete: typing "t" goes to the domain homepage - not the specific page I've gone to in the past. So "t" goes to technorati.com - and then I have to arrow-key down to the page I wanted. It's an unnecessary and irritating step.

Is there any way to turn that off? (Without reverting to an older version of Safari?)

P.S. I also don't like the new search feature that animates the find-in-page function. Any way to turn that off, and go back to what the Find function has been doing fine for, oh, 14 years now?

Better Browser for the Mac

jdroth — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:59:14 -0800

I need a better browser for my Mac. I use a MacBook Pro 17". For the past year, I've been using Safari as my default browser. I like it swell except that it crashes all the frickin' time. I've installed SAFT, which allows me to restore my browsing sessions, but still -- it's a pain. Last weekend, I moved over to Firefox in the hopes that things would be improved. That's not going to work. What's with the delays for nearly every action? Ugh. (No extensions installed.) I don't yet have Leopard, but am willing to upgrade if Safari 3 offers a marked improvement in performance. What can I do to improve my web browsing experience? (Session restore is a must. Undo closed tabs is nice.) As a tag-on, I would love to know if there's anyway to restore sessions in BBEdit. Though my MBP is fairly stable, it does freeze sometimes. Worse, it has a bizarre habit of restarting itself sometimes when the lid is closed. I typically have 20-30 BBEdit documents open at once, including some that have not been saved.

Quick Post to Blogger from Safari 3

daviss — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 02:44:24 -0800

I recently switched from Firefox to Safari 3, and now I'm looking for an easy way to post to Blogger. I had been using the Google Toolbar in Firefox to do this. It had a nice feature where, if you selected some text, right clicked, and choose Send to Blogger, it would format it nicely with a link, the quote, and you could input your own title. Is there a way to do this with Safari?

Safari status bar problem (and one more Mac problem, too)

jeri — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 20:01:10 -0800

My old G4 iMac is suddenly doing two things differently, and I don't know why or how to get it back the way it used to work. 1. Using Safari, moused-over links no longer show in the status bar. (They show up fine using Firefox.) I can make them appear by pressing the control key (or the command key) for each link I move to - but I want them to just show automatically, like they did before.

2. When I launch a new application, the window appears below any one I have open, instead of on top as it used to.

I'm on the latest version of OS/X.

What are the best Safari plugins?

jroybal — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 13:26:21 -0800

What are the best Safari plugins? I recently bought my first Mac, a MacBook, and now I've switched to Safari. What are some Safari plugins that I should be using? Preferably free. Mac OS X Tiger, 10.4.10, Safari 3.0.2 Beta. I've seen some related threads on here, but they're kind of old, and there's no mention of Safari 3 Beta.

Two things specifically, but really anything that would be useful.
1. Something that would give me more control over tab behavior
2. An ad-blocker

Thanks very much.

Stripping some (but not all) formatting from rtf text (on a mac).

Tlogmer — Wed, 02 May 2007 01:55:16 -0800

Is it possible to programmatically strip some (but not all) of the formatting from text that's been copied from safari? So you know how when you copy and paste from Safari to Textedit (or another rtf-aware program), all the formatting comes through -- the links, the italics, images, etc?

I want to programmatically strip out all the formatting except the bolds and italics -- most importantly, to strip out the hyperlinks and images. I'm going to be copying a lot of text, so basically I just want this to be the push of a button.

Writing a script for textedit itself is out: the rtf is opaque (the only option is just to convert it to plain text, and I'll lose the italics). Nisus Writer Pro (beta) yields a similar roadblock (though if I could call up a contextual menu for each word using GUI scripting the problem's solved -- I don't think this is possible). I'd rather not use word because it's crashy under rosetta. Suggestions?

My Mac won't let anything but Safari connect to the internet. Help. Might pull out hair.

deinemutti — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 19:26:41 -0800

My Mac won't let anything but Safari connect to the internet. Help. Might pull out hair. I got an iMac about 1 1/2 months ago. Everything connected fine until a week ago. But the honeymoon's over, there's enough problems now to write a list:

-The Apple Mail program will not connect with my IMAP account, saying "The connection to the server (w/ my proper domain address) on port 993 failed (error 1: Operation not permitted). I cannot receive e-mails and sometime I can send them if I fiddle with the port numbers, but this hasn't worked. I also tried purging my mailbox on the server itself, deleted the account and added it in again.
It works just fine with my other Gmail account. I have already called Apple tech support and the support line for my IMAP e-mail provider, both couldn't figure out what's causing the problem. I have also scoured Apple's message board and Ask MeFi for the last week trying anything, nothing has worked so far.

-Other applications that aren't Safari won't connect.
Everytime I've loaded Firefox I get "Unable to Connect." You won't believe how many times uninstalled and re-installed this to get it to work, and failed. Ditto with Camino.

AOL Instant Messenger also doesn't wish to connect "An unknown socket error occurred: 504, 1"

Included non-connecting programs are Solarseek and Adobe downloader.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's a program I installed and then (thought) I deleted completely called GlowWorm, a firewall/internet traffic monitor program, that is playing a role. It's no longer in my apps folder, but when I hit search in finder the files are still there and they won't let me trash them properly.

I hope this all makes sense, since these issues are slowly driving me into madness. Please excuse any gaps in spelling, grammar or sheer incoherence.

How do I get Firefox to use the OSX Keychain?

clearlynuts — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 07:35:44 -0800

How do I get Firefox to use the OSX Keychain? When I used a PC, I used Roboform. It not only remembered my password, but it was compatible with IE and Firefox, so I could switch back and forth between the browsers. Now I have a Powerbook, and I have passwords in the Keychain, for the occasions I use Safari, and passwords in Firefox. I primarily use Firefox, and I won't be switching to Safari full-time (or even a majority of the time).

I found software called 1Passwd. Does anyone have experience using that software extensively? Are there bettter alternatives? Something that works a lot like Roboform would be great. I don't mind paying for a license, so freeware isn't required.

WebKit Javascript Woes

evariste — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 13:26:46 -0800

I'm having a strange problem with WebKit's Javascript engine. Please help. Copious explanation inside. I have a live inline comment preview feature, much like MetaFilter's, on my blog. It works great in Opera and Firefox (and MSIE). However, it doesn't seem to work in Safari, OmniWeb, or even the WebKit nightly build-I downloaded it in the hope that this was a WebKit bug that's fixed upstream in the nightlies, but if it is their bug, it doesn't look like it's been fixed. I'm asking this question in the hope that it's something I can fix.

Here's how my comment preview code works:

1. There's a textarea with the id "comment-text" which you type your comment into. It has an onKeyUp event handler that calls doCommentPreview() in my javascript file. There's a preview field underneath the textarea with the id "comment-preview", which doCommentPreview() fills with the preview HTML.

2. I have a blacklist of disallowed words, as a spam prevention measure. The comment engine will refuse any comment that contains any of these words or phrases.

3. At the top of the document (not in the javascript file), I fill a javascript array called spams[] with the contents of the blacklist, using php, on the server side.

4. I have two String prototype functions: showSpams() and regExEscape(). I use showSpams() to highlight items in the blacklist that a commenter might have typed in, to alert them right in the inline previewer that their comment is likely to be rejected before they hit post. It just tests the comment against each element of the spam[]array, and if the comments contains that particular word, it turns red and is surrounded by a border.

5. I've enabled the Debug menu using

defaults write com.apple.Safari EnableDebugMenu 1

Safari's Javascript console, in the debug menu, shows the following error:

Value undefined (result of expression re.compile) is not object. bloggie_05.js

on line 16.

The line that WebKit complains about is the first line inside the for-loop in String.prototype.showSpams():

re.compile(spams[i].regExEscape(),'gim');

6. Here's all the code, in context:

6-a. At the top of the document, in the <head> section:

<script language="javascript">var spams = new Array();spams[0] = 'casino';spams[1] = 'craps';spams[2] = 'backgammon';spams[3] = 'cash advance';</script>

<script src="bloggie_05.js"  language="javascript" type="text/javascript"></script>

[I abbreviated the blacklist (the spams[] array) because this question is already way too long.]

In the textarea used for writing comments, I have this:

<textarea tabindex="1"  id="comment-text" name="comment_text_body" style='width:95%;height:300px;' onKeyUp="javascript:doCommentPreview();"></textarea>

And here's the empty div underneath it, which is filled by the doCommentPreview() function above:

<div class="ientrycomment_body" id="comment-preview" name="prevu"></div>

Finally, here's the code in the external (bloggie_05.js) javascript file:

function doCommentPreview(doc){

	doc=(typeof(doc)=="undefined"?document:doc);

	field=doc.getElementById("comment-text");

	preview_field=doc.getElementById("comment-preview");

	preview_field.innerHTML = "<p>" + field.value.split(/\n\n/).join("</p><p>").split(/\n/).join("<br />").showSpams() + "</p>";

}

String.prototype.showSpams = function(){

    despammed=this;

    re = new RegExp();

    for (var i=0; i < spams.length; i++) {

        re.compile(spams[i].regExEscape(),'gim');

        despammed=despammed.replace(re,"<span style=\"color:red;border:1px dotted;\" title=\"you can't say that here!\">" + spams[i] + "</span>");

    }

    return despammed;

}

String.prototype.regExEscape = function() {

  text=this;

  if (!arguments.callee.sRE) {

    var specials = [  '/', '.', '*', '+', '?', '|', '(', ')', '[', ']', '{', '}', '\\' ];

    arguments.callee.sRE = new RegExp(

      '(\\' + specials.join('|\\') + ')', 'g'

    );

  }

  return text.replace(arguments.callee.sRE, '\\$1');

}

The line that WebKit has a problem with is in bold, in the String.prototype.showSpams() above.

What's going on here?

Why can't my Keychain.app settings work for both Safari and Camino?

invisible ink — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 14:29:21 -0800

I typically use Safari, and have my preferences set to store all of my passwords and user names in my Keychain.app. However when it starts acting up and giving me the spinning beach ball, I use Camino (v. 1.0.3.) When I try to log in to a website, it asks me for my user name and password - do I really have to fill in ALL those passwords and user names all over again? In other words, is there any way I can get Camino to access the passwords I saved using Safari? Note: I have the "Allow saving in Keychain" and "Autofill passwords in web forms" boxes checked off in my Camino preferences.

using flash macromedia on intel based IMac

Postroad — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 04:12:33 -0800

Getting Flash/Macromedia in intel based IMac Recently bought IMac and find that using Firefox, I am not able to see lots of things that requi9rte flash/macromedia. Tech guy at Mac said I could download and use the newest version with Mac's default browser, Safari. He is right. But I prefer Firefox. Is there a way I might use flash on firefox? Or, if not, how to traswfer bookmarks to Safari?

Suffrin' Safari

fleacircus — Sat, 20 May 2006 20:41:38 -0800

Safari is not retaining any history older than a day. This is a problem because it 'forgets' long URLs to auto-complete. How do I make it remember again? This is on OS X 10.3.9 (Panther). I don't see anything in the Preferences that I can change that influences this. I'm stumped, and I feel like a power loser. Did I accidentally set some invisible setting? Help me, MetaFiltarians!

So long Safari?

gwint — Wed, 10 May 2006 11:46:49 -0800

Has Safari become a second class browser? Does it have a future? More and more I'm encountering sites that are not compatible with Safari and ask me to switch to Firefox (or claim that Safari support is coming "soon") or that certain features in webapps only appear in Firefox (e.g. gmail). It's like that bad old days when sites were IE/PC-only except that now there is a viable choice for Mac users in form of Firefox. My question is: With so much developer momentum focused on Firefox compatibility, will Safari be put out to pasture? And if not, will it fade into obscurity?

Is there a perfect OSX web browser out there for me?

bruceyeah — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 03:26:22 -0800

I'm trying to find a (stable) OSX web browser that... A) allows you to select text and right-click to search for that text in Google, AND B) displays bookmarks in the bookmarks toolbar as favicons (not just plain text buttons). Firefox and Safari seem to do A, Camino has B, Shiira does both but it's hella unstable on my Intel Mac mini.

Or alternately... is there a way to customise Safari, Firefox or Camino so that they do both? I've searched high and low for relevant extensions with no success.

Camino is close to perfect, but not being able to right-click and Google something thing is annoying. Or am I just in need of a good bookmarklet script that does this?