back to article Fanbois howl over 'hang a lot' Safari 5

Complaints about Apple's recently released Safari 5 continue to mount, but we've got a few suggested fixes — which, depending upon your situation, may be godsends or may be totally useless. Some of the reported problems, such as those involving misbehaving add-ons (aka plug-ins) are relatively simple to fix. Others – such as …

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  1. Steve Crook
    Joke

    Flash

    I've no doubt that these are all flash sites that are causing the problems. Jobbsie was absolutely right, just like he always is.

  2. Eddy Ito

    Perhaps...

    "... and wait for version 5.0.1"

    Perhaps not.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Hmm, OK then,,,

    "To be frank, unless you can't live without the new Safari Reader feature, you might well be better off downloading and installing a copy of Firefox, Chrome, or Opera "

    Even if you can live without it, you can get Safari Reader (which Apple stole) for all browsers from here:

    http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

    Why ANYONE would use Safari when Opera on Mac is like a million times better, faster and fully featured. (and now totally native Cocoa)

    1. Ian Davies
      FAIL

      Stole?

      "Even if you can live without it, you can get Safari Reader (which Apple stole) for all browsers from here:

      http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/"

      It's called open source. Have you heard of it? The second-biggest section in Safari's "acknowledgements" page is about Arc90 and how it's used under the Apache 2 license.

      Doofus.

    2. Samuel Walker
      Flame

      You fail.

      Apple haven't stolen it. Readability's licence allows them to do exactly what they have done/ Therefore it is not stealing. They even acknowledge Readability in the browser itself.

      OH, and they have altered it (notably with multi-page concatenation) with features Readability does not have.

      So no, you can't get Safari Reader from that site.

      Go and sort your facts out first.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Grenade

        re : Apple haven't stolen it

        Maybe not, but they were more than happy to allow all and sundry to believe that it was a piece of Apple innovation and then bask in the misplaced admiration.

        Yes, they acknowledged its source but they didn't exactly shout about it (old lavatory / filing cabinet / beware of leopard), instead preferring to let the fanboi sheep think that they created it.

        1. ThomH

          @AC

          On the contrary, the things Apple wanted to shout about and have everyone believe were super Apple coolness were part of Jobs' keynote. Safari 5 was announced with a brief press release that mentioned that the feature is there. The software itself credits the feature to its open source origin.

          It's the fan websites themselves, not the company, that seem to have spent a couple of days being uninformed. And that's just the standard result of trusting people that are bloggers, not journalists, to relay facts.

  4. Nordrick Framelhammer
    FAIL

    Time for a new catchphrase

    How about "It may have hung but it didn't crash", or "It just works... when it wants to".

    1. C Yates
      Happy

      I prefer the old SOE favourite...

      ... "It's not a bug, it's a FEATURE" =D

  5. Neil Greatorex
    Coat

    Jeez, for "it just works"

    Sounds like an awful lot of "it just doesn't work"

    So glad the only Apple in my gaff is a Granny Smith..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Dead Vulture

      Don't be suckered by the media

      Remember, the bottom line for the media is to make a living, not to seek out the truth, or establish justice, our any other noble goal.

      If you've read the Reg for a while, you'll notice they do this to every .0 release (not just from Apple). Trawl through Internet forums, find a smattering of people who have had a problem that might conceivably be linked to the new release, and proclaim to the world that it's causing widespread chaos and destruction. After all, who will read an article that says that it worked fine for virtually everyone, but revealed preexisting problems like corrupt/faulty hard drives or badly written plug-ins?

      Take another look at the article - follow those links and count the number of people who might actually have a genuine problem with Safari 5.0. It's a very, very small number, one of whom actually realises he has a fault with his boot drive and many who have installed questionable plugins. There are some real bugs involved, but there always will be (and these are quickly resolved). When you consider that millions will be installing this and most (including myself) have carried out several completely successful installations, the article is unsubstantiated hype. But that's what most of the media is about - it's entertainment, not news.

  6. nsld
    Linux

    I am a mac and I dont......

    ....seem to be as stable as the hype suggests.

    I am however as overpriced as the hype expects.

  7. Bit Brain
    Thumb Up

    I must be one of the lucky ones…

    So far Safari 5 has behaved impeccably for me. Still haven't decided if it's worth switching permanently from Firefox yet but I'm willing to give it a few more days (mind you, if it hadn't been for the quick appearance of an AdBlock extension I'd be back on Firefox already).

    1. MacRat
      Thumb Up

      Safari 5 works Great

      I've had it running on a PowerBook and a MacBook Pro and I haven't seen a single problem.

      It is REALLY snappy on the older PowerBook G4 that earlier versions of Safari were slow on.

      1. Bit Brain

        Windows version ain't too bad either…

        Even the Windows version is fairly snappy (on XP via VMWare Fusion).

  8. James O'Shea Silver badge

    Interesting

    I installed Safari 5 immediately on it becoming available. I did it on several Macs and on multiple Windows machines, too. No problems on any of those machines. Hmmm.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    actually surprised

    this seems to be working by me on windows quite well.

    unlike that other stinking pile of crap itunes !

    1. ThomH

      There's a reason you rarely see iTunes apologists

      I often wonder what the problem is on that one. Whether you like Safari's feature set and interface or not, it basically seems to work about as well on Windows as it does on OS X on a technical level. Conversely, iTunes for Windows sometimes feels like wading through treacle. It could be something to do with Safari being designed originally for Cocoa and OS X and all the modern stuff compared to iTunes being an OS 9 carryover reputedly full of legacy hacks, but somehow that doesn't feel like an entirely convincing argument.

  10. Ammaross Danan
    FAIL

    Of course...

    But of course, it's a Mac, so don't worry. It just works. (or in this case, Apple software for all those cross-bred Safari-on-Windows *cough* beta testers *cough* software users)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      RE: Of course...

      Except if you'd bothered to read what previous posters had written, you'd realise that the problem is limited to a very small number of users, some of whom already acknowledge that they had existing problems with their systems (dodgy plug-ins, wonky boot drives etc)

      (If you really want to talk about Windows software being "beta" versions then can I just remind you about "Windows 7 beta", or Vista as it was known?)

  11. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    hang on...

    ..this guide was starting to get a bit technical. I thought OSX was made to be easy...you know so easy that dribbling goons with more money than sense can slap their one button mouse with their webbed hands and still get some job done.

    all this hacking? well, its starting to expose (no pun intended) the BSD that lives underneath the hood.

    which is no bad thing...if I have to do that on an OSX system rather than a pure Linux box (on much cheaper hardware but same spec) then I might just be interested enough in trying out their

    fancy GUI installed of the latest SVN of GNOME ;-)

    1. Ted Treen
      Jobs Halo

      Well,

      What a beautifully put, well-expressed, reasoned discourse.

      Might one enquire if "A/C" is due to an inability to recall your name for more than a moment or two?

      1. ThomH

        @Ted Teen

        Oh, leave them to it. Whatever you say, even barely coherent swear-filled invective is going to get substantially more upvotes than downvotes around here as long as whatever argument it makes appears to be anti-Apple. Someone has to be the kicking boy and it seems Apple have finally managed to claim a crown from Microsoft somewhere...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      RE: hang on...

      You do realise that the problems seem to have been limited to a very small number of users, most of whom had existing problems (wonky boot drives) or who had already fiddled about under the hood...?

  12. John H. Maw

    Safari OK for me

    No problems with Safari so far. If I don't get to finish this message you know I spoke too soon. Just shows how tastes vary. I use Safari, Firefox, Opera and sometimes Camino, but much prefer Safari for most things. OK. That's the end of the messa.............................

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ah, the Mac: "It Just Works".

    apart from when it doesn't, and then it's the user's fault, either by installing something else that interferes even though the previous version worked fine with the same things installed or just in general.

    1. ThomH

      With all due respect though

      Most of the Safari plug-ins that people are having trouble with explicitly check the Safari version and actively refuse to work with newer versions. Which is not to let Apple off the hook because those plug-ins are mostly the sort that use various slightly dodgy workarounds to Apple's previous failure to provide a complete plug-in interface.

      So it's not the users' fault that the software stops working but only because it's doing exactly what it was explicitly designed to do.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wondering

    If this is what got Jobs during the demo, and not a Wi-Fi issue at all. He was demoing Safari 5, right?

  15. Steve Hodson

    Quoting Opera as a solution...

    ...and saying it's faster..now I know you've lost sanity. Opera is OK..heck I think I even paid for it back in the day...but it's really not in the top 3 I'd choose on a Mac.

    Count me among the group that has had no problems with Safari 5.0 that weren't related to problems at certain websites....macintouch (et al) were getting hammered during and after WWDC and had problems serving pages at all.

    ....of course I didn't have any hacks (sorry plugins) installed in 4.05 either.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    wow

    making software that doesn't work is weak

    making software that doesn't work on the limited variety of hardware platforms you yourself designed and manufactured is something else.

    I could have done a better job testing this in 15 minutes and still have had time to beat one out to the tune of the Birdie Song, as Steve Jobs apparently does nightly while he's tripping on LSD.

    *clap* *clap* *clap*

  17. Eeep !
    Paris Hilton

    Poor quality free software from Apple ?

    Why am I not surprised ? More importantly why don't you expect it ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      @Eeep

      You want to know what's less surprising, the speed at which the anti-Apple-ites rushed here to throw clever phrases like, "it just works - hah!" around. So clever, so very clever. I'm certainly convinced.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    works like a charm for me

    although RBS online banking no longer works with version 5. it says it is an unsupported browser. . But all worked fine with release 4.0.2

    1. Ted Treen
      Jobs Halo

      I'm sure it will.

      In Safari preferences, go to "Advanced", and tick "Show Develop menu in menu bar"

      Then select "Develop" from menu bar,go down to "User agent" and you will see a whole list of other browsers, and you can select one. Safari will then masquerade - i.e. identify itself as being - to the RBS website.

      I haven't tried it with RBS, but it's worked for me (with Safari 5 as well as earlier incarnations) with a whole plethora of sites requiring IE.

      PS

      Does the Reg now set exams in anti-Apple invective for all its journalists?

  19. mhoobag
    Thumb Up

    Works fine for once

    Since the update this is the first time its behaved, I've even ditched my Chrome browser as Safari opens up just as quick.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Other workaround

    1) To find out information, use an encyclopedia or consult a newspaper.

    2) To do banking, simply walk to your nearest local branch.

    3) Try using Adobe Flash sites (hopefully one crash will counteract another.

    4) Use a PC with Firefox

    5) Use Gopher.

    6) Get somebody else to do it for you.

    7) Become a council worker, or an organisation that revolves around a council. Maybe even a government worker. This will no longer become an issue as this will be the norm and you will get used to it.

    8) Disconnect the internet (see new iPhone demo, problem solved).

    9) Make up or invent whatever you are looking for (like a lot of businesses do nowadays).

    10) Blame testing. Of course no organisation in their sweet minds bothers to do testing (clearly there are whole departments being paid a lot of money to do testing all day. Those individuals that say they can do a better job of testing than whole departments are of course completely correct, purely on the basis that they say so themselves(therefore this must be a TOTAL fact ;)).

    11) Blame Jobs

    12) Blame me

    1. Ascylto
      Alien

      Re: 2) and 4)

      "2) To do banking, simply walk to your nearest local branch."

      My 'local' branch is about 7 miles away.

      I went there a week ago to pay in some money. Foolishly, I wanted to pay in £200 in £1 coins. They refused, saying they would only take £100 and there was a queue (1 person behind me) and they only had a small safe. Again foolishly, I sarcastically said the customer had already bailed them out and was it not their turn? I was told not to speak to the cashier in that way. (p.s. I was sarcastic, not rude). Eventually they told me to go to a Post Office. I did. They were excellent and gave no trouble.

      So much for local banking with humans. Crap.

      "4) Use a PC with Firefox"

      Why? No 2 is bad enough.

  21. General Pance
    FAIL

    Ha ha

    Cons: no Apple support.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    apple criticism? expected result ITT..

    thar be fanbois here

  23. Sim~
    FAIL

    oh camino baby

    El reg now does Apple tech support? Did Apple transfer its QA department to ipads only?

    And no Camino love?

  24. Antidisestablishmentarianist

    Funnily enough

    Safari 5 saved my skin last night when Firefox decided to get in a loop of crashing on start (with attendent crash reporter) and studiously attempt to restore those same webpages that caused it to crash in the first place.

    Indeed having two browsers is the best course of action. As always some pages work on one and not the other, and vice versa.

    Chrome? Woudn't even think about it. Those Google people make it (shiver). They've already got some of my WiFi packets after all!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      Oh, dear!

      No need for Safari to save your skin at all. Just disable the network interface (just a few clicks that's all) and this will prevent Firefox from reloading those badly behaving pr0n sites (I doubt your banking web site was doing it to you). Or if you prefer, just keep a portable version of Firefox somewhere on your hard disk, USB key, CD-ROM or whatever.

      1. Antidisestablishmentarianist
        Thumb Up

        pr0n? PRoN??

        It was the NY Times amongst others thank you. My pr0n site have never let me down......;)

        Good tip on disabling that interweb thingy - thanks. It reminds me it was how I got an ancient version of Photoshop Elements running once (it was hanging on startup going looking for updates).

  25. Franklin
    Go

    No problems here...

    ...though two popular Safari addons, Saft and PuthHelmet, don't work with Safari 5. If you use 'em, you gotta disable 'em.

  26. ZenCoder

    I'll wait

    I'll stick with Firefox until Safari 5 has been out for a few months.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Why

    anyone thinks a browser made by a company so anti freedom of choice, particularly freedom of web choice, is a good thing to use, is laughable.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      @AC re: anti freedom, yada yada yada

      You forgot censorship and fascism. Then of course you can trot out the old nazi reference.

      Anti-freedom my arse.

      Be careful, your position is made of quick sand.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      RE: Why

      "anyone thinks a browser made by a company so anti freedom of choice, particularly freedom of web choice, is a good thing to use, is laughable."

      Safari lets me browse the same web sites as all the other browsers on my machine...

      So my "web choice" is unaffected.

  28. Neoc

    Wait for it....

    Cue Jobs blaming it all on "unapproved" plg-ins and forcing all plug-ins to be added via iTunes in 5... 4... 3... 2...

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Anyone really use Safari?

    My old man has a Mac, not really tech literate so he uses everything by the book, even he won't touch Safari as it has always been pants, preferring Firefox or Opera!

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well

    for me no problems so far on two 10.6.3 systems with clicktoflash installed.

    I noticed from a quick look at the apple site referred to in the article that a lot (not all) of the posters

    are having problems on 10.5, not sure if that is significant.

  31. RichyS
    Go

    No probs here either

    Works fine on both my Win XP ThinkPad and MacBook Pro.

    The only 'hack' I have installed (on the Mac) is Click2Flash. Which still works fine.

    So, basically the only people who've had problems are those installing hacks that make use of private APIs and the like. Okay, so it's not ideal that they break, but WTF are you doing installing a v.0 application when you know you've hacked the hell out of the previous version. I mean WTF people???!

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Browing's fine but...

    I had a play in preferences in an attempt to switch the horrible new URL history searching functionality off and managed to kill Safari twice by de/selecting various options.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    Oh. good grief!

    Every El Reg article that even mentions Apple in passing suddenly becomes the target for all those Apple haters to hurl their dummies from the pram and announce to the world that they're simply too poor or too stupid to use Apple kit, preferring instead to rely upon some hideous beige box. Indeed, many of them use an operating system that now mimics the Mac OS so tightly that it's becoming quite hard to tell them apart. Oh, except that the Redmond version still sucks.

    If you boys prefer a PC that spends more time with its panels off so you can add anything from an array of cards to blue lights and water-cooling - all "essential" ingredients for the guy who would rather see his hideous computer in bits than actually up and running and doing stuff - then you'd probably be better off keeping quiet about it. Some of us like to have Apple gear so we have something that not only performs well, but also looks drop-dead gorgeous, not some PC made from scrap Airfix kits and parts nicked from an old Amstrad. And some of us do something called "making a living" with our Apple stuff and we wouldn't be caught dead trying to get results from anything not designed in Cupertino. Of course, if you use a PC to do work and you let your clients see the equipment you use, well... Good luck with that. You probably have the clients you deserve.

    As for Safari 5: I've tried Chrome and Firefox but they don't work as well or look as good as Safari. I've been using Safari 5 from day 1 and it hasn't crashed once.

    1. McToo
      Grenade

      You do realise

      That this is a techie site, aimed at techies. Most techies like taking things apart 'just to see how they work', including the spawns of Jobs. If you're too stupid or your head is too far inserted rectally to understand this then may I point you in the direction of some 'marketing' or other 'creative' type sites where you can all gush together at how 'beautifully crafted' and how 'pretty' your latest bits of tech kit look.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        @McToo

        Some of are "techies" AND like Macs because of their aesthetic loveliness. They're just as beautiful on the inside.

        It seems you failed to understand the guy's post, but then it's prolly your head that's lodged somewhere.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          FAIL

          @AC re: "techies"

          Nah, most of the people on this site are offensive twats who can't discuss, but feel their self importance grow by complaining about products they have no plans to purchase.

          I'm a techie and I don't feel compelled to take things apart - I don't have a problem if others do, but their telling me I'm an idiot because they can't in some products is just plain offensive. Civility is the one thing this site could use a big dose of.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Grenade

        RE: You do realise

        You do realise that some of us are tired of dealing with PC problems at work and have had enough of taking PCs apart and fixing them that when they get home they want a computer that they don't need to take apart and an OS that they don't need to spend time going over fixing by hand?

        That pretty much rules out any of Redmond's offerings.

        1. James O'Shea Silver badge

          they prefer to tinker

          'You do realise that some of us are tired of dealing with PC problems at work and have had enough of taking PCs apart and fixing them that when they get home they want a computer that they don't need to take apart and an OS that they don't need to spend time going over fixing by hand?'

          I first got a Mac precisely because I spent the day playing with job control scripts and the like on VAX/VMS and assorted IBM mainframe systems and really, really, _REALLY_ didn't want to wrestle with a computer at home, too. The problem with most of the Tuxers is that they _prefer_ to spend their time messing about with the system, instead of, well, doing actual work. Now, I have a number of older systems sitting at home which I like to tinker with just to pass the time (a 486, a Pentium, a Pentium III, a beige G3 Mac, an eMac, some others) but I don't use them for real work. Real work is done on a current WinBox or a current Mac, usually either a core-i5 based Winbox, or the Toshiba laptop I'm typing on now, or a year-old iMac, due to be replaced in about six months. Windows 7 on the Winboxes, OS X 10.6 on the Mac. When I feel like playing around I might boot Ubuntu or Fedora, but not for actual work.

          That sound you hear is Tuxer heads exploding.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      what an arse

      You really have fallen for the 'form over function' Apple marketing haven't you - even more so than most fanbois. I can understand apple fans defending apple kit, after-all most people don't like to be shown weaknesses in stuff they buy with their hard earned (possibly) cash - (be it cars, houses, or apple kit), but you take this to a new level.

      I especially like the 'I wouldn't be seen dead trying to get results from anything not design in Cupertino' - brilliant - however due to the deliberate crippled nature of most cupertino kit you would probably die trying to get results USING the kit. How ironic.

      Just an aside - most of the reg readers also 'make a living' from IT - and I'm curious as to whether you would you suggest using Apple Servers to clients? If they say 'OK' (presuming you are not laughed out of the room) then you probably have the clients you deserve - the ones who are more interested in how shiny your proposal brochure was rather than its contents.

      1. Jeremy Chappell
        Jobs Halo

        Just because it's pretty...

        Mac OS X is Unix, right? What makes you think you can't use that as a server? No, really - Unix, and server kind of go together don't you think? Now he's a shock for you, Apple's servers are 1U rack-mounted systems with front mounted drives. They aren't pink, they don't have pictures of unicorns on them - in fact from three feet back you might think they were made by Sun/Oracle.

        You're going to trot out the old "they are expensive" argument right? Let me stop you right there, spec one up for actual WORK, with a proper user community to support, then do the same for one of Dell's Windows Servers - and don't forget the CALs. Don't look so expensive do they?

        OK you're going to talk about Linux now aren't you? Fine, but you're going to want support aren't you? Factor in the support. OK, you probably can beat the price, but it isn't as staggering as you thought is it?

        I have clients who have Mac Servers, and they are very happy with them. I have clients with Linux Servers, and assuming they "did it right" they are happy with them (you buy some cheap unbranded server, you'll probably live to regret it). I favour Ubuntu Server - but that's just me.

        The Xserve is a reasonable choice, and can support Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux clients... It isn't right in all cases, but it isn't the "hopeless case" you're suggesting.

        Getting back on topic, I've yet to see a Mac with a Safari 5 problem.

        1. Joe Ragosta

          Mac servers

          @Jeremy:

          You have forgotten the Mac Mini server. Under $1 K with RAID 1 and UNLIMITED CLIENT licensing.

          While that's not too impressive compared to Linux, try to spec a WIndows server with unlimited client licensing and see where you end up.

          Granted, the Mini isn't a high end server, but it makes a great home server or small workgroup server for small business.

    3. CD001

      funny

      Funny thing about the us in the beige box brigade - we actually get to choose our beige box and what it looks like: http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/lian-li-pc-888-pc-case/ not much beige or boxy about that.

      And hey, if that's not your cup of tea - how about a bit of DIY (for the true steampunk geek):

      http://steampunkworkshop.com/victorian-all-one-pc

      Whereas a modern Mac Pro is nice enough looking I suppose - it does look like a PC I had in a Lian-Li case a few years back - it's not exactly ground breaking or "cutting edge" design there. I'd happily let my clients see my custom-build PC complete with blue lights and the rest of it - which I've only opened the side of once since I built it - and that was to install a new sound card *shrugs*

      But to be honest I'd rather have clients who weren't impressed by something as silly as what my desktop case looked like - I prefer not to gull the gullible.

      1. CD001

        addendum

        The _real_ beauty of the Mac Pro case though is not how it looks but how it's engineered - now that IS a plus point for geeks :P

    4. The Original Steve
      Pint

      Shallow, vain and angry - a typical Mac fanboi on the defence

      "Of course, if you use a PC to do work and you let your clients see the equipment you use, well... Good luck with that. You probably have the clients you deserve."

      If my clients cared more about how my tools look compared to the actual work produced then you'd be more than welcome to them my friend.

      P.S. I have a "Pear Hammer Pro" for sale. It's metalic shiny, a white handle and a logo. Only twice the cost of the rubbish unbranded mass-market hammers but this one looks gorgeous!

      Bids welcome.

  34. peter-
    WTF?

    Not quite sure how this is Apple's fault

    So let's set apart the exotic issues on the discussion forums. After all you can't consider a thread of a guy with a messed-up system (Disk Utility reporting errors) with 3 replies that amount to "have you tried pushing the repair button?" a mass phenomenon.

    When it comes to the so-called add-ons, you should keep in perspective that until now there was no extensions interface, so everything there is are hacks using undocumented interfaces. Some of them quite great ones and I myself have been using SafariCookies and PithHelmet.

    But it must also be clear that such hacks are prone to breaking whenever you update the host software.

    The more civilized ones therefore automatically refuse to load when they find a version they were not built for. If you don't want to rely on that, you should rather deactivate them yourself until they're tested and/or adapted to work with Safari 5.

    Luckily most will be moving to the official extensions interface soon, so that should make things easier in the future

  35. Spanglywires
    Thumb Down

    confused?

    Works just fine here... had to check 'About Safari' to see if you were even talking about the version i had.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But but but...

    Everybody told me Macs are supreme, they never crash or have software glitches because of the superb control frea^h^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H quality control....

    Bottom lip beginning to wobble here for all the fanboi's who are going to need years of therapy to get over all the internal conflict this is going to cause.

    Alternatively, I could fetch the popcorn and just sit back to watch them implode trying to justify it all as a non Apple problem, yeah, that's a better plan.

    1. Barry Lane 1
      FAIL

      @AC But but but

      Twonk!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        RE: @AC But but but

        I don't think he realises that it's affected a handful of machines out of millions.

        Some of the posters have even said that their machines had problems before they installed Safari 5 as well.

        Shh, he's had his milk now and a little cry, if we leave him, he'll maybe drop off...

  37. Psymon
    Coat

    slap their one button mouse with their webbed hands and still get some job done.

    When you say "get some work done", I'm assuming you must mean "post some inane dribbling on twitter"

    Mines the one with the bag of troll-feed in the pocket!

  38. Jonathan White
    Thumb Up

    *shurg*

    Running it on two different Macs and Windows machine, absolutely no problems at all. As the saying goes I suppose 'YMMV'.

  39. Badwolf

    Woof Woof

    Whats the news? Safari has always been slow compared to Firefox and now Chrome.

    That said, I'd still rather use it over the dogs dinner known as IE

  40. Mokey Joe

    Works fine for me

    I wouldn't normally install point 0 software but I took the plunge and have to say I have not had an issue with Safari 5, like the rest of the posters here who actually use the browser.

    Fortunately I have copies of Firefox and Chrome on the Mac and a little win xp system locked up in Virtualbox with Firefox, Chrome and the pile of garbage that is internet explorer.

    Gotta say the webkit browsers impress me most by a country mile. Firefox is infuriating, it seems every time I switch it on to quickly check page rendering it wants to call home and download some update forcing me to wait and wait while it sorts itself out.. Compared to Chrome and Safari it just looks clunky and old hat, I used to like Firefox, now I think its a bloated dog..

  41. Juan Inamillion
    Thumb Up

    @Don't be suckered by the media

    Honest and well reasoned comment.

    Sir, you are a scholar.

  42. fuely
    Thumb Up

    All clear on the starboard bow...

    I'm both a Windows and a Mac user, and would like to pledge my indifference for both platforms from the outset.

    The majority of our users in my organisation are Windows based and use IE8 (for compatibilty with in-house web apps). Our design team, as you may imagine, use Macs. I've rolled out Safari 5 to all 22 of the Macs (which range from G4 PowerBooks to the latest Core i7 iMacs - but all run 10.6.3) and I've not had a problem with any of them thus far (touch wood).

    It may not be the fastest browser, but at the end of the day my users like it's clean and easy to use interface, and if that makes my life easier I'm all for it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      ..but it's a Mac

      And their hype says you shouldn't need to 'touch wood' - benefits of a fully controlled/locked-down OS - remember.

    2. Steen Hive
      Boffin

      10.6.3

      Forget Safari - you run 10.6.3 on G4 PowerBooks? You are a JIT-compiling instruction-translating God, and I bow before your pipelining holiness! :-)

  43. Joe Ragosta

    How about some data?

    I have a suggestion - whenever a site like this starts with their "product x is an epic fail because users are having immense problems", let's all just skip the article unless they provide some number and evidence that the problem is real.

    There are tens of millions of Safari users. I don't doubt that a few of them will have problems. Some will be related to bad hacks that they've used and which don't work with Safari 5 yet. Some may be hardware problems that were always there and they just ignored them until they installed Safari 5 - so Safari got the blame. Some are probably just plain fabricated (notice how the Apple-haters always seem to have more problems than any 20 normal people?).

    Oh, and please don't pretend that "there are 150 posts on the Apple forum thread" constitutes evidence. Typically, if there are 150 posts, 90 of them are people saying "I don't have any problem", 25 of them are the original poster saying "I don't care if you have a problem - I do", 25 of them are trolls saying "Macs suck", and the remaining 10 are suggestions on how to fix it.

    Reghardware is one of the worst. They troll Apple forums and as soon as 2 different people have the same problem, they announce to the world that Apple products suck.

  44. Rupert Stubbs

    Agree with Joe R

    There are only TWO pages of posts on the "Safari hanging a lot" thread, which is numerically trivial compared to any significant complaint threads.

    Indeed, the original poster now posts: "Well. I started this thread, so it's only fair that I point out that, tonight, Safari 5 is working beautifully. No hanging, no troubles. I did add the DNS numbers that Andy Ball suggested, but I really have no idea if that makes a difference. I also think that the trouble might come from interference. It's late, and my router has no competition. These are my very un-professional thoughts. "

    Nothing more to see here, I'd suggest.

    1. James O'Shea Silver badge
      Jobs Halo

      yep

      'Nothing more to see here, I'd suggest.'

      Quite right.

      However, watch the anti-Apple brigade continue to whinge and moan. This incident will be trotted out for _months_ to come whenever there's the slightest hiccup on anything with an Apple logo on it. And, of course, those of us who actually use Macs on a regular basis and who don't encounter these problems (I've updated over 150 machines to Safari 5 since it came out, and seen at least as many others which were updated by someone else, and none of them have had _any_ problems...) will simply ignore the twats. It's one thing if there is an actual, verifiable, real, problem. It's another thing entirely when it's a storm in a teacup magnified out of all recognition.

      But, hey, the Apple-bashers can carry on. They do amuse.

  45. Mark_W
    Jobs Horns

    I have had issues with Safari 5

    I must be one of the rare few who have had issues since going to Safari 5. Mainly on sites with flash, strangely, like Youtube.

    Normally manifests itself by the browser window crashing and throwing up a crash report pane to send to Apple. Then the first time you launch Safari after that it won't load any sites (just hangs on attempting to load) so you have to force close and relaunch Safari for it to work again. I've never had it crash before and now I'm getting it every 10 minutes or so if I consistently try to use it. Have emptied cache, reset all settings but it still happens.

    Apart from the Flash plugin, nothing else is loaded in the browser. So I've gone back to using Chrome which was my default anyway and I'll wait until either Adobe realise their code is shocking or Apple realise their code is also shocking. One of them'll fix it and we'll be right again :)

  46. Donald Miller

    Flash not

    Since I've disabled flash cookies on my Windoz and Linux machines, some sites, such as shoplocal, don't show up properly, and some (sears/kmart!) don't ever appear, just flicker and flicker. I actually hit a site that had a tag "You must accept third-party Flash cookies to view this video." You don't think the A/A spat might be part of the problem? I don't have any sauce machines to try, and only a few sites I normally use have the problem.

    When I went to post this, I had to remove my blocked cookie sites so the buzzard could remember my identity. I don't mind; I empty the list occasionally to speed up the page searching. It's much easier than unblocking and reblocking macromedia.

  47. Dana W
    FAIL

    You mean people actually USE Safari?

    Safari is fine enough on my phone I suppose. But I don't know a single Mac user who still uses it on their actual Macs.

    I love my Macbook Pro. But I need my Firefox add-on's for ad blockers, media download helpers, flash BLOCKING, cleaning up flash cookies, and so many other tools. Without these functions "to me anyway" any browser is crippled.

    Microsoft and Apple have one big thing in common, neither can make a browser with a damn. I'm thankful every day for Firefox.

    1. Quxy
      Unhappy

      Safari 5 Reader is nice...

      ...except that it doesn't do anything about the problem with Adobe Flash on OSX. Installed it, used it for five minutes, enjoyed the way Reader works -- and then had to do the usual force-quit dance because Flash had maxed out one of the CPUs. So, back to Firefox and NoScript. Until Safari can actually block Flash ads and popups (instead of just hiding them), it's pretty useless.

  48. chort
    Alert

    Don't unstall unsupported plug-ins

    Safari 5 has been nothing but great for me. Then again I don't try to cram my software full of third-party hacks and shims, so I can upgrade safely. This is exactly what Jobs was talking about in banning third-party development layers for iPhone: When Apple upgrades, the external developers won't properly modify their hacks in time and users will have a shitty experience.

  49. Falafel
    Black Helicopters

    browser wars?

    Why fight over which browser you use? Competition and freedom of choice are good for us. Forward looking all browsers get better because of it.

  50. dave 46
    Stop

    Should be expected

    Computers are complicated, you can make them easy to use when they're working right, but when something goes wrong you still need help.

    A car is about as complicated as a computer, we expect to use it without help or guidance when it's running right - but as soon as something goes wrong we take it into the shop.

    Why on earth do we think computers should be this magical technical device that never go wrong? Not even star trek fantasy has managed technology that never goes wrong so what chance do we have?

  51. justkyle
    Linux

    WebKit?

    Why use Safari, when you can use WebKit instead?

    That way, if you do find a bug, you have the source, and you can fix it yourself.

    Or, are people installing 5 for the much-discussed "make the web go away button?"

    FFS, if you want text only internet, you can have text-only internet. Install Links, or Lynx and be done with it!

    Evil Steve? Halo Bill? Halo Steve (for not killing nightly.webkit.org?)

    When in doubt, Tux it out. Home to fine, secure, text only products like lynx, pine, and elm.

  52. David Simpson 1
    FAIL

    These poor iTards can't see the wood for the trees

    "It's better than no Safari at all".

    Nope because then you'll be using a good browser like Chrome, Firefox or Opera.

  53. Paul F
    Boffin

    Works here.

    mmmyep.

  54. Steve Medway

    seem stable to me

    Chrome on Win rocks, Firefox on Win is good with essential plugins, Safari on Win sucks, Firefox on OSX is dog slow, Chrome on OSX is very good but Safari is the best in OSX.

    Found a nice (maybe new) feature Safari today - the ability to save as well as open tab groups as bookmarks :-)

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