Amidst all the Mac OS X 10.7 Lion/brand-new-MacBook Air-with-Thunderbolt-and-Sandy-Bridge hubbub, Apple also released Safari 5.1, an update to its web browser. The new version, a 47.5 megabyte download, includes the following fixes and new features:
– Reading List: Easily add webpages and links to your Reading List to browse when you have time.
– New Process Architecture: Safari has been re-engineered for improved stability and responsiveness.
– Resume: In the General pane of Safari preferences, you can now choose to launch Safari with the windows from your last browsing session.
– Better Privacy: A new Privacy pane in Safari preferences makes it easy to remove data that websites can leave on your system.
Other improvements include:
– Private AutoFill: Safari lets you fill out forms quickly while keeping your personal information private.
– Find Option: When you use Find, you can choose whether you want to search for text that contains or starts with the text that you type in the search field.
– Drag-and-drop Downloads: You can drag items out of the Downloads window in Safari, so you can easily place downloaded files on the Desktop.
– Advanced Web Technologies: Safari introduces support for full-screen webpages, media caching with the HTML5 application cache, MathML, Web Open Font Format, CSS3 Auto-hyphenation, CSS3 Vertical Text, CSS3 Text Emphasis, Window.onError, and Formatted XML files.
– New Extension APIs: Developers can take advantage of new Safari Extension support for popovers, menus, new event classes, and interaction with Reader.
Safari 5.1 is available on Mac OS X via Software Update or via direct download from Apple and requires Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later to install and run.