Safari 2.0

I've just loaded the new OS X 10.4 (Tiger) operating system for Macs. As part of the 200 new features, there are a couple of things in Safari that I would like to share with you.

First, they have this new RSS feature. An RSS file is a simple, standard way to hold news articles. These may be generated from a news web site, or a web log, or any number of ways. This kind of thing might seem confusing to the typical person who browses the web, but Apple has made it much simpler. If you go to a web site who has an RSS feed, an RSS symbol will appear in the URL area of the browser. When you click on this, you will get a very nice looking RSS page, with just the news feeds. No advertisements or anything. Just the text and photos from the raw data. And, you get navigation links to the history of anything on that site, in RSS form. I don't know yet if I will actually use this feature, but it's nice to see a little innovation.

Firefox has an RSS feature, but it's a bookmark menu. I think it's very interesting to see how the typical web browsing experience is starting to change, in regards to RSS.

Safari also built PDF viewing right into the browser. Every browser should do this. As far as I know, Safari is the first. Plug-ins are great, but built-in viewing is even better.

You can now enter Private Browsing mode. This means that the history of what you did is not recorded. You can also reset all of your history, right from the Safari menu. Firefox has something like this, but Safari's is even handier, and they don't have the Private Browsing mode.

I've really missed the ability to send a link to a web page, from the browser. I got used to this in the Netscape Communicator days, and now Safari has it! And Safari can now save a web page, complete with images and everything. This feature is perfect for saving a receipt, after you've made an online purchase!

There are a couple of other things as well, so check it out! If you own a Mac, maybe you'll want to upgrade to Tiger!