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Safari has been optimized for Mac and because of that, it becomes the best browser for running on Mac. However, with Firefox empowered by plenty of plugins, it's confusing to determine which one to choose: Safari or Firefox?
After searching around the web, I found several impressive plugins for Safari, such as del.icio.us bookmark, StumbleUpon toolbar, Tab Exposé, Greasemonkey script customizer, and many others. Interested?
PimpMySafari is a site that collects lots of plugins for Safari. It's worth you time to check for some outstanding plugins.
For some add-ons, you will need to download SIMBL which stands for Smart InputManager Bundle Loader. Because some of the add-ons come in the form of a bundle that can only work with SIMBL.
Once you've installed SIMBL, you need to drop some bundles into the Plugins folder. (/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins) SIMBL scans this folder for bundles each time an application launches. It will check both the Local and User domain for this special folder.
This means that it will check ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins before looking in /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins. Additionally, SIMBL detects if you have two conflicting plugins and prevents potentially undesirable behavior by only loading one.
Above: How to use SIMBL, taken from SIMBL website.
Now we've had the preparations done. Now let's see what can you add to your Safari.
Have you ever tried Shiira? Using Shiira, you can get a thumbnail view of all your opened tabs. Like Shiira's feature, SafariStand also gives you thumbnail view of all your opened tabs but it's on the left/right side of the browser (Shiira's bar on the bottom).
You can hide/unhide the sidebar by using a toolbar item called Stand Sidebar.
As shown in the picture, I've installed other add-ons besides SafariStand, which I will mention one by one in this article.
Inquisitor, also called Spotlight for the web, adopting Spotlight idea for the web with its black theme makes it really cool. And since it's free, it's worth a try.
It will be difficult to see what're inside all the tabs if you have opened many tabs. Fortunately, TabExposé brings Exposé feature to our Safari web browser. As its name, the toolbar button to toggle Exposé for your Safari is called TabExposé.
For trial, you can only attempt 10 times of TabExposé for each session.
Remember what Firefox users use to render displayed page with script? It's called Greasemonkey. Luckily, there are also similar feature for Safari called GreaseKit.
In Mac, zoom only extends window until the required space is fulfilled. But with Safari-Stretch, you can have your Safari browser stretched to its maximum.
With SafariSource installed, you can now customize your syntax coloring while observing html code of particular site.
Safari Tidy helps you validate the webpages you browsed around. It shows up list of the errors and warnings when you open View Source window.


Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon users now can have Safari plugins that integrate those sites with Safari.


And for your information, stumbi is a shareware. The trial version will end after 100 stumbles used up.
Categories:
Internet,
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Tags:
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Leopard,
Safari,
WebBrowser
Some articles taken from our resource base, tightly related to current article, to empower you with more knowledge on tweaking the most out of your Mac.
Personally I prefer Camino. Its another browser that uses the gecko rendering engine like Firefox except it's Mac native and blazingly quick. You can try it here: http://www.caminobrowser.org/ There are quite a few addons available for Camino too: http://www.pimpmycamino.com/
There are a few plugins that aren't available for anything else and really keep me tied to firefox. I do still use Safari for some things, though.
One thing missing on the Safari is the Google Browser Sync Firefox extension which I use to keep my Firefox settings synchronized among multiple computers.
Thanks for the information - great tools.
"Safari has been optimized for Mac and because of that, it becomes the best browser for running on Mac." err, what? Internet explorer was designed for Windows, so its the best browser on windows? WTF
A hardy agreement with Jens. I'd like to use Safari, but in my mind it is not the best browser for any OS. I don't see anything here that comes close to the gazillion plugins for Firefox. And although I like Mac more than any other OS, I still have to work and research. Using Safari is annoying.
Saft is addictive! Glims is the free alternative.
I think you should mention the adblock plugin, very nice and open source http://safariadblock.sourceforge.net Though I'm using firefox3 now. I find ff3 pretty fast on my MBP.
checkout Glims. I actually think its better than Saft and its freeware! http://www.machangout.com/
Hi, I can only second sn00ze about Glims: it is better than Saft, though lacking a few features. Saft made my Safari (both 3 and developer 4) instable, while with Glims it remains solid. Regards, Felix
Is there a way to make it like Firefox where you don't have to click the >> to show the other tabs you have opened?
Glims is way better than inquisitor.
Safari is the best browser for my mac - indeed!
Amazing list! Thanks!
check out cooliris, amazing UI
The plugins shown on this site are excellent. Thanks for the listing of the resources!
Great list of wonderful Safari plug ins! Sadly we cannot get SIMBL to work, we have it installed in our Application Support , but you cannot drag the plugins into it? Perhaps Im not doing it properly, as Im not great at this stuff. Ive 2 screen shots showing my problem and the error message, so if anyone has a solution to this, please email me at jcarter(at)capecod.net. Thank you very much, as I really would love to use two of these plugins. My classmates would like to know how to do this too, so if we can figure out my problem, and have a solution, I can give it to them too. Jane
Aww man! Everything here should be free. A great list here but sadly some of them are not free.
Those plug ins flat out suck. Safari Stand is semi decent aside from the fact that half the features don't even work. These plug ins, much like Safari Stand, are half assed and weak. A+ for your efforts though. You didn't have a whole lot to work with. Give in, ditch this disgrace of a "Browser" and just get Firefox or Opera, at least THEY give you options.........................Good options. This post will be deleted by the administrator before anybody reads it. Too much negativity. I'd much rather be positive here but come on, have you tried Safari? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Plug ins and addons should be free. Why should I have to pay for a feature that does nothing more than attempt to bring this horse shit browser up to par? Do the words "BLOW" and "ME" in the particular order mean anything to you? Bitch please.
Here are some really great, stable and oft overlooked SIMBL plugins, please take a look see: http://en.cyan-stivy.net/safari-plugins/ * SafariGestures brings some basic but really necessary mouse/wheel gestures to Safari, something even xGestures cannot quite do! * SafariTabConfig finally allows you to customize the behavior of tabs to your liking, e.g. clicking a link in the bookmarks bar or menu will open it in a new tab! Finally!! Kudos to the developer canberland! Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I must confirm that like another user already said: I'm missing on Safari is Google Browser Sync Firefox extension which I use to keep my Firefox settings synchronized among multiple computers. This would be a great having such an oppurtunity at the next update.
Thanks for the post.
The plugins looking great. At the moment i search for an alternative of firefox. Safari is not bad but i muss much plugins where i have in firefox. but this one here are not bad for the beginning.
The plugins looks great, thank you for the post.
Safari is not bad but i muss much plugins where i have in firefox. but this one here are not bad for the beginning.
Glims is way better than inquisitor.
Thanks for the information - great tools. Best regards
Thanks for the list, I got a bit annoyed when itunes tried to install safari on my machine, but I think now I will check it out. SafariStand looks awesome.
Good list of wonderful Safari plug ins! Thanks for the listing!
I use TabExposé since more than one year almost daily.
Web site design is a plays important role in e-commerce and can substantially increase your sales. The web page design gives the first impression to the visitor about and your website, so it is very important that it gives a positive image is created in the mind of the visitor.
Thanks for the information !
I would like to Thanks for the informative post. I really appreciate it. I hope that I can get more benefit from this safari tool.
Safari might not be as popular as Firefox, but it has some great plug-ins that extend its functionality. Read this blog post by Don Reisinger on The Download Blog.
As an SEO specialist, it is the multitude SEO add-ons that differentiate Firefox from its competitors.
Great post, very informative. Thanks
This is very informative and HELPFUL, just switched to a Mac and am having trouble :(
What I would like to see is a quick proxie switcher like Firefox has, press a button and your Proxie's are setup up, it is very inconvenient to go into prefs and then click through the rest. But Safari is more stable than Firefox right now and that is more important to me than too many extensions, most of which you will never use. Slowly but surely being converted to Safari, not quite there yet but getting closer.
personal i would like to tell you that safari sometime well and not bad. I am using this tool and having great motivation in this tool.
I would like to tell that I am using safari tool. Its really nice. Everybody can use it.
FF takes ages to come up on my mac. Also I have some of my office app which reuire IE. Cannot get these sites working on my mac. Desperate call ... any tips?
Guten Tag, ich habe mir eben Eure Beiträge durchgelesen und mich schlau gemacht, in meinem Alter muss man sich gut informieren und diese Seite ist dafür genau richtig! Gruß Günter
I have been using iMac for a while yet I didn't realize that there are so many plugins for Safari that could have make my work so much easier. Thanks for the sharing.
I use safari, I like all the plugin that comes with it.They are so cool.
Avid firefox user getting more interested in changing to Safari.
While Safari might not be as popular as Firefox, but it has some great plug-ins that extend its functionality.
I use safari, I like all the plugins that comes with it.
I still wonder which is better ....Safari or Firefox. I am so used to Firefox..I think that I might never change.
Love safari and those addons above, GREAT! article will be refering people here.
Nice Safari Plugins - thx
Nice plugins and addon's. Cheers!
While not as many plugins as compared to Firefox, I agree that PimpMySafari is a great site for finding Safari plugins.
Those plug ins flat out suck. Safari Stand is semi decent aside from the fact that half the features don't even work. These plug ins, much like Safari Stand, are half assed and weak.
Wow. this is a great compilation post. We normally struggle to get these information in internet and your post has been so good, that I have bookmarked for future reference.
also nun doch ein drittes Mal wechseln. 1. IE 2. Firefox 3.0 und nun Safari...muss zugeben, das Safari viele nützliche Plug-In´s besitzt. Hoffe ihr baut noch ein wenig an den Kinderkrankheiten.
Great plugin for Safari, this is very cool, so i can drop my firefox browser now. thanks.
Nice post. Very Insightful read. Gaucho Pants Tadashi Dresses Queen Anne Furniture Outdoor Sectional
Danke, ich muss sagen den Browser mag ich genauso gerne wie Kinderbücher.
I am new to using a MAC, so this was a great article and helped me learn alot about Safari. Rich, How To Make Your Computer Faster
It's rare to find someone who will be so honest and frank with you. Thanks for the amazing post.
One of the really nice things available for the browser is all of the themes that can be used and viewed on different web sites. The full glory of all the web designs is at your finger tips.
Recently, I got my first iMac so coming across this post with the applications is just perfect.
I have safari on my Mac and it is awesome
Ich mag den Safari, hat die meisten nützlichen Plugins.
Really impressive plugins. I like safari, but last time more and more i use firefox. But thats just for me firefox is more convenient.
Great post about safari. I use firefix at the moment but will try Safari later this year.
I have safari on my Mac and it is awesome!!!
SIMBL looks pretty good.
Very great Browser! Nice articel!
I used Safari for the first time today after being a Firefox fan and was impressed by its simplicity and flexibility
great plugins for my safari thanks
These plug ins, much like Safari Stand, are half assed and weak. Macaandina.net
One of the best articel on this blog. Great :- )
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