Under normal circumstances, Safari retains records of your web browsing activity. It remembers the pages you visit, the data you download, and your web searches. It may also store your personal data in order to automatically complete online forms.
While these features can save time and help you retrace your online steps, there are occasions when you might prefer to leave no footprints — for example, when browsing on a public computer.
The solution is simple: Before you begin browsing, go to the Safari menu and select Private Browsing. When the warning box appears, click OK. Now Safari stores none of the aforementioned info.
What if you decide you need privacy after you’ve been browsing?You have several options: You can remove individual pages from Safari’s page-view history, erase the entire history, or clear all traces of your activity, including any cookies and cache files you may have accumulated.
To review the pages you’ve visited and delete them as desired, go to the History menu and select Show All History. Here you can select pages and clear them with the Delete key.
To wipe the entire Safari history, select Clear History from the History menu.
For a completely clean slate, go to the Safari menu and select Reset Safari.
Note that the Private Browsing option does not prevent Safari from collecting cookies (the preference files automatically generated by many websites). The Reset Safari option clears all cookies.
If you want to delete only certain ones, choose Preferences from the Safari menu, click the Security tab, and then click Show Cookies.
You can select and delete individual cookies from the list that appears.
Careful, though — if you’re a frequent web user, this list can be very, very long.
Searchin’ Safari:
Safari’s search features are more powerful than ever in Mac OS X Leopard.
To search a web page for text, type Command-f, which opens the Find banner near the top of the browser window. Type your search term. (No need to press Return.)
Safari instantly tells you how many times the term appears on the page. The first occurrence is indicated in your highlight color, and all subsequent ones are framed in white. The remainder of the page dims to gray.
You can advance from one occurrence to the next by pressing the Return key (or typing Command-g). Holding Shift while pressing return (or typing Command-Shift-g) steps you backwards between occurrences. When you’re finished, press the Done button next to the search field, closing the Find Banner.
For Google searches, just type Command-Option-f. This jumps your cursor to the main Search field, ready for you to type a search phrase.
It’s easy to revisit your Google search results. Each time you enter a new search, Safari remembers the search results page. Click through to as many pages as you like — if you want to snap back to the Search results, simply click the orange arrow to the right of the Search field.
Create a Bookmark:
You Tube, the Onion, Apple Hot News, your bank, your local Craigs List, Wikipedia — if you visit the same websites on a regular basis, you can save yourself some time and keystrokes by creating bookmarks for those sites. Let’s say you keep up with environmental news with regular visits to grist.org. The easiest way to create a bookmark is to:
1. Go to the site for which you’d like to create a bookmark.
2. Click the + sign in the Safari toolbar.
3. In the Sheet that drops down, type “grist” (or whatever name you’d like to use for the site), choose the folder — “News,” for example — where you’d like to keep it, and click the Add button.
And you’re done. Next time you want to catch up on environmental news, instead of typing the name of the site, simply click the News folder (found in the Bookmarks bar of most Macs), and choose grist from the menu that appears.
Create Your Own Dashboard Widget:
Thanks to Mac OS X Leopard, you can make your own custom Dashboard widget. In seconds. They’re called Web Clip widgets, and they’re easy to create. Here’s how:
Click the Web Clip button in the Safari toolbar.
Position the clear box that appears over the Videos being watched right now section, click once to place it, then resize the box using the handles that appear along the sides of the box.When it’s the size you want, click the Add button.
And your part’s done. Mac OS X Leopard does the rest, creating your widget and opening Dashboard, so you can check your handiwork. Since your new Web Clip is live, its contents will update automatically. Click the little information button in the lower, right-hand corner to customize your widget’s border.
One more thing. Click a video (or a link on a featured story), and Mac OS X Leopard closes Dashboard, launches Safari, and takes you to the page whose link you clicked.
Block Internet Ads:
Tired of seeing pop-ads when you visit websites? You can eliminate the vast majority of them quickly and easily in Safari. Here’s how:
1. Open Safari.
2. Choose Block Pop-Up Windows from the Safari menu
Wasn’t that easy?
