Safari should enable kill gifs

I'm in the same boat as you, William. I absolutely hate animated gifs, and the broken Stand is annoying. Also there seems to be no way to get back to Safari 2 without a complete system re-install. I don't have Leopard (I need Photoshop Elements to work with it first, and it has no 'must have' features for me). Like you, I've started using Firefox - and you know, it's not bad.

FYI: in Firefox, if you put 'about:config' in the address bar, then press return, and then go down the list to image.animation_mode, and change the setting from 'normal' to 'none', then gif animations will be completely blocked without using Adblock (you can also set to 'once', I think).

Can you confirm what seems to be implied in your post - that animated gif blocking using Stand does work in the Leopard version of Safari, even though it no longer works in the Tiger version?

Thanks.

Thanks for the reply. Killing gifs is all I really used Stand for (although as we use Japanese in our house also, the quick encoding change was useful sometimes).

I think I might stick with Firefox 2 anyway. It's at least two times, maybe three times as fast as safari ever was (unless by pure coincidence my ISP has upped my broadband speed just as I changed browser). I tried a lot of browsers when Safari 1 came out, and Safari came out top. But this has changed.

One thing I like about Safari was that you can put font size change buttons in the toolbar, which I can't find elsewhere. However, for Firefox, I have found an extension called 'NoSquint' which allows me to set a default magnification for each site, as well as a basic default (my 20" screen is set at 1600x1200). This has removed much of my need to change font sizes. One newspaper site I use has completely different font sizes on the articles and on the lead-in page. I used to have to change two levels in each direction for about half of the articles. Somehow NoSquint in combination with Firefox's rendering have meant the two sections are only one size apart and both readable. (I could never get Safari to override the site's own settings.)

I used to run Safari with Plug-ins off and Javascript off as well. Now I can use adblock to block ads that move and leave plug-ins on (or switch flash off and leave QuickTime on). And I can leave Javascript on most of the time, too.

If Safari's speed has really increased as much as they say, then I might go back when I get Leopard (when the new Photoshop Elements comes out in the Spring; I'd like to try the Leopard-only Bento cardfile thing, though it seems very expensive).

But I might not.

Thanks again.

[safariplus|http://web.mac.com/jrc/SafariPlus> has what you want.

[file a bug|http://bugs.webkit.org> if you think this option should be built into the browser.

Well, I had a look at the SafariPlus page. It doesn't disable animated gifs in Safari 3 (I tried the SafariPlus beta for the Safari 3 beta).

Something has changed in the way Safari handles animated gifs in version 3, and none of the usual support software has worked it out for the Tiger version at least (and maybe they won't bother now).

It's not the first time an Apple 'update' has removed a really important feature without giving anything. I had tried the Safari 3 beta and removed it when I realised gif blocking was disabled. I thought the final release would be OK. I should have been more careful of Apple.

Why did they have to include the Safari update hidden (more or less) inside a security update?

Anyway I'm happy to have discovered Firefox, thanks to Apple.

well, [saft|http://haoli.dnsalias.com> at least does the job in safari 3.0.4 on tiger.

regarding stand, safari+, and pHelmet, i'm guessing it's just a matter of time before they release functional updates.

Why did they have to include the Safari update hidden (more or less) inside a security update?

It was included in the OS 10.4.11 update, and was stated in the Software Update notes.

"Why did they have to include the Safari update hidden (more or less) inside a security update? = It was included in the OS 10.4.11 update, and was stated in the Software Update notes."

Yes, but:

1. I think most people assume a security update is important and should be installed;

2. Safari is an application. iTunes, Garage Band, and other application updates are given their own updaters. There was no intrinsic connection between the Safari update (a full number update, not even a point update) and the rest of the content of the software update, so it could have been a separate download, which would make things crystal clear;

3. I bet a lot of people didn't realise Safari was included because they don't read the notes, partly because updates are now so frequent - iTunes once a week, it seems;

4. Apple is benefitted by small software outfits providing functionality Apple chooses not to provide. I have Spirited Away, Camouflage and Virtue Desktops (Spaces for Tiger and below) in my icon bar, for example. Similarly Safari without animated gif blocking is useless for me despite its other useful features (Save as WebArchive is really useful, for example). But Apple often destroys the functionality of these helper applications without warning, and some of us - me, at least, and some of the people you will find around various forums complaining about Safari 3 - find this cavalier attitude annoying;

5. The Safari 3 beta came with an uninstaller - this could have been done for the actual Safari 3 application, too, whether it was a separate download or not.

Hi Karl,

1. Fair enough. I can't disagree with that 🙂

2. "There was no intrinsic connection between the Safari update (a full number update, not even a point update) and the rest of the content of the software update"

Ah, but there is a connection. Safari uses WebKit to draw its webpages. WebKit is also used by Mail.app, HelpViewer.app, Dashboard to name a few. OS X 10.4.11 was tested in conjunction with all these other applications. Apple don't provide individual updates for these applications either.

3. I don't see how this is Apples fault. I hear what you're saying, but Apple provided all the information for users to see what they were about to install.

4. "But Apple often destroys the functionality of these helper applications without warning"

The majority of these helpers interact with Safari in a way that is not recommended by the OS X development team. When the Safari team change how these programming interfaces work, then the apps that shouldn't be using them in the first place will often fail. Some developers of these helpers do have checks built-in to the them to prevent them loading if an unrecognised version of Safari is run. If blame must be apportioned anywhere, then it is with the helper applications that bring down the app they are supposed to help 🙂
Apple do have programming interfaces that developers should adhere to for these very reasons.

5. The Safari 3 beta came with an installer as it was not the official version of Safari for 10.4.10. Safari 3.0.4 is now the official version for 10.4.11. Providing an uninstaller would lead to similar problems mentioned in point 2 above - namely that Safari would be working with a possibly incompatible version of WebKit, or WebKit would be downgraded to the detriment of Mail.app, HelpViewer.app, Dashboard etc.

At the end of the day, yes, I agree with you that there are several bugs in Safari that still need to squashed. Having seen Safari updates since the days of 10.2.x I can tell you this isn't the first time helper apps have caused chaos and I can guarantee it won't be the last 🙂

ra5ul: Thanks for the heads-up on Saft. It seems to have the animated gifs tamed. I really don't need anything else from Saft, though, so if Stand comes back, then I'll go for it. I pay for shareware usually if I really use it, but a lot of shareware is worth about a dollar to me, and I really hate paying $20 - 10% of the price of the whole OS - just for one small fix.

iBod: Well, I think that Apple could have separated the security updates from the Webkit upgrade (Safari 3 and anything else it affects), and given us the choice. Most of us think 'security upgrade' is compulsory. But I guess we'll just disagree on that.

I think Apple is becoming cavalier about customers' choice in many areas - 'Think Different' seems to mean only 'Think like Steve Jobs, or shut up' - but this isn't the place for that argument. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

PS: But I can't help commenting on the remark, "Apple do have programming interfaces that developers should adhere to..." I've been using the helper app Uno for a couple of years to try to bring coherence to the look of windows - a case of Apple ignoring its own guidelines and being helped by outsiders.

Thanks again. Hope you all had a good weekend and a good Thanksgiving last week (if appropriate).

Update.

Well, although I didn't plan to install Leopard until next year, I did it this weekend after all. It works fine in general. The Airport signal indicates a weak connection, though it actually works fine (there is a Leopard problem with Airport, at least Snow base stations like mine, it appears). Photoshop Elements 4 seems to work fine, too, although Adobe says it's not supported. So, I'm pleased.

However: Safari Stand doesn't block animated gifs on Safari 3 on Leopard - I downloaded the latest version. And Saft doesn't work on Leopard for gif animation either, although it worked with Safari 3 on Tiger.

Well, Firefox still works, and it's still a lot faster than Safari for me. But I miss Save as Webarchive more than I thought I would, and I like to keep formatting when I copy and paste from a page, which Safari does.

So, I hope someone can work out how to block animated gifs on Safari 3 soon.

Well, I have tried every installation possibility, both before William's last post and since. Stand doesn't work for me. The 'Don't animate gifs'box is checked, but also greyed out, and it has no effect. Saft and Pith Helmet say on their webpages that gif animation blocking doesn't work on Safari with their products.

Anyway, I'm happier with Firefox now than I was with Safari. It's a lot quicker, and with the plug-ins NoSquint (for text size with a setting for each site), AdBlock for Flash, and NoScript for Javascript (which despite its name gives a lot of control over the display of Javascript), I can manage sites a lot lot better than I ever could in Safari.

In Safari, I had to use the text resize buttons in the toolbar all the time, and I toggled plug-ins and Javascript a lot. Now that I have used Firefox for a couple of weeks, I rarely have to do anything - I get the stuff I want and I don't get the stuff I don't want.

The downside is that I used 'save as webarchive' a lot, and I also copied and pasted whole articles to TextEdit. Webarchive doesn't exist in Firefox, and copy leaves out the pictures and formatting, unlike Safari. So, what I do is to keep Safari in the Dock, and when I want to Webarchive or copy, I drag the Firefox address bar to the Safari dock icon and save or copy the page, and then close Safari. I still do a lot less clicking than with Safari alone, and most of the time I have a smooth browsing experience.