Safari 4.0 Turn OFF Top Sites?

Hi, I hate the 'top sites' feature too.

It took me a little while to find the button to get rid of it but if you go to Safari Preferences> General> New Windows open with: Change 'Top Sites' to either empty page, or whatever you prefer.

I also changed 'New tabs open with:' to empty page.

You may also like to get rid of the little icon next to the bookmark icon which calls up the 'Top Sites' That is in the Bookmarks Tab of Safari Preferences, uncheck the 'Include Top Sites'

Hope that improves your day!

Apple goofed.

Not sure they goofed, at least it's reversible.

What I really want to get rid of, or at least make selectable, is Tooltips.

They drive me nuts, they obliterate menus, they obscure drop down lists and other things I want to see, while they are occasionally handy in new software, most of the time they do more harm than good.

They should be selectable in preferences, or have a hot key like the old days when hitting the ? brought up the forerunner of tooltips.

Message was edited by: Epochmaker

Just thought I'd chime in, too. Top Sites looks cool, but how many different ways do we need to remember what we've done? We've got History and the Bookmarks Bar. That was all I needed. This seems redundant and just something they added because they could.

I also did not easily find the setting to disable it. So, thanks all for your help on this thread.

For the record: Safari still my favorite browser, by far. As a developer, I really like the improvements in the Inspector!!!

Hi

OK, just answered my own question. Check box in Reset Safari.

Safari continues to accumulate image files regardless of the Reset action.

If you are using High Speed Internet, you can stop the image and file accumulations as follows:

First, in Safari, open Safari Reset in the Safari Menu. Select "empty the cache", and "remove all web page preview images". Select "reset".

Next, go to the Finder. Command/3 to open in Column mode.

In Your User Account>Library>Caches>com.apple.safari folder:
Single-click on Web Page Preview folder, then Command/I to open the Info panel. Lock the folder.
Same with the cache.db file.

Also, in Caches >Metadata>Safari folder, move all the bookmarks files to the trash, then open the Info panel for the Bookmarks folder and lock it.

The result is no more accumulation in Caches, Web Previews incl cover flow and Top Sites. I've had these folders locked for over a week now with no adverse affect on Safari performance.

I haven't tried the above for History as I use it.

Hawaiian_Starman wrote:

Safari continues to accumulate image files regardless of the Reset action.

I assume you mean that after using RESET to get rid of all the old garbage, as you surf the net from that point on the Top Sites accumulation starts all over again. If so, that is not a big problem for me, because I RESET frequently to avoid the inevitable dogging down of Safari, and to clean out all the junk on disk.

But if what you are saying is that RESET does not delete the garbage accumulated by Top Sites prior to the RESET -- that it just continues to pile up -- then that is terrible design. Just how is that supposed to get cleaned out? Would entering SUDO DAILY (WEEKLY, MONTHLY) in Terminal mode achieve that? Hopefully this isn't required.

It took me a little while to find the button to get rid of it but
if you go to Safari Preferences | General | New Windows open with:
Change 'Top Sites' to either empty page, or whatever you prefer.
I also changed 'New tabs open with:' to empty page.
Hope that improves your day!

Oh boy did it ever! Thank you! My wife said "what's this? yuchh! make it go away!" and I spent an hour trying to find out how and couldn't. And it was right there...

I think Apples Top Sites feature is good.

It's pleasant to look at, easy to use, functional and effortless with a little tweaking to make it more for you. I've set mine up so that top sites opens up as the first thing I see when I open Safari so I can either choose something interesting to look at when I'm bored or jump straight to a site I need to use. I don't need it to go to google as my home page anymore cause I've got a nice little google search like every other browser does now.

When was the last time you lot came up with something exciting and new that made the world look like slack jawed dimwits? Of course criticism is useful but lets not go overboard on the hyperbole huh. Topsites is not a goof. You just don't like it. Simple.

Keep up the good work Apple.

Matt

I too kind of like Top sites though i still haven't figured out how the &^%$ it determine which site it "top"... never mind that... i want the top sites to have a preview but don't want that horrid cover flow function, is there a way to kill one but not the other? by the way, the this feature is a (much better looking) copy from opera.

Message was edited by: Gon Paran

is there a way to kill one but not the other? by the way,

The accumulation of web images consumes the most HD space. These images are created on the fly for both Top Sites and Cover Flow. Hence, I don't see how you could shut off one without affecting the other.

Thank you so much. Made my day for sure 🙂

I've solved the problem...use Firefox.

I am sorry to hear that.

Allan

Well - it is pleasant to look at, but it unfortunately makes PubSubAgents go wild and eat up your battery really fast if you happen to stumble across a site it does not like (see http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1958154). So if you you are bored and need something nice to look at, it may be fine. If you need your computer primarily for work, it practically prevents you from using Safari 4 (which would be by far my favourite browser otherwise).

Besides, for my taste it is way too slow - going to the URL line and entering the site is much faster than waiting for Top Sites to come up.