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Safari 6—Privacy Loss—How to Downgrade Back to 5.1.5?

Apple introduced a new version of Safari this week, version 6.0, likely coinciding with the release of Mountain Lion. Unfortunately, Apple has made a user interface change that has the effect of reducing privacy, perhaps dramatically.



Safari 6 has the address field and the search field integrated. The net effect of this is that every keystroke of every address one attempts to type is being passed (by default) to Google. (Should you change default search engines, likely Microsoft or Yahoo will get to snoop on you instead.) There is a Safari 6 preferences setting that disables passing on keystrokes to the search engine company, but then one is dumbing down the search process (from where it was in Safari version 5.1). The preferences default is for Safari to pass on one's keystrokes to Google.


Shame on Apple for allowing every address typed to be captured by Google.


(Also shame on Apple for overwriting my Safari preferences to enabling capture of my user names and passwords. I have always had this disabled in every browser I have ever used. The Safari 6 overwrote my preference, but, interestingly, only that one setting was changed.)



The official party line is that Apple does NOT support downgrading back to Safari version 5.1.5. (In fact, Apple has disabled the Safari 5.1.5 download on their web site.) Even if you reinstall Mac OS X, the first time you are offered an update for Safari, you'll only be offered an upgrade to Safari 6.0.



I regret having upgraded to Safari 6, but now I am stuck.


Does anyone know how to downgrade back to Safari 5.1.5?

Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jul 28, 2012 11:59 AM

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6 replies

Jul 28, 2012 4:42 PM in response to Steve Webert

Safari 6 has the address field and the search field integrated. The net effect of this is that every keystroke of every address one attempts to type is being passed (by default) to Google.


If you find that to be a privacy issue (personally, I don't find it something to worry about, but to each his own), I would assume that turning on the "Prevent search engine from providing suggestions" option in the Privacy tab of Safari's preferences would take care of that for you.

Aug 10, 2012 12:00 PM in response to Steve Webert

If you're that concerned, you'll need to go on a quest to find all of the scads of Javascripts that sites load to track what you do regardless which browser you use. Google and tons of other companies have given you an ID and track everything you do provided you haven't blocked those from loading. You can try turning on the Do Not Track option which is only available in v6 AFAIK and then it _might_ get honored. Hope it goes well.

Safari 6—Privacy Loss—How to Downgrade Back to 5.1.5?

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