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)