Safari Enhancements

From the first time I used my PowerBook nearly seven years ago until today, Safari has been my browser of choice. I dabble with all the major players, and a few of the minor ones, but I always come back to Safari.

It isn’t perfect however. There are two “enhancements” I make to my copy to better suit my browsing style.

Force Links to Open in New Tab Instead of a New Window

By default, any time a web site uses the target="_blank" attribute on a link, Safari will open that link in a new window. I prefer it to open in a new tab in the current window. Open a Terminal window (Applicaitons -> Utilities -> Terminal) and enter the following command:

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

You’ll need to re-start Safari for the change to take effect.

ClickToFlash

Ads and auto-loading Flash are annoying. The wonderful ClicktoFlash plug-in gives you control over what Flash plays and what doesn’t. I’m running the latest beta version without any difficulties at all. Download the plug-in, quit Safari, and install. Re-start Safari and after you visit a page with embedded Flash you’ll see a new Safari menu item: ClickToFlash…. The Preferences option there will let you configure the plug-in to your tastes. Here is how I have my plug-in configured:

{{ $image := .ResourceGetMatch “createTabs.png” }}

I allow sIFR text replacement to work automatically, and I opted to have YouTube play videos encoded for H.264 with QuickTime instead of Flash.