Apple Safari 5.0.1 has been released, alongside Safari 4.1.1 fixing last weeks auto-fill vulnerability.
Safaro 5.0.1 also enables extensions for the browser, with Apple also releasing a gallery with some of the early Safari 5 extensions.
Apple has also released a security bulletin explaining the vulnerabilities that have been fixed.
Safari 5.0.1 can be downloaded from the Apple website, while extensions can be downloaded from the new Safari Extensions Gallery.
Apple’s Safari Extensions Gallery may be nearing launch, with Apple today sending out an email to registered developers reminding them to submit their Safari 5 extensions for inclusion in the gallery.
We’ll soon be launching the Safari Extensions Gallery, a new destination that provides you with an opportunity to increase the visibility of your Safari extension beyond your website.
The Safari Extensions Gallery will feature selected extensions that offer an innovative user experience. And a one-click installation process will allow users to seamlessly install extensions from a developers website without ever having to leave the Gallery.
Have your extension considered for the Safari Extensions Gallery. Submit your extension download URL and supporting metadata today.
While some extensions for the browser are currently available, Safari 5 users must manually enable extensions for them to work in the browser. A comprehensive list of early Safari 5 extensions can be found in the Safari Extensions blog.
Interested developers can submit their Safari 5 extensions at the Safari Dev Center.
With the release of Safari 5 yesterday, we are already starting to see some extensions. To use these extensions however, users must first turn this ‘pre-release’ feature on.
Doing so fortunately is very easy. Navigate to the Preferences window (File->Preferences on a Mac, or Edit->Preferences on a PC), click the Advanced tab, and tick the Show Develop menu in menu bar option. Finally click the Develop menu and click Enable Extensions. You can now install extensions in Safari.
Some early stand outs include Reload Button, AdBlock for Safari, Gmail Checker, and Safari Bit.ly Shortener.
A comprehensive list of Safari extensions can be found in the Safari Extensions blog.
The Chrome team have now enabled desktop notifications for the browser, allowing extensions to step out from a simple icon, and provide a notification box to give users more information.
Desktop notifications are available as of Chrome 5, and Google’s own Gmail Notifier is one of the first browser extensions to support the new notifications.
“When notifications are used from an extension, there are no permission prompts or infobar warnings. The experience is seamless – it just works” wrote Chrome Software Engineer, Aaron Boodman.
Full details for developers on how to add desktop notifications to their extensions can be found in the documentation. More desktop notification enabled plugins are sure to pop-up in the coming days and weeks.
Rumors are starting to circulate suggesting that extensions might be on their way for Apple’s Safari browser, bringing it into line with other browsers such as Firefox and Chrome.
Technology enthusiast and blogger John Gruber has alluded that such an announcement might be made at this years Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC).
“The other big thing that’s missing (compared to both Chrome and Firefox) is a proper extension API. If only Apple had an imminent developer conference where they could unveil such a thing” wrote Gruber.
While not exactly confirmation, the possibility of an announcement at this years WWDC is entirely plausible, and would be a very welcomed addition to the Safari browser.
We will keep you updated if this story continues to develop over the coming weeks.
Google Chrome developers have pushed out new code to Mac beta users allowing them access to bookmark sync and browser extensions, just over a month after these features made it to the dev channel.
Chrome 5.0.307.7 brings many new features to Mac, and also included updates for Linux users.
Mac users now have access to these new features:
The team have also worked hard to ensure the browser is more stable, while having better support for plug-ins like Adobe Flash Player.
The new updated will be pushed out to existing users, or can be downloaded using the links below:
Google overnight has updated the development channel version Google Chrome, this time turning on extensions for Mac.
This is new version is in addition to the beta version, which Mac users have been able to test for the last few weeks.
Almost 1,400 extensions are currently available for Chrome users.
Mac users wanting to test out extensions can install the developer build of Google Chrome from the Chromium Developer website, noting that this is a development build and is prone to bugs.
Beta users of Google Chrome Mac will have to wait until current code migrates from the Dev to Beta channel to test out extensions.
With Chrome extensions having been available for one week now, we thought it would be good to take a look at the 10 most popular extensions for the week.
Collectively, these top 10 extensions have almost had just under 500,000 million downloads.
With over 108,000 users, this extension displays the number of unread messages in your Google Mail inbox. Clicking on the icon will open your inbox. Currently only gmail and googlemail domains work, so anyone using a personal domain with Google Apps is out. There is also a reported memory leak at this stage with some users suggesting the less popular (but just as good, if not better) Google Mail Checker Plus.
AdThwart has almost 70,000 users, with the extension blocking ads from websites, thus saving you bandwidth and valuable screen space. The ad filter list is constantly updated by the EasyList community.
With 63,000 users, Google Translate does exactly that – translates. Web pages can be translated into your chosen language with a single click. This extensions users Google Translate.
IE Tab has over 53,000 users and is of great use for web pages that do not load or open correctly in Google Chrome. As the name suggests, this extensions lets you open an Internet Explorer tab right in Google Chrome, without the need for changing browser.
This extension has almost 50,000 users, and is similar to the Google Mail Checker. With Google Wave Notifier you can see all your unread Waves, as well as accessing specific Waves with a single click. It’s also compatible with Waves setup on a Google Apps domain.
RSS Subscription Extension has over 46,000 users, and allows users to subscribe to RSS feeds with a single click. 4 feed readers are defined by default (Google Reader, iGoogle, Bloglines and My Yahoo), but others can be added manually.
With just under 40,000 users, this extension allows you to backup and sync bookmarks across computers and browsers. The extension is also available for Firefox, Safari, and IE.
This extension has over 37,000 users and allows users to automatically preview both PDF and PowerPoint documents in Google Docs Viewer. This can save you lots of time, especially if the document is rather large.
Famous among Firefox users, AdBlock does what it says – it blocks ads from websites. The extension has over 36,000 users and the block list is automatically updated. This is the second ad blocker in the top ten.
Rounding out the top 10 is Google Quick Scroll, with almost 33,000 users. Google Quick Scroll lets users jump directly to the important bits when performing Google searches. After clicking on a search result, and when deemed to be useful, a small pop-up window appears showing one or more bits of the page that are relevant to your search. An obvious time saver!
That’s the top 10 extensions one week on, with extensions being available for Chrome Beta on Windows and Linux. Mac users unfortunately miss out at this point. Many, many more extensions can also be found on the Google Chrome Extensions website.
Google Chrome Gmail Checker Extension
With the latest Beta releases of Google Chrome today, Google have also released Extensions Beta.
Available to Beta Chrome users on Windows and Linux (with Mac still in progress), over 300 extensions can be downloaded at today’s launch.
Extensions can let users check their Gmail, translate web pages into different languages, and watch eBay items all without the need to visit actual websites.
Extensions have flourished in Mozilla Firefox, otherwise known as add-ons, and have helped grow the browsers fan base.
The extensions are all free and can be downloaded from the Google Chrome Extensions website.
With the latest developer build of Google Chrome being released this week (version 2.0.180.0), evidence has surfaced showing that extensions and plug-ins are on their way for the browser.
Release notes show that developers have implemented “extensions window & tabs API events.”
“The extensions posse would like to point out that as of today’s dev channel release, extensions are starting to be a bit more useful. We can now put little bits of UI (user interface) in the chrome of Chrome, and some of the APIs (application programming interfaces) are starting to come together,” said Google programmer Aaron Boodman. “There is still quite a ways to go, but if you’re interested in building extensions for Chrome, this might be a good time to start taking a look.”
Google has also updated Chrome Extension HOWTO and included some sample extensions, including a gmail checker.
You can download the latest developer release from the Chromium website.