Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 84 With New Favorites Design, Weak Password Warnings and More

Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced three years ago in March 2016. Apple designed the Safari Technology Preview to test features that may be introduced into future release versions of Safari.

Safari Technology Preview release 84 includes new Safari 13 features that will be available in macOS Catalina. These features include a new Favorites page and prompts to change a password when a weak password is detected.

Refreshed Favorites Design. The Favorites page has been visually refreshed, and now includes Show More and Show Less actions.

Switch to Tab from Smart Search Field. The Smart Search Field now offers switching to an already-open tab when a search query matches the title or URL of an open tab.

Warnings for Weak Passwords. When signing into a website with a weak password, Safari will prompt you to visit the website in a new tab to upgrade the password to an Automatic Strong Password. Safari uses the well-known URL for changing passwords (/.well-known/change-password), allowing websites to take users directly to their change password pages. The password list in Safari Preferences has also been updated to flag weak passwords.

The new Safari Technology Preview update is available for both macOS High Sierra and macOS Mojave, the newest publicly available version of the Mac operating system that was in September 2018.

The Safari Technology Preview update is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store to anyone who has downloaded the browser. Full release notes for the update are available on the Safari Technology Preview website.

Apple’s aim with Safari Technology Preview is to gather feedback from developers and users on its browser development process. Safari Technology Preview can run side-by-side with the existing Safari browser and while designed for developers, it does not require a developer account to download.

Top Rated Comments

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McStang

2 weeks ago

Version 83 was the last for High Sierra, there will be no new versions for High Sierra.

Rating: 3 Votes

eatrains

2 weeks ago

Without extensions, especially uBlock Origin, I can't use Safari much anymore. Safari has been my main browser since it was first released, but now I've switched to Firefox. RIP Safari.

There are tons of non-legacy extensions, including ad blockers. I use AdGuard.

Rating: 3 Votes

Idgit

2 weeks ago

From the Safari 13 release notes:

Without extensions, especially uBlock Origin, I can't use Safari much anymore. Safari has been my main browser since it was first released, but now I've switched to Firefox. RIP Safari.

Rating: 3 Votes

adrianlondon

1 week ago

No uBlock Origin, no Bitwarden, no SIMBL to hack cookie management (ok, simbl hasn't worked for ages). I moved to Firefox Nightly and it doesn't seem to be a battery hog. I read that it used to be but that they've spent some effort in sorting out Firefox's performance on MacOS.

It's working well for me here in Catalina too.

its probably because ublock hasn't been supported for awhile, last update for Safari was over a year ago

It's confusing, but uBlock and uBlock Origin aren't the same thing.

Rating: 2 Votes

Idgit

1 week ago

Is Firefox still a battery killer? I tried it when Mojave first came out due to Safari extension depreciation and it would drain my Macbook's battery in less than 3 hours and caused the fan to constantly run at 100%.

AdGuard is too limited. I currently use Wipr which uses multiple extensions to get around Apple's rule limit, but there is no extension that offers the control over webpages that uBlock Origin did. Safari needs something that can selectively block scripts which new extensions seem to be unable to do.

Yeah, for battery life I think Safari is still your best bet but I might try out Brave on my laptop. And yes, a script blocker is desperately needed on Safari. Apple bangs on and on about privacy but they don't allow for any of the privacy-oriented extensions like DecentralEyes, CookieAutoDelete, uBlock Origin, Privacy Possum, and others.
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There are tons of non-legacy extensions, including ad blockers. I use AdGuard.

Legacy extensions are dead in Catalina and a lot of them, including uBlock Origin, don't work right any more in Safari. AdGuard is a fine ad-blocker but it can't do half of what uBlock Origin can do.

Rating: 1 Votes

Mike Haas

6 days ago at 02:59 pm

You might want to give Vivaldi a spin. Slightly smaller footprint than Chrome, it's an amazing browser. I have hoped against hope that Safari would become a world-class browser with a smaller footprint but it truly has become the most useless browser in the world instead. I hate saying that but it's true. I can't imagine what Apple is thinking other than locking down users to a hackneyed set of features only available through Safari's tie to MacOS. So much for Apple's "freedom" mantra. Vivaldi has a compatible dark mode and the Dark Reader Chrome extension is truly amazing.

Rating: 1 Votes

testerston

1 week ago

Without extensions, especially uBlock Origin, I can't use Safari much anymore. Safari has been my main browser since it was first released, but now I've switched to Firefox. RIP Safari.

There are tons of non-legacy extensions, including ad blockers. I use AdGuard.

AdGuard is too limited. I currently use Wipr which uses multiple extensions to get around Apple's rule limit, but there is no extension that offers the control over webpages that uBlock Origin did. Safari needs something that can selectively block scripts which new extensions seem to be unable to do.

Rating: 1 Votes

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