As I already covered in my Safari 5 review, one of the new features in this browser is Extensions. It’s a long-time missing feature that Firefox users are familiar with (called Add-ons there). For now, it’s hidden from most users – you can enable it by following the instructions in my review – as Apple doesn’t have its Extensions ‘store’ online yet. That’s going to open later this summer, but developers are already working overtime on this.
Here are some interesting ones I tested. I’ll start with the most popular of all, AdBlock. This is actually a port from Google Chrome’s AdBlock, and it works perfectly well. The default settings already block a lot of adds, and you can manually add new custom filters to get rid of all of them using a very user-friendly interface. Here’s a before and after comparison:
And it also doesn’t leave big blank spaces on the pages, as you can see on the screenshot above. Neat, huh?
Another one I really, really, really liked is YouTube5. It converts on-the-fly all YouTube video pages from Flash to HTML5. It’s faster and doesn’t steal all the CPU usage like Flash. The downside – you lose that button to change the resolution. If you want to change from 720p to 1080p, for instance, you have to go to the Extensions tab in Preferences and change there. Anyway, it’s neat and clean. Take a look:
The new video screen is plain, with no apparent controls. They appear as you hover the mouse over the video. Here’s full screen:
A neat QuickTime-like control appears when you hover the mouse over the video. Very cool! And it also keeps your Mac literally cool. When I’m using YouTube with Flash, the fan goes to its maximum RPM. With this Extension activated, it keeps quiet. This is a must have, specially for MacBook users. You battery will thank you for this.
Still on YouTube, you may have noticed a new button in the first screenshot – Download Video. This is another extensions that allows you to download any YouTube video with the click of a button. Very nice!
One more useful extension: Duplicate Tab. Simple as that – you right click on your page and then Duplicate Tab and a new tab will open with the same content.
I wonder why this isn’t standard in all browsers. It’s very useful!
And that’s it for Extensions for now. It’s still under development, but it’s going to be a very welcome addition to Safari users. Let’s wait for the official store to open. Until then, happy browsing!