Safari 12

Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/watchlist/safari-12/

Updates Apple’s Web browser with the same new features and under-the-hood changes that will be included with macOS 10.14 Mojave—including changes to using extensions. (Free)

5 posts were split to a new topic: Apple and third-party password managers

Shoot. I just now updated Safari to Version 12.0 (13606.2.11),
and it removed two extensions that I use a lot.
“Ghostery” and “UBlock origin”

I won’t use the newish version of UBlock, as it is now a paid app that needs a subscription.
What ad Blockers do people recommend?

As for Ghostery, there is a new thing called “Ghostery Lite” which I am testing now.

Ghostery Lite

Any ideas about all of this ??

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Thanks for the warning! Will follow with interest.

My view of the App Store shows Ublock as free to download with in-app purchases available. However, the in-app purchases don’t provide any extra functionality but are only a vehicle to donate thanks to the develop.

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Corlin wrote: “What ad Blockers do people recommend?”

You’re best bets for Safari are the Content Blocker extensions from the App stores (Mac and/or iOS). They can come in a flavor that makes it impossible for them to track you or access the pages you load–they basically hand a huge list (or several lists) of blocked addresses to Safari, and Safari does the blocking. Some will let you dynamically change the configuration in ways that could let them read your web pages and track you if they want to, but it’s clear in the Safari Prefs (Extensions) which is which, even if the app itself isn’t.

I’ve been using 1Blocker, which comes in two parts, one that has preconfigured lists that you can turn on and off and also make changes to, and one part (1Blocker button) that lets you change the configuration dynamically, such as using a contextual menu item on a banner to hide it in the future. That part could watch what you do, so if you don’t need the features or don’t trust the developer (or whatever third party frameworks they might be using) you can turn that off and still keep the other blocking.

Actually, it should not have removed those extensions, simply disabled them so that you will read the warning that those extensions “will slow down your web browsing”. You can easily re-enable them both. At least that’s what happened in my situation. If yours were actually removed then you can still find them here:

https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.el1t.uBlock-3NU33NW2M3

https://safari-extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.betteradvertising.ghostery-HPY23A294X

-Al-

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Thanks all who replied…
I have tried 1 blocker in the past. did not like it.
Yes I found the Ghostery extension in preferences and re enabled it… it works.
The new Ghostery lite is still in beta, and I will continue to test it, on my other machine running Mojave beta.

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hi …i just got an automatic update Safari 12… that has automatically block all my safari extensions … the whole lot are gone … which means i can’t use the microsoft Silverlight plugin… all was working perfect before this automatic upgrade… does anyone know a fix… i need to use microsoft Silverlight plugin.

I have a MacBook Air with software MAC OS high sierra version10.13.6

would be most grateful for any help with this

FYI, Dan Moren wrote an article recently entitled:

Give new life to old extensions in Safari 12 …The good news is that there is still a way to run these extensions for the time being

Maybe this will help. I haven’t tried this yet, but Silverlight plugin not working is troublesome to me, so maybe I will.

jimmy wrote: "hi …i just got an automatic update Safari 12… that has automatically

block all my safari extensions … the whole lot are gone "

As a first step, see if you can download more recent versions that will work. Wait a week or three if they still seem to be supported.

If there’s something truly essential and irreplaceable, there’s still hope. Dan Moren at Six Colors has a how-to for restoring them. It’s not trivial and involves the Terminal and Safari’s Extension Builder:

Keep in mind that there’s a good reason why the old extensions were clobbered–they’re a security/privacy risk, and can potentially track your every browser move.

sw

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Silverlight is a plug-in, not an extension. All browsers have been gradually deprecating support for them and now Safari 12 has dropped support for NPAPI plugins. Basically, they all only support Flash and even that they discourage.

If I had to use a site that relies on a plugin, I’d probably keep a copy of Firefox ESR 52 just for that purpose. There are probably also forks or niche browsers using older underlying browser code that still supports plugins and hopefully include security updates in other areas.

ESR 52 is already unsupported, so I’d avoid that if possible. Waterfox
(https://www.waterfoxproject.org/) is a fork of Firefox 56, so it still
runs plugins and old extensions, but it’s also updated with backported
security fixes. That’s my choice of browser right now (at least Firefox
browser, I also use Chrome, Opera, and Safari for various things as
well), being I have a couple of old extensions I use a lot.

Brian

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Wow, you must have had a lot of worthless extensions. I lost a few, but certainly not even close to all.

I suspect that some of them were simply disabled so that you would realize that they “will slow down your web browsing”. Once you realize this, you are free to re-enable them. The others do not meet Apple’s rules with regard to privacy and/or vulnerability or use API’s that have been discontinued. If they have features you can’t do without, then you need to bug the developer to see if they will update them.

As others have said, Silverlight isn’t an Extension. Check “Websites” to see if it’s listed there and make sure you have the latest version 5.1.50901.0 available from Microsoft:

<https://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/>. Older versions have security vulnerabilities, some of them severe. And exactly why do you need that plugin? If it’s for Netflix, that’s no longer the case.

-Al-

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After further review (and reinstalling Silverlight) I see that it does not show up in Websites, so it is no longer supported. I haven’t seen any workaround for it in Safari 12 nor any of the other browsers I have, so a legacy browser seems to be your only choice. Again, I have to wonder why you need it.

-Al-

I have been using silveright Flash for… Freestockcharts.com. Realtime charts for trading.

I never had a problem with it before , sometimes had to update … the update was always prompt and completed in 10 mins.

It seems the recent Safari 12 has an upgrade such as to block further use of this Silverlight Flash… both my MACs upgraded to Safari 12… and they both lost the Siverlight Flash function.

I have now installed the seamonkey browser and problem solved
https://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/

Due to such limitations from Apple software… I was contemplating deleting Safari from my MAC ( if at all possible)

for other NPAPI compatible browsers here is some info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPAPI

Thanks very much for you help guys…very much appreciated

Jimmy

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I just went to Netflix, and clicked on a film to start streaming it. The film will not play unless I install Silverlight. (I usually don’t watch Netflix on my desktop, so wasn’t certain what the current policy was)

If there is a way to avoid using Silverlight, it is not obvious.

After searching the web a bit, there is another more important class of Safari users who require Silverlight, namely those who use medical imaging viewing software.

Hopefully Microsoft will issue a new version of their plugin, one that isn’t built using the NPAPI architecture.

You should not need silverlight for netflix unless your system is really very old. html5 should get used instead.

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742

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Hmmm. Well, I’m running Safari 12 / Mac OS 10.13.6, and Netflix insists I use Silverlight. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Edit, ah, hardware dependent apparently. I have a MacPro that was made before 2012, so I guess I’m out of luck. Oh well, I usually use my Apple TV to stream Netflix. Guess I cannot use Safari on my desktop.

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