Skip to content
Thoughtful, detailed coverage of everything Apple for 34 years
and the TidBITS Content Network for Apple professionals
27 comments

Safari 14

Ahead of the official release of macOS 11.0 Big Sur, Apple has released Safari 14 for 10.15 Catalina and 10.14 Mojave. The upgraded Web browser introduces a new tab bar design that displays more tabs, adds a new customizable start page that lets you set a background image and add new sections, and gives you a privacy report that can show the last 30 days of trackers that Safari has blocked with Intelligent Tracking Prevention. Safari 14 also removes support for Adobe Flash and includes some WebKit-related security patches. You can download Safari 14 only via System Preferences > Software Update. (Free, 10.15 and 10.14)

Subscribe today so you don’t miss any TidBITS articles!

Every week you’ll get tech tips, in-depth reviews, and insightful news analysis for discerning Apple users. For over 33 years, we’ve published professional, member-supported tech journalism that makes you smarter.

Registration confirmation will be emailed to you.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA. The Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Comments About Safari 14

Notable Replies

  1. I’m trying to figure out what the URL/URI would be for “Start Page” so I can set it as my home page. I want new windows and tabs to be blank, but I also want to be able to hit cmd-shift-h to go to home and have it be the Start Page. I cannot figure out how to do that. I used to do that with the old Top Sites page (and I think its URL was something like topsites:// but I can’t remember).

  2. Your guess is good. topsites:// does go to the new start page.

  3. I upgraded under Mojave (which I may be stuck to until platform no longer matters because of the 32-bit apps I need), and my Top Sites weren’t all included on the new start page. Top Sites and Recently Visited are not the same thing. I had to go back a couple of snapshots to get them. That didn’t make for a very satisfying upgrade experience. Or did I simply fail to find them?

  4. Out of curiosity, have you tried setting up Mojave (or some other 32-bit-compatible version of macOS) in a VM using VMWare Fusion, Parallels or Virtual Box? If the apps run in the VM environment, that might be a viable option (at least until you are able to transition to 64-bit apps).

    There are many perfectly legitimate reasons to not want to upgrade to the latest macOS, but if application compatibility is the only deciding factor, then it may be worth considering the VM option.

  5. Contrapositive, sort of. My virtual machine in Fusion is Catalina, but I’m not too enthusiastic about configuration yet.

  6. [Running under Catalina here, but these notes may apply to the Mojave version]

    In Safari 14, you can select which sections appear via a Settings popup from the stage icon in the lower right corner of the Start Page. So, check to see that the appropriate sections are checked.

    Note that the Favorites section is not necessarily the Bookmarks Favorites folder. It is determined via the Safari->Preferences->Favorites setting.

    In Safari 14 (as opposed to Safari 13), the default display for the Recently Viewed section are thumbnails of the pages. If you prefer an icon view, right-click on one of the thumbnails and select ‘View as Icons’. If viewing icons, right-click and select ‘View as Thumbnails’ to reverse the process.

    Finally, the page defaults to showing 2 rows of items in both the Favorites and Recently Viewed sections. If more items are available, moving the cursor over the title row reveals a ‘Show More’ button. If more than 2 rows are showing, a ‘Show Less’ button becomes visible.

  7. The first thing I did was to select every check box. No Top Sites appeared.

    Top Sites did not appear (until I created a folder and populated it manually with the recovered Top Sites). Top Sites were not part of Bookmarks Favorites or the Favorites section.

    My Recently Viewed (Recently Visited) area contained only this message after I clicked it: “Frequently Visited Websites will appear here when available.
    This section may be hidden if there is no content to display.”

    Only the 'Show Less" button became visible when I moved the cursor over the items.

  8. Running Mojave…Safari 14 is constantly crashing and stalling. It has crashed my 2019 iMac (Not a year old yet) multiple times. Not sure why? I have removed all plug ins…still crashing? I am now using Firefox…
    Not happy…

  9. Safari 14 and the previous version just froze (had to force quit) on my prior MBP with Mojave and now on my MBP (new) with Catalina.
    Seems to be related to saving PDFs - but not certain.
    David

  10. Had nothing to do with PDFs for me. App seems unstable. I was using FF and had left safari open, and it crashed the Mac all by itself, just sitting there.
    I have not launched it today, everything seems fine. Checking the crash logs, my Mac crashed 5 times yesterday…Safari was thew culprit every time.

    No idea why?

    I also noticed that several sites won’t load. Are they perhaps flash based and since this Safari doesn’t use flash they won’t load?

    Rich

  11. Migrated to Safari 14 on my new 2020 MBP (Catalina). No problems noticed yet. In fact, I have yet to notice anything changed at all (apart from privacy report button).

  12. Running Safari 14 under Mojave. Some sites never load for a friend elsewhere in the state with 14, yet load for me. Friend has no problems with Chrome. No obvious similarities in the non loading sites. One that always fails for friend with 14 is southwest.com

  13. Several sites will not load in Safari 14 on my 2019 iMac running Mojave (10.14.6), including CNN and Facebook.

  14. If that is the case, a warning should have been given before installation, with the option to not install. The only option now would be to downgrade to Version 13.

  15. Doesn’t seem to be Flash-based, as the sites that won’t load on my friend’s MacBook with Safari 14 load just fine on my MBP and iMac with Safari 14. (All running latest Mojave)

  16. Has anyone studied the Safari 14 to 13 downgrade process? Is it merely replacing the Application, or were there other changes such as WebKit or other system level code?

  17. Both of those sites are loading fine on Safari 14 for me.

  18. Safari continues to be a mess on my iMac. I am now using Firefox for everything. If I use Safari it is sparingly. Even then, I had a crash yesterday again…

  19. Not sure what it is. Pages load, and then are blocked and won’t reload. There are no options.

  20. I upgraded to Safari 14 last week and it kept crashing; system itself was also slowing down with beach balls spinning. Looked at the Crash Reports in the Console and saw that com.apple.Safari.SafeBrowsing.Service was crashing regularly. Did a Google search and found an Apple discussions thread from 2016 (!) that explained how to fix a similar sounding problem. Tried it - and it cleared everything up.

  21. Ran Malwarebytes…did nothing.
    tried the command…
    All I got was a bunch of denied msg.
    Where is the folder?

    Still runs like crap…

    Thanks

  22. Did I just miss it in the release notes or did Safari 14 introduce a new pulldown menu to specify find criteria (contains vs. begins with)?

  23. I don’t think so. I’m still using Safari 13.0.4 on 10.13.6 and I have a pulldown menu to the left of the Find field with “contains” and “starts with” options.

  24. Thanks, @ashley. I must have just missed it in that case. Looked new to me at the time.

  25. FWIW I’m running Safari 14 in Catalina on a new-ish Mac Mini with no problems at all, including exporting PDFs

  26. Delayed question: Ever since installing Safari 14, lots of strange items have been showing up in the website privacy preferences that never used to show up before. They’re just URLs, with no indication of what they are (cache, cookies, etc.) Not that I’m really concerned, but they sure make for a lot more items to clear out occasionally.

    Any idea where they come from?

Join the discussion in the TidBITS Discourse forum

Participants

Avatar for agen Avatar for Simon Avatar for silbey Avatar for aforkosh Avatar for mike_joseph Avatar for Laine.Lee Avatar for par Avatar for david_tuma Avatar for schwartz Avatar for richardlefko Avatar for JimLeff Avatar for reevesca Avatar for Shamino Avatar for ashley Avatar for squareman