14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has launched Safari 5.1.1, which includes support for iCloud (the company’s new set of free cloud services), as well as several new fixes and improvements, including security patches.
For Safari users in particular, iCloud support means that they can now store their bookmarks and Safari Reading List and have it automatically pushed to all their devices that have the browser.
According to Apple, “Safari 5.1.1 also contains various bug fixes and improvements to stability, compatibility, and security, including fixes.”
For example, the update address issues that could cause hangs and excessive memory usage. This is a common issue with most browsers today, and every vendor strives to reduce memory usage as much as possible for a crash-free experience.
Stability when using Find, dragging tabs, and managing extensions has been improved. Also improved is stability when accessing netflix.com and other websites that use the Silverlight plug-in.
Zooming on Google maps should behave better now, and an issue that could prevent East Asian character input into webpages with Flash content should be fixed.
Printing from Safari has been improved as well. The rest of the changes are documented over at Apple’s Support site, here.
On Windows Vista and Windows 7, Safari 5.1.1 is an actual requirement for iCloud.
On the security front, there are so many patches included in the update that you’ll be amazed nothing bad has happened so far.
Here’s one example: “A directory traversal issue existed in the handling of safari-extension:// URLs,” Apple’s advisory explains. “Visiting a malicious website may cause execution of arbitrary Javascript in the context of installed Safari Extensions, which may have context-dependent ramifications including files from the user's system being sent to a remote server.”
Apple fails to explain exactly what it did to patch up this flaw, but they did remember to credit its discoverer - Aaron Sigel of vtty.com. For the full advisory, visit Apple Support here.