Safari 3 (browser) Public Beta available now!

[madmatt]

Just buy a Mac and leave Windows alone. Ugh!

 

[Geffy]

Apparently Safari fires the onload event earlier than "most other browsers" which in this context I believe is MSIE, FF and Opera.

In Safari, it seems onload fires before the page has been displayed, before layout has been calculated, before any costly reflows have taken place. It fires before images have completed loading (this can also happen in rare cases in Opera, but Safari seems to do it everywhere), meaning that a substantial part of the load time is not included. So basically, onload is not trustworthy in Safari for checking page loading times.

It is possible to force Safari to layout the page before checking for the time. To do this, check for the offset values of any element, such as the offsetWidth of the body:

window.onload = function () {
var ignoreMe = document.body.offsetWidth;
var endTime = new Date();
};

Note, however, that this still does not include actually displaying the page, only calculating what will be displayed, so it is not perfect, but it does make it slightly closer to the behaviour of other browsers.

Details

 

[Sazar]

Reposting here

To a degree I do agree that Apples' marketing department go a might overboard, and Steve Jobs is a fairly strong personality to handle which probably has an effect on the marketing department. Is Safari 3 the best thing ever? Well yes (on the Mac). Windows I've still hardly played with it, but then my Parallels install dumps all URL clicks into the Mac side and Safari anyway so I don't use Firefox either. I use Firefox Mac for 1 purpose, Firebug, thats it.

Haven't used a Mac in about 6 months. When I did, I was using FF, not Safari. From reading various threads on the net, it seems I am not alone in this

You could easily argue that my having not used Safari/iTunes/QuickTime in Windows in many months would leave me unqualified to argue these points. QuickTime is shockingly poor and fits amazingly badly into the Windows scheme of things. iTunes is a fair memory hog on Win as well and it seems no one likes the new Windows browser on the block either.

I use quicktime to attempt some video edits on particular files. Very hit and miss, whether it works or not.

I would have actually preferred it if WinSafari had been designed to fit in with Windows better but used WebCore and JavascriptCore (the frameworks Safari is built on) so the general effect of the rendering remained the same but the App fit in with the OS. Sadly neither Apple nor Microsoft can make an App which fits in with the others OS.

Microsoft's apps so far have not fit well with OSX? I though the office software was not that bad personally.

I am slightly heartened by the notice from the WebKit team that they are looking for QA and Software developers from a Windows background to help them improve WebKit on Windows and hopefully Safari as well. It may improve, couple revisions down the line you may even throw out your Firefox, who knows.

I have IE7, Opera and FF2 on my system right now. I keep staying with FF even with its faults, because of the customizations. Neither Opera or IE offer me the ability to integrate extensions (or widgets, or whatever) into the shell of the browser like on FF. This reason alone is why I will continue using FF. Safari also doesn't have this feature. Didn't have it on OSX, won't have it on Windows from the looks of it.

The pre 0.7 versions of FF were pretty poor, they had promise but there were plenty of neigh-sayers and detractors saying it will never take off and never take any market share from IE. Things changed.

That's the beauty of certain aspects of open-source. Good ideas will prevail.

I don't quite see how Safari is a re-invention of the wheel. The core engine wasn't grown at Apple. When they were first looking to write their own browser they looked at using the gecko rendering engine from Mozilla, but it was apparently too cluttered to extend as they needed while the Linux KDE projects KHTML engine fit better with their needs. All of their fixes, extensions and so on to the core have been nicely fed back into the KDE KHTML project as well.

I was speaking figuratively. Apple is positioning this as the next best thing in browsing. That, frankly, is a bold-faced LIE.

Heck, even FF looks like as on Vista unless I make some major changes to it but thats they key. I have the ability to make modifications. Safari offers what by way of customization to power users?

As you said Firefox used some pretty arcane shortcuts in the beginning, then it changed to fit in more with Windows. While I can't comment on the likelihood of this I would hope WinSafari would progress along a similar path.

Perhaps. But, FF was open-source. Safari? Not so much.

Huh? I don't quite get this, the back/forward buttons are right up there with the address bar. It goes like this

Back | Forward | Reload | Add to Favorites | Submit Bug | Address Bar | Google Search

If you don't like it goto View > Customize Toolbar and change it, granted theres not a huge wide ranging scope of the changes you can make, but everything you should need for browsing is there.

also the whole Apple mice are only single click argument has been BS for at least the last year. All desktop Macs ship with a Mighty Mouse which has left/right/middle click, omnidirectional scroll wheel and all Mac laptops you can tap two fingers on the touchpad to right click and omnidirectional two finger scroll.

You know, some mouse peripherals have a lovely back and front button on them too right?

It goes something like this.

Click the back button on the mouse, you go back a page. Click the forward button, you go forward a page. If you don't like it, you can go to your mouse properties and change the way it operates in the application. :smoker:

Yah, so apparently Apple doesn't know that.

Which components do you feel are lacking? What else should it be able to do that it doesn't do now?

Don't like the lack of borders, I personally find my eyes dropping off the bottom of the app sometimes, but never the sides. So turn on the status bar with View > Show Status bar.

There is one specific feature of Safari on both Windows and Mac which I feel both MSIE and Firefox are lacking. Not a day goes by where I don't use this and I've mentioned it before. Tab switch keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+[ and Ctrl+Shift+] for Windows, its actually Ctrl+{ and Ctrl+} but you need shift to get there), neither IE nor Firefox have something like this and it drives me up the wall every time I have to use Windows. Now at least I can have my familiar browser on Windows as well.

I don't understand what you are saying here.

Are you suggesting that you can't switch from one tab to another in IE or FF?

Try this.

Ctrl + the number of the tab (if you have multiple open). Or Ctrl + Tab to navigate. I don't know about you, but for me, the tab's in FF and IE are MUCH better than the crap in Safari. I personally think that, sans extensions, IE7 is MUCH superior in terms of tabbed browsing. Opera is a close second.

I also like the fact that I can assign a page to display when I am opening a fresh/new tab in IE. Plus, the favorites center in IE is MUCH better than any other browser (by default) save Opera.

Safari's favorite's center seems like it was designed by a retarded monkey. No offense to retarded monkey's intended.

I'll concede that you arent likely to get many of your Firefox Extensions into Safari and Windows lacks the functionality to make use of a cool system called SIMBL which could potentially do it. But as a person who uses Safari everyday of his life, albeit on Mac, what exactly is it missing?

Weather, clocks, gmail, Stylish, just to name a few, all integrated into the physical body of the browser rather than some retarded, floating widget or some such.

Once you use these items, you will know what I mean.

 

[Perris Calderon]

could someone tell me how to get the favorites posted over on the left, I can't get it to show there

 

[Geffy]

Haven't used a Mac in about 6 months. When I did, I was using FF, not Safari. From reading various threads on the net, it seems I am not alone in this

The only people I know who do this spend more of their time in Windows and hence use Firefox because they are used to it.

I use quicktime to attempt some video edits on particular files. Very hit and miss, whether it works or not.

Mac users have the good fortune to have iMovie HD which takes a lot of the pain out of this kind of thing

Microsoft's apps so far have not fit well with OSX? I though the office software was not that bad personally.

No, they are slow, clunky and don't fit with the rest of the OS UI. The interface widgets in Office:Mac feel more like OS9 despite the "2004" stuck on the end of the product name.

I have IE7, Opera and FF2 on my system right now. I keep staying with FF even with its faults, because of the customizations. Neither Opera or IE offer me the ability to integrate extensions (or widgets, or whatever) into the shell of the browser like on FF. This reason alone is why I will continue using FF. Safari also doesn't have this feature. Didn't have it on OSX, won't have it on Windows from the looks of it.

This is possibly where some of the memory leaks in FF come from.

That's the beauty of certain aspects of open-source. Good ideas will prevail.

And the KDE community has benefited from Safari, the core Safari rendering engine is Open Source which is why Swift exists, though it too is a bit clunky. (Windows WebKit based browser)

I was speaking figuratively. Apple is positioning this as the next best thing in browsing. That, frankly, is a bold-faced LIE.

Apple often positions things as the best thing since anything else was invented which is why you often get some incredibly opinionated Apple Zealots, my general impression of the Mac community is that we have learnt to take these protestations of excellence with a pinch of salt and some seasoning. Sometimes they are right (iPod, switch to Intel) and sometimes they aren't (switch to Intel, Safari4Win).

Safari offers what by way of customization to power users?

There is a range of apps available on Mac which let you mess to a degree with the appearance of apps, these of course won't have made it to Win yet. Personally I've not really wanted to mess with the UI of Safari I like it. Even Firefox which I used to skin quite a bit in the early days I just don't bother anymore.

Perhaps. But, FF was open-source. Safari? Not so much.

File a bug report, I expect X to happen when I do Y. I realise I can get X by doing Z but Y is more in keeping with the other browsers on Windows.

Maybe they'll change, maybe they'll make it a preference.

You know, some mouse peripherals have a lovely back and front button on them too right?

It goes something like this.

Click the back button on the mouse, you go back a page. Click the forward button, you go forward a page. If you don't like it, you can go to your mouse properties and change the way it operates in the application. :smoker:

Yah, so apparently Apple doesn't know that.

More stuff in Mac is keyboard based, my mum has a mouse with those back/forward buttons, I personally find it immensely annoying. Want to go back/forward without clicking the buttons Ctrl+[, want to go forward Ctrl+]. More of the OS is navigable via keyboard shortcuts in Mac OS than I ever found with Windows.

Still as far as the mouse back/forward buttons go aren't those mapped through some third party application anyway? If you remove that application will IE and FF react to them?

I don't understand what you are saying here.

Are you suggesting that you can't switch from one tab to another in IE or FF?

Try this.

Ctrl + the number of the tab (if you have multiple open). Or Ctrl + Tab to navigate. I don't know about you, but for me, the tab's in FF and IE are MUCH better than the crap in Safari. I personally think that, sans extensions, IE7 is MUCH superior in terms of tabbed browsing. Opera is a close second.

I also like the fact that I can assign a page to display when I am opening a fresh/new tab in IE. Plus, the favorites center in IE is MUCH better than any other browser (by default) save Opera.

Ah, excellent finally. I've been searching for that for months. You know what would have been super useful in finding that? If they'd actually documented it in one of the menu's perhaps. A la the Window menu in Safari.

Ctrl+Tab I could get used to, Ctrl+Num is just frustrating, having to reach over the keyboard to slap a number key.

Safari's favorite's center seems like it was designed by a retarded monkey. No offense to retarded monkey's intended.

The Safari Bookmarks manager is not that dissimilar to the FireFox Bookmarks manager. The IE one certainly is more pleasant to use than the Firefox one. I quite like how you click the book icon and the bookmarks manager takes over, when you are done click that button again and you are back to the webpage.

Weather, clocks, gmail, Stylish, just to name a few, all integrated into the physical body of the browser rather than some retarded, floating widget or some such.

Weather and Clocks I've got in my Dashboard, no need to clutter my browser with detritus. Gmail I've got a notifier in my taskbar area, again no need to clutter my browser. I'd go and find out what Stylish is but the addons.mozilla.org website is down.

Neither my weather nor my Clocks do I feel in anyway are "retarded". They are gone when I don't need them and there when I do, they don't clutter my work space.

@perris: You want the Bookmarks bar left aligned? They are already or they should be.

edit: Ok sites up again, found out what stylish is. the whole idea of it sounds terrible and the prospect of some joe user hijacking the carefully designed interface of a site I created both annoys and insults me. If I wanted them to be able to use their own styles I'd have provided the required functionality.

I don't mind people overriding certain aspects with a global stylesheet of their own (accessibility purposes and such) but the willy nilly hijacking of sites designs just seems anti-web to me.

Beginning to wonder if I need to slap !important after all my CSS rules

another edit: The SafariStand plugin for Safari will let you do this kind of thing. As show at SitePoint

 

[Sazar]

The only people I know who do this spend more of their time in Windows and hence use Firefox because they are used to it.

Perhaps. I am just going by threads I have read.

Mac users have the good fortune to have iMovie HD which takes a lot of the pain out of this kind of thing

I have many windows based apps that do the same thing. Unfortunately, apple's website states that quicktime cures cancer and makes your weiner bigger so I bought it.

The unfortunate truth is that is still sucks, just not as much coz I have access to the full app.

No, they are slow, clunky and don't fit with the rest of the OS UI. The interface widgets in Office:Mac feel more like OS9 despite the "2004" stuck on the end of the product name.

Fair enough, never used them myself on OSX.

This is possibly where some of the memory leaks in FF come from.

It's in the inherent design of the browser. The add-ons are separate and may cause leaks, but the bare-bones browser itself has leaks.

And the KDE community has benefited from Safari, the core Safari rendering engine is Open Source which is why Swift exists, though it too is a bit clunky. (Windows WebKit based browser)

Well, you would think that the KDE community would have had a little better input on the browser a la the mozilla community.

Apple often positions things as the best thing since anything else was invented which is why you often get some incredibly opinionated Apple Zealots, my general impression of the Mac community is that we have learnt to take these protestations of excellence with a pinch of salt and some seasoning. Sometimes they are right (iPod, switch to Intel) and sometimes they aren't (switch to Intel, Safari4Win).

Congrats, but the better educated macintosh users consist of a minute fraction of the overall user-community which is now exposed to these products.

There is a range of apps available on Mac which let you mess to a degree with the appearance of apps, these of course won't have made it to Win yet. Personally I've not really wanted to mess with the UI of Safari I like it. Even Firefox which I used to skin quite a bit in the early days I just don't bother anymore.

I prefer a nice, clean layout. But even w/o that, I would like the ability to move certain things around.

The UI of IE7 is perfect, IMO. Simple, easy to use and the way the other browsers should be.

File a bug report, I expect X to happen when I do Y. I realise I can get X by doing Z but Y is more in keeping with the other browsers on Windows.

Maybe they'll change, maybe they'll make it a preference.

Meh, maybe when I re-install Safari.

More stuff in Mac is keyboard based, my mum has a mouse with those back/forward buttons, I personally find it immensely annoying. Want to go back/forward without clicking the buttons Ctrl+[, want to go forward Ctrl+]. More of the OS is navigable via keyboard shortcuts in Mac OS than I ever found with Windows.

I use my keyboard almost exlusively. I press the back key to go back pretty much as often as I can. But, I also have no qualms in clicking on the mouse. It works and it's there. Especially when I am not on a message board and just browsing a site (i.e. wiki or cnn or whatever).

Annoyance gone and you save oodles of time. A far larger community of users for IE and FF have deemed this the best way to go. I submit to the majority here because it has stood the test of time

Still as far as the mouse back/forward buttons go aren't those mapped through some third party application anyway? If you remove that application will IE and FF react to them?

Not really. It's built into the OS as a default profile. I don't use setpoint with my MX1000 on my primary desktop. IE and FF react correctly without anything mapped. It's their default characteristic. I think you'll find very few people share your annoyance about using the mouse buttons for navigation.

Ah, excellent finally. I've been searching for that for months. You know what would have been super useful in finding that? If they'd actually documented it in one of the menu's perhaps. A la the Window menu in Safari.

Well, there is always that pesky HELP menu :smoker:

Ctrl+Tab I could get used to, Ctrl+Num is just frustrating, having to reach over the keyboard to slap a number key.

You have a ctrl button on the left side of the keyboard. you can use your pinky on it and click a button right above instead of using the numpad :

The Safari Bookmarks manager is not that dissimilar to the FireFox Bookmarks manager. The IE one certainly is more pleasant to use than the Firefox one. I quite like how you click the book icon and the bookmarks manager takes over, when you are done click that button again and you are back to the webpage.

I use the all-in-one sidebar in FF and the default manager in IE and they are eons ahead of Safari's clunky tool in simple usability. Plus I have it on the screen all the time. I guess one of perks of having a lovely widescreen display

Weather and Clocks I've got in my Dashboard, no need to clutter my browser with detritus. Gmail I've got a notifier in my taskbar area, again no need to clutter my browser. I'd go and find out what Stylish is but the addons.mozilla.org website is down.

Clutter?

It sits in my status bar, doesn't take up any room at all. Not sure what you are getting about wrt clutter. It blends in seamlessly.

Neither my weather nor my Clocks do I feel in anyway are "retarded". They are gone when I don't need them and there when I do, they don't clutter my work space.

I track multiple time zones, I need to for my work and also for where my parents live. I want to have that info available at all times. Also, there is nothing wrong with knowing the weather and there is no performance hit there either

I'll have to take a screenshot and post it soon so you can see what I am talking about.

edit: Ok sites up again, found out what stylish is. the whole idea of it sounds terrible and the prospect of some joe user hijacking the carefully designed interface of a site I created both annoys and insults me. If I wanted them to be able to use their own styles I'd have provided the required functionality.

Right, so have a gander and visit Soccernet or ESPN and tell me you like the default

Make sure you have your speaker turned up.

Nuff said. Stylish is an ACE tool. It has issues only when you use the crap scripts. The quality ones are quite nice and make sites better by removing useless junk. I mean you use a popup blocker right? Why not view the sites as intended and SEE the popups? See my point?

I don't mind people overriding certain aspects with a global stylesheet of their own (accessibility purposes and such) but the willy nilly hijacking of sites designs just seems anti-web to me.

Not when the objects you are removing are viral and serve no purpose. i.e. the little video thinger on ESPN and Soccernet. Useless, annoying and don't do anything for the site.

Beginning to wonder if I need to slap !important after all my CSS rules

another edit: The SafariStand plugin for Safari will let you do this kind of thing. As show at SitePoint

Yep, as you can see, Stylish serves a purpose. I want to customize the look on occasion but I have only changed 3 sites. 2 to remove embedded objects and 1 for the color (google looks better in blue )

 

[chastity]

So any word on how to correct the no text issue? It was mentioned a couple pages back in this topic

 

[NetRyder]

Good discussion going on here.

More stuff in Mac is keyboard based, my mum has a mouse with those back/forward buttons, I personally find it immensely annoying. Want to go back/forward without clicking the buttons Ctrl+[, want to go forward Ctrl+]. More of the OS is navigable via keyboard shortcuts in Mac OS than I ever found with Windows.

Really? I always find myself using the mouse more when I'm on a Mac. It feels like the OS encourages that - for instance, having the Trash icon always present in the dock so you can drag-and-drop files and apps into it. In fact, I think drag-and-drop operations, in general, actually work better on OS X than they do in any other OS I've used.

At the same time, I haven't found the keyboard shortcuts in Windows (and Windows apps) to be lacking either. In fact, I was moving a headless Server 2003 box to another room just yesterday, and easily made all the changes I needed to before shutting it down using just a USB keyboard, no mouse attached. I guess it's just a question of what you're accustomed to. If I were primarily a Mac user, I'd probably be more familiar with the keyboard shortcuts in OS X too.

Like Sazar said, I use my keyboard a lot and actually find it faster for many tasks, but being able to use the mouse buttons to go back and forward in the browser is especially convenient when you're just passively reading/surfing and most of your interaction with the browser is through the mouse (clicking links, scrolling with the wheel etc.). It's just an option that Windows users have come to expect as a standard feature now, and when a new app comes along that doesn't include the option, it feels very unnatural and out-of-place. If Apple wants to be a good Windows ISV, it needs to respect some of these norms, even if they're different from what Mac users expect. I would expect the same from Microsoft's Mac products, and if they aren't doing a good job, I think Mac users certainly have the right to be dissatisfied too.

Still as far as the mouse back/forward buttons go aren't those mapped through some third party application anyway? If you remove that application will IE and FF react to them?

Unless you want to assign some other task to the buttons, you don't need additional software installed. The side buttons on the mouse function as back/forward buttons by default, even with the vanilla Windows drivers.

Ctrl+Tab I could get used to, Ctrl+Num is just frustrating, having to reach over the keyboard to slap a number key.

Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab are actually very logical keyboard shortcuts for switching between tabs in MDI windows in Windows and Linux, where Alt+Tab and Alt+Shift+Tab are used to switch between individual application windows. Although Alt+Tab exists on OS X, I suspect most of you use Exposé more often.

Ctrl+Num is just there as an option if you want to directly jump to a particular tab without having to go through all of them in sequence. I don't find myself using it as often as the other two, but I think the key combination couldn't get any more logical/intuitive either.

 

[madmatt]

See #39.

 

[Perris Calderon]

@perris: You want the Bookmarks bar left aligned?

I can't get the bookmarks to pin at all

 

[Sazar]

I can't get the bookmarks to pin at all

And this is a problem that I think pretty much everyone is having.

I can't operate without a pinned Fav's center. The way Safari uses its favorites is just stupid.

 

[Perris Calderon]

And this is a problem that I think pretty much everyone is having.

I can't operate without a pinned Fav's center. The way Safari uses its favorites is just stupid.

you mean I can't pin favorites?

how bizarre...this is not a flaw it's a feature?

 

[X-Istence]

Pin favourites? Am I missing something here, why would someone want to do that?

 

[Sazar]

Oh I dunno, maybe coz it's a time-saver?



What I want to know is why would someone NOT want to pin favorites.

Actually, how about actually having the OPTION of pinning favorites? How about that? Options?

 

[Geffy]

SafariStand lets you do that on the Mac

@NetRyder: I've never drag-and-drop'd files to delete them, I've always used the Apple+Backspace shortcut, then usually Shift+Apple+Backspace to empty the recycle bin.
I agree that if Apple wants to do well in the Windows Browser world then it needs to follow the principle of least surprise and follow the norms, at the same time if you are a Mac user it gives you something comfortable to use on Windows. I'd like it for them to either support both sets or have an option.
I think they've fixed this in Vista now, but I always felt OS X was easier to keyboard navigate because you could use the arrow keys to move around the Apple+Tab switcher. In windows half the time I'd miss the app I wanted and have to go all the way through the list again or just so "fk it" and use the mouse.

Nice that the mouse back/forward keys "just work" and I'd agree Apple should support them in the windows build if its a convention. I have stupid clumsy thumbs and I've been happily browsing along on my mums iMac, been reading something then accidentally glanced the back button on the mouse. Most of my time is spent on a laptop though so my mouse and keyboard are very close together so I do sort of have the back/forward buttons on my mouse as its part of the whole machine

@Sazar: I have actually used SafariStand to selectively disable flash on a number of sites, so I'll concede your point there. SafariStand actually does a whole bunch of things that I've never even looked at or tried. The editable View Source pane is my favourite, though its not been updated for Safari 3 yet so certain bits of it don't work too well, but the bits I need do at least

I've never really wanted a pinned bookmarks thing, I've just got all my frequently used bookmarks organised into the bookmarks bar above the tabs.

 

[Perris Calderon]

SafariStand lets you do that on the Mac

then they need that extension for windows users if they want this to be successful

the point sazar makes is right on, for those that like the favorite center we need the option...in every other browser they don't force you to use the sweet you can turn it off yet safari wants to force users to do it their way...they are under the impression users can be led like sheep...maybe they're right but I doubt it

prior the iphone and now this browser I respected the apple...now I am starting to really dislike this company...for instance take their iphone... they actually insist you use it with their service provider and their applications..what is up with this guy, does he think we are marionettes?

if they want windows users to migrate to this browser they'll have the favorite center available in the next release, until then this application is as usable as a second TV in the same room but this one doesn't have a remote control...the only people that will use it are the people that think it's a great idea to have no remote control

I'll give it another go when they release a version that doesn't try to walk us along on a leash

 

[Sazar]

By the way, Geffy, do you notice how Stylish and the gmail notification icons are integrated in the shell of my browser?



When I have my clocks active, they sit to the left of those icons and the weather icons are the same. Perfectly sitting in the little space there, very unobtrusive.

 

[Geffy]

By the way, Geffy, do you notice how Stylish and the gmail notification icons are integrated in the shell of my browser?

I've got my Stand in the menu bar for when I need it and I don't need my browser open to know I've got Gmails Weather is a touch of a button away.

Each to his own. I like it my way

@Perris: It will evolve, Firefox wasn't built in a week

 

[Sazar]

Safari's been around forever

It's not a NEW browser like FF.

I just can't believe the amount of features Apple never thought about including into their "worlds best/fastest/blend-capable" browser. Features the other market leaders have been using for years.

 

[X-Istence]

SafariStand is an unofficial hack for Safari, it does it by using SIMBL (Smart InputManager Bundle Loader) hacks, which load code into the program as they are started by dropping them into a certain folder. (P.S. Geffy, this functionality is going to be missing from Leopard, for security reasons). This code is run on every program that gets started, so it has to be selective as to what process it attaches to.

I don't think we will see favourites pinning, or side bars. The side bars are missing in almost all applications in Mac OS X. (iTunes, the new Finder, Safari, Mail, iChat, iLife applications). I personally find it more pleasing. That way, then again, I have never had my eyes fall off the edge of my Safari browser window while reading :/ .

As for the plugins to put clocks, weather and all that stuff down at the bottom in the status bars, I always find them very distracting, it is like the old school browser symbols in the top right corner that would let one know a page is loading, but sometimes pages would load forever cause of advertisements and each time it moved it would distract me from the rest of the page. At school they have those plugins enabled on some of the machines for testing purposes (weather, and email notification) and I find it a rather obtuse place to put them. All my weather information, gmail notification and all that stuff is on my google homepage, as well as clocks. For other stuff I have Dashboard, hit F12 and it comes forward, hit F12 again, and it is gone.

As for the RSS icon, I think a button that says RSS makes more sense than the icon used by FireFox and IE. I have always thought of anything with waves coming out of it as a radio broadcast, or something along those lines, not a feed. RSS stands out.

Wow, this thread has had a lot of views. Insane!