On June 7, 2010, Apple released Safari 5, the latest version of their web browser. In addition to performance increases, better HTML5 support, and Safari Reader (which I wrote about earlier), Safari 5 also offers support for extensions. Extensions allow third-party developers to add new features and functionality to Safari in an Apple-approved method that doesn’t require hacks. (Other browsers, e.g., Firefox and Chrome, have had similar functionality for awhile.)

Since Safari’s release, dozens of extensions have been released that add features ranging from ad blocking to Facebook modifications to browser tab management. Some are humorous, while some tackle significant and serious issues. Below is a list of my favorite Safari 5 extensions, the ones that I never knew I needed until they came out.

• Beautifier - Beautifier adds extra text-smoothing to websites using the “-webkit-font-smoothing” CSS property. Your mileage may vary, though: overall, the “beautified” text looks nice but the extra smoothing can make smaller text a little too light and thin.
• Defacer - Defacer hides the Facebook “Like” buttons and links that are on websites everywhere these days.
• Facebook Zen - This extension removes some of the Facebook-related clutter that is so prevalent on the web these days. For example, it disables the list of ads and suggestions that appear in the right column on your Facebook page.
• HelvetiReader - A port of script previously developed by Hicksdesign (see the original), HelvetiReader turns Google Reader’s interface into something more streamlined and minimal—and Helvetica-centric.
• JavaScript Blacklist - This extension lets you block JavaScript that is hosted on other sites. This is great for doing away with annoying scripts such as those from Tynt, Intellitxt and Snap. No more copy-and-paste hijinks or pop-up website previews, huzzah!
• Oldschoogle - Oldschoogle allows you to disable to left and right columns that Google added to search results. I’ve disabled the right column, which means no more ads.
• Shortly - Adds a button to your toolbar that, when clicked, will automatically shorten URLs for usage in Twitter, e-mail, etc. YouTube URLs will be shortened using “youtu.be”, Flickr URLs will be shortened using “flic.kr”, and all other URLs will be shortened with “bit.ly” or “goo.gl”.
• View Background Image - Adds an item to your contextual menu that displays the background image of any element in a new browser tab.

New extensions are being added all the time to the Safari Extensions blog (Apple’s official extensions gallery will open later this summer). Here are a few that I hope to see added in the near future:

• Faviconize - The FaviconizeTab extension for Firefox seems trivial until you actually use it. If you’re one of those users that has lots of tabs open, being able to collapse those tabs to display just the favicon—and thereby freeing up space in the browser window (for more tabs)—is quite nice.
• HelvetiMail - HelvetiMail is currently availabe to Safari only if you have Greasekit and SIMBL installed. It’d be really nice to see it reborn as a native Safari extension, if only so that my Gmail and Google Reader screens match.
• Web Developer—According to this random tweet, the incredibly useful Web Developer extension will be making its way to Safari (a Chrome version was recently released). If you’re a web developer, this extension is a must-have, giving you a Swiss Army knife-like array of functions that can aid in development, testing, and debugging.
• Coda Notes - Panic announced this extension shortly after Safari 5’s release, but it’s not yet available. Coda Notes lets you annotate, mark up, and draw on the website that you’re currently looking at, and then e-mail a screenshot with your annotations. Not only could this prove really useful as a communications tool between developers and clients, but given that this is Panic we’re talking about, I’m sure it’s going to look and function great.

Am I missing any extensions? What extensions do you find useful, and which ones would you like to see developed?

In all of the hullabaloo surrounding Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 4, it was easy to miss the announcement of Safari 5, the latest version of Apple’s web browser. And it was even easier to overlook the announcement of one of Safari 5’s features. But now that Safari 5 has been in the wild for a bit, this particular feature has been getting more and more attention, and I think there’s more to come as people work through its potential ramifications.

The feature in question is “Safari Reader”, which allows you to view a streamlined version of a website’s news articles and blog entries. Or, as Apple puts it:

Safari Reader removes annoying ads and other visual distractions from online articles. So you get the whole story and nothing but the story. It works like this: As you browse the web, Safari detects if you’re on a web page with an article. Click the Reader icon in the Smart Address Field, and the article appears instantly in one continuous, clutter-free view. You see every page of the article—whether two or twenty. Onscreen controls let you email, print, and zoom. Change the size of the text, and Safari remembers it the next time you view an article in Safari Reader.

Most users will probably consider this a very welcome feature, especially in light of the fact that web advertising has consistently grown more obnoxious over time, thanks to obtrusive techniques and gimmicks such as fly-out ads (which lurk in a webpage’s corner and “fly out” when you mouse over them), “in-text” advertising (which highlights certain words on a webpage and displays a popup with ads when you mouse over those words), and splitting articles across multiple pages (which increases the number of ad impressions for the entire article). Safari Reader provides a nice escape from these things and gives you quick and easy access to nothing but the content that you came to the website for in the first place.

(Admittedly, this isn’t anything new. Readability is an add-on for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari that does much the same thing. Ad blocking software has been around for a long time. And many sites offer their content ad-free, or relatively ad-free, in their RSS feeds. But as far as I know, this is the first time it’s been a browser-level feature.)

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Apple has launched a nice little gallery that showcases some of the cool things that can be done with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. No Flash required, though you do need to be using a modern browser (e.g., the latest version of Safari). The demos are pretty cool—I’m especially fond of the “Transitions” gallery—and it just proves that Flash is becoming increasingly unnecessary to create rich, interactive web experiences.

We all know that the iPhone is already the pinnacle of geek lust, but now it has a nice, healthy dollop of retro geek lust as well.

And just for the record, this is way cooler than the recent announcement of an actual Commodore 64 incarnation that’s coming this June.