Apple has just released Safari 7.1 to all users of OS X Mavericks following several beta releases in recent weeks. The update adds DuckDuckGo as a default search engine option, which was also just added to Apple’s mobile version of Safari alongside iOS 8. The update also includes a security improvement for Yahoo search engine users: Apple says Yahoo searches from the search field are now encrypted.
In addition, Apple notes the release improves Reader and AutoFill compatibility with websites.
The release follows OS X 10.9.5 becoming available to all users yesterday with Safari 7.0.6. The Safari 7.1 update is available to users on OS X Mavericks 10.9.5 now through Updates in the Mac App Store.
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Safari 7.1 also adds a lot of under-the-hood WebKit features, for anyone not paying attention to the developer builds, like WebGL being enabled by default, IndexedDB, and JavaScript Promises. This just helps bring it up to speed with Chrome and Firefox in terms of compatibility with the modern web.
This is such a welcomes addition to iOS as the stock DDG app isn’t exactly getting any ‘thoughtful design’ whatsoever.
really seems to be on the ball of late with bringing out updates and new, cutting-edge tech, I LOVE IT!!!
Plus, killing the search revenue umbilical cord from Google. Good stuff.
Yosemite has been another move away with the embracing of Bing and I’m sure in the future we’ll eventually see Bing being the default provider.
I would love it if made DuckDuckGo at the very least an option for Spotlight searches, or preferably the default, cut out both Google and Bing!
Making it the default would go a much longer way to undercutting Google.
I’d like to see Apple dump a few million into Duck Duck Go and share some design/layout advice to improve their pages. That would go a long way to making it a suitable default search provider.
Cutting out Google as the default should come sooner rather than later, but unless the experience can be improved for the landing pages of a number of the alternative searches, a lot of people would be pissed. Bing isn’t horrible either.
I’m pretty sure that Google would feel a bit of a sting with all iOS and Mac OSX search traffic gong to alternate providers. But it’s unlikely Apple would or should change the default provider for existing installations. Typically when you install an update you’d like your current settings to remain. But they can certainly pop up a little setup assistant offering the changes, even recommending it.
At the same time, I think Microsoft should stop offering Google Chrome as an alternative browser install for Windows installations. Like others, but just completely omit Google. They’re required to offer alternatives, but they’re not required to offer all of them.
Apple certainly won’t invest in the design of DDG’s homepage. There isn’t any incentive to do so. They could make it the default search engine and no one needs to see their homepage, just the results.
Apple changed their default map application, though Tim confessed during the Chris Rose interview that he felt Apple screwed up. Still, it’s the default map app. One can even install an Apple Maps extension for OSX, called remap. Any link that points to maps.google.com will fire up the Maps app.
Lastly, MS didn’t have any saying in which browsers they should offer as alternatives, at least in Europe. It was forced upon them by the commission. Don’t know about the US though, perhaps you can enlighten me?
this is very welcomed. I’m very anti-google when it comes to actually how they make money
I’m loving this :)
Would you stop turning emoticons into those stupid images drawn by a 9 year old?
Great news.
However, while i love DuckDuckGo, it’s not really up to par with Google. The best thing would if Apple provided a custom search blocking the tracking by Google (when using the Safari search). It’s not really an issue (there are plenty of extensions for this right now) technically speaking. However, it’s of course about politics or legal matters preventing Apple (also, i don’t really think they getting any money from Google if they disabled tracking).