Inquisitor may be evil

[moribundman]

For a while Safari had been a little slow. Usually, Safari was always running faster than Firefox, which was merely my backup browser. About two days ago, Safari began developing loading issues. For example, I would try posting on BITOG, but after submitting a post, the browser remained in "submission mode," with the loading bar frozen halfway. While the browser window did not refresh, the post was actually being posted.

Searching Mac forums pointed at several common issues: firewall settings and plug-ins (like Perian, which I use). After trying all sort of things I began wondering whether or not Inquisitor, an applet which enhanced Safari's search, was all of a sudden wonky. Having no uninstall option, I used the terminal to rid my Mac of Inquisitor. Interestingly enough, a massive quantity of data, over 20,000 items, went into the trash along with Inquisitor. Now Safari is back to its fast, old self.

I tell you, Inquisitor just may be evil. Maybe it turned evil when its creator gave his creation away to yahoo some time ago. I really wonder what those 20.000 items were...

 

[Shaman]

Does Safari have plug-ins like Firefox, is that where you got it? SOrry, I have a MAC, but haven:t heard of the inquisitor.

 

[moribundman]

I downloaded Inquisitor about 1.5 (?) years ago from its developer's Web site. Once installed, Inquisitor "attaches" (Sorry, I don't know the the proper jargon) itself to Safari's search box. It functions as a word auto-completion feature that helps narrowing and shortening Web searches. I found out that the developer sold the program to yahoo. The enhanced search results include now links to products and services, in effect ads. That's not good.

As for your question if Safari "has plug-ins" like Firefox, I'm not sure. Are widgets plug-ins? I got a boatload of those. I can tell you that beyond what comes with Safari, I have added and use DivX, Flip4Mac, Menu Meters and Perian from third party developers.

 

[rationull]

AFAIK Safari doesn't really have a plugin architecture that's intended to be used by third parties like Firefox does. The existing Safari plugins (PithHelmet, etc) use "Input Managers" to hook into Safari's (or other Cocoa applications') code.

I don't really know the technical details of it (my programming experience is primarily on Windows) but in my limited experience that style of plugins can be problematic. After having some problems a while ago I've stayed away from Safari plugins. Firefox 3 is lightyears better than FF2 on OSX, and there are so many nice and stable plugins for it. I don't really use Safari anymore for that reason.

 

[moribundman]

Yeah, there is an Input Managers folder in the Library in Safari.

I don't even know what Safari plug-ins I have.

I don't care much for Firefox 3. I don't want to have to deal with all the plug-ins and all that nonsense that requires my attention when using Firefox. I loved the good old Mozilla browser on my previous Mac, though.

 

[rationull]

Fair enough. I actually liked using Safari more than FF3 on my Mac, too, but eventually it was the security plugin availability that made me switch. I stay completely away from Safari add-ins, personally.