Apple Safari

The Safari web browser supports many of the same features as Mozilla Firefox. The following are some steps to disable various features in Safari on Mac OS X. The options for Safari for Microsoft Windows may differ slightly. Also note that some menu options may change over time, and you should adapt the steps below as appropriate.

Launch the Safari Browser and select Safari, Preferences in order to change settings.

Note that on the Safari menu, you can also select the option “Block Pop-up Windows”. This option will prevent sites from opening another window through the use of scripting or active content. Be aware that while Pop-up Windows are often associated with advertisements, some sites may attempt to display relevant content in a new window. Therefore, setting this option may disable the functionality of some sites.

Security Tab

The Security tab provides several options. The Web Content section permits you to enable or disable various forms of scripting and active content. We recommend disabling the first three options in this section, and only enabling them based on site-specific cases. We recommend selecting the Block Pop-up Windows option. Remember that this option will prevent sites from opening another window through the use of scripting, or active content. Again, be aware that while Pop-up Windows are often associated with advertisements, some sites may attempt to display relevant content in a new window. Therefore, setting this option may disable the functionality of some sites.

It is safer to use Safari without plug-ins and Java, so we recommend disabling the options Enable plug-ins and Enable Java. It is also safer to disable JavaScript. However, many web sites require JavaScript for proper operation.

In this dialog you can disable cookies and also view or remove cookies that have been set. In general we recommend disabling cookies, and enabling them only when you visit a site that requires their use. At this point, you should determine if the site is trustworthy and whether you want to enable cookies to view the site’s content. After you are finished visiting the site, we recommend disabling cookies until needed again. You can choose to only accept cookies from the sites that visit by selecting the Only from sites you navigate to option. This will permit sites that you visit to set cookies, but not third-party sites. Finally, we recommend selecting the Ask before sending a non-secure form to a secure website option. This will prompt you before sending unencrypted form data when viewing an HTTPS-secured web site.

Remove Stored Cookies from Safari

Remove stored cookies from the Sarari browser by selecting the Safari Menu, Reset Safari.

From the Reset Safari dialog box, select the option to Remove all Cookies.

Click on the Reset button when finished.

General Tab

From the Preferences dialog box, select the General tab. On this tab you can set up many options such as Save downloaded files to: and Open “safe” files after downloading.  We recommend that you download files to a folder that you create for that purpose. We also recommend that you deselect the Open “safe” files after downloading option.

Autofill Tab

From the AutoFill tab, select what types of forms your browser will fill in automatically. In general, we recommend against using AutoFill features. If someone can gain access to your machine, or the AutoFill data files, then the AutoFill feature may allow them to use the stored credentials to access other sites that they would not otherwise have the ability to access. However, if used with appropriate protective measures, it may be acceptable to enable AutoFill. We recommend using filesystem encryption software such as OS X FileVault along with the Use secure virtual memory option to provide additional security for files that reside in a user's home directory.