Apple in the WWDC 18 introduced new features for Safari. Apple released Safari Technology Preview 58 which now has the support for favicons. Now, most of you must be wondering what are favicons in the first place? Well, favicons are the tiny icons that appear to the left of website page titles, in tabs and the bookmark bar.
Safar Technology Preview 58 was released by Apple which apparently is an experimental browser which is used by developers to test the new upcoming features in Safari. This initiative was started by Apple back in 2016 to make more stable builds for Safari quickly. The newer build is now available on the macOS 10.14 Mojave and macOS High Sierra.
Safari Technology Preview 58 brings three new big Safari 12 features Apple showcased on Monday.
- Icons in Tabs. Enable in Preferences to identify tabs visually with website icons.
- Automatic Strong Passwords. Safari now automatically generates strong, unique passwords when signing up for accounts or changing passwords on websites.
- Intelligent Tracking Prevention: In Safari, enhanced Intelligent Tracking Prevention helps block social media “Like” or “Share” buttons and comment widgets from tracking users without permission, and more.
Favicons are highly useful because of the fact that the tabs become more visually distinguishable. Favicons prove their worth when there are multiple tabs open in a browser and user has to switch between them often. Also, when it comes to Bookmarks, favicons avoid the list from looking to clustered and jam-packed. The favicon icons replace the huge lengthy websites name and help in easy identification. It solves the problem of website name not fitting inside the specified area.
Favicons isn’t a very huge upgrade in the current era. Microsoft enabled the support for Favicons back in 1999 on Windows. Many other modern browsers like Chrome and Mozilla support the functionality of favicons.
Favicons are not displayed by default, so the feature must be enabled in the browser’s preferences on Mac or via the Settings app on iOS devices.
Mac:
- Open Safari.
- Click on Safari > Preferences in the Menu bar.
- Click on Tabs.
- Check the box beside “show website icons in tabs.”
iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch:
- Open the Settings app.
- Tap on Safari.
- Toggle on Show Icons in Tabs.
The Safari Technology Preview can be downloaded for High Sierra and Mojave from Apple’s developer website.
