While there have been hacks to include extensions in Safari for some time now, Safari 5 now offers proper support for them. Today we take a look at managing extensions in the latest version of Safari.

Installation and Setup

Download and install Safari 5 (link below). Make sure to download the installer that doesn’t include QuickTime if you don’t want it. Also, uncheck getting Apple updates and news in your email.

Then decide if you want to install Bonjour for Windows and have Safari automatically update or not.

Once it’s installed, launch Safari and select Show Menu Bar from the the Settings Menu.

Then go into Preferences \ Advanced and check the box Show Develop menu in the menu bar.

Develop will now appear on the Menu Bar…click on it and select Enable Extensions.

Using Extensions

Now you can find and start using extensions (link below) that will work with Safari 5. In this example we’re installing PageSaver which takes an image of what is showing in your browser. Click on the link for the Extension you want to install…

Then you’ll get a confirmation asking if you want to open or save it. Opening it will install it right away.

Click Install in the dialog that asks if you’re sure you want to.

Here we see the Extension was successfully installed and you can see the camera icon on the Toolbar.

When you’re on a portion of a webpage you want to take an image of, click on the camera icon and you’ll have the image saved in your Downloads folder. Then you can open it up in a browser or image editor.

Go into Preferences \ Extensions and from here you can turn the extensions on or off, uninstall, or check for updates.

If you’re a Safari user, or thinking about trying it, you’ll enjoy proper support for extensions in version 5.

At the time of this writing we couldn’t find any extensions on the Apple site, but you might want to keep your eye on it to see if they do start listing them. 

Download Safari 5 for Mac & PC

Safari Extensions