Apple has released Safari 16 for macOS Big Sur and macOS Monterey users with new features that were announced as part of the macOS Ventura software update. This includes Tab Group start pages, pinned tabs in Tab Groups, sidebar tabs, website settings sync, and strong password editing.
What’s new in Safari 16?
Safari 16’s new Tab Group start pages allow each group to act as an individual instance of a browser session, however, it is still not as unique as Chrome’s profiles support. Users can set unique favorites and background images for each tab group, and even pinned tabs.
Another great new addition is the ability to sync settings that you use for specific websites. This can include zoom, auto-play, content blocker, and other such settings.
Apple’s changelog for Safari 16 is as follows:
Safari 16 introduces new features, even faster performance, and improved security, such as:
– Tab Group start pages let you add different background images and favorites for each Tab Group
– Pinned tabs in Tab Groups enable you to pin frequently visited websites for each Tab Group
– Tabs in the sidebar let you see a list view of your open tabs
– Settings you’ve set for specific websites now sync across devices
– Strong password editing lets you adjust strong passwords to meet website-specific requirements
Some features may not be available for all regions, or on all Apple devices.
However, alongside the aforementioned features, Safari 16 also has the following features, as mentioned on the WebKit blog:
- Support for still images compressed using AVIF format
- Passkeys support in Safari will be available for macOS Monterey and macOS Big Sur in October
- Safari 16 can sync which extensions are enabled across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, as well as adds support for manifest version 2 and manifest version 3
- Web Inspector Extensions support
There are many other improvements for developers in Safari 16, aimed at HTML, CSS, Accessibility, Security, Web Inspector, animation improvements, shared workers, and much more. You can read the complete list of updates over the WebKit blog.
Safari 16 is also available as part of iOS 16 update released today.
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