Web storage and Safari

Web storage is supported on Safari - this web page is based on Safari 5.1.7 running on Windows 7 - I have no idea if Safari on iOS and OS X will be the same.

Safari allows you to see what data has been stored on your computer, by opening the "Privacy" tab on the settings window.

You can click on the "Details" button to see what data is stored, and you can delete it using the "Remove all website data" button.

The "Details" button actually shows all forms of data stored on your computer that Safari is aware of, and includes Flash Cookies, and I read somewhere on the web that Safari is the only browser that deletes Flash Cookies.

However there doesn`t seem to be a way to set up Safari so that it deletes the data automatically, you have to do it manually.

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On Windows 7, Safari stores local storage data in your user profile, the path is

 

     Windows(C:)\

        Users\

           <USERNAME>\

              Appdata\

                 Local\

                    Apple Computer\

                       Safari\

                          LocalStorage\

There are various other files and folders in there as well.

There is a file for each domain, and an index file - these are all SQLite 3 database files, although they don`t have the normal SQLite file extensions.

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Safari allows the user to configure how much storage space is allocated to each domain - the setting is in the "Advanced" tab on the settings window.

However there doesn`t seem to be any way to give different domains different amounts of storage space.

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Safari allows the user to configure whether JavaScript is enabled or not - the setting is in the "Security" tab on the settings window.

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One of the websites that lays down data in local storage is YouTube - and Safari found the Flash player no problem, and started to play a video.

However then the player stopped, and YouTube popped up a notice saying that as far as YouTube is concerned, Safari is not a supported browser, and YouTube will soon stop sending videos to Safari.

It goes on to say that if you want to watch YouTube, then you will have to use Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome, and they provide a link to these browsers.

So it looks like Google is flexing its muscles a bit, and trying to see off rival browsers - perhaps the ones that show people just how much data Google is storing on their computers.

It also illustrates just how much Mozilla is tied up with Google.

I wonder if they will block Opera as well.

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