Lost Safari? How to get it back

By Anne Krishnan

Q. I was so impressed with all of the talk of Firefox that I downloaded it to my Mac Powerbook and deleted Safari. Dumb me. Now I cannot get Safari back from Apple.

Anyway, Firefox runs fine except that I cannot get images to download on some sites such as Amazon unless I go to each little icon where there should be an image and right-click.

I’d gotten used to seeing the pictures on Amazon and would like to see them again.

A. The solution could be as easy as changing a setting that causes the graphics not to load on particular sites in Firefox, said Bob Chandler, president of MacVantage, a Raleigh, N.C., technology consulting company.

To find it, go to the Firefox menu, then choose “preferences.” Click on the “content” tab. One of the settings is “load images automatically.” If this box is unchecked, images won’t load on any site. Next to it, however, is an exceptions button that allows you to check the “load images automatically” option but still designate certain sites for which you don’t want to receive images.

Check to see whether Amazon and the other sites you’re having trouble with have been set as exceptions. If not, something within Firefox may have become corrupted, Chandler said.

He suggests several things you can try, from easiest to hardest:

UTry clearing the cache. On the “tools” menu, choose “clear private data.” Check to clear at least the cache and any other options except cookies and passwords. If you clear them, you will have to re-enter your preferences and passwords for different sites.

UIf clearing the cache doesn’t work, try deleting your preferences. In your user directory — look for it in the Finder — there is a folder called “library.” Within the library is the application support folder.

Drag the Firefox folder out of the application support folder and onto your desktop. This will remove your bookmarks, but it might fix the problem. If it doesn’t, you can drag the Firefox folder back into the application support folder to restore your bookmarks and other settings.

UIf all else fails, Chandler suggests downloading Firefox again and dragging a new copy into your applications folder.

Finally, as you’ve already found, removing Safari isn’t such a good idea. Even if you regularly use another browser, there will be some sites for which Safari just works better, he said.

Reinstalling Safari is harder than it should be, but if you want to try, there are several methods you can employ.

The only easy way to do it is to copy the Safari application from another Mac with the same system version, Chandler said. Save it on a CD or USB drive, then drag it back into your applications folder.

Alternatively, if you have your original system disks, you can use them to reinstall Safari. You have to go through the entire system install, but you won’t lose any of your personal files, Chandler said.

Finally, if you’re more tech-savvy, you can use a program called Pacifist to extract just the Safari installer from your system disk. Find it at versiontracker.com.

Until now, the Safari Web browser had pretty much been limited to computers running the Mac OS, but Apple has introduced a stable, functional version for Windows machines.

Many people have been surprised to find the browser automatically installed on their computers after they update iTunes. If you want to download it for your PC, you can find it at www.apple.com/safari.

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