A new security vulnerability has now been exposed pertaining to how Apple's Safari web browser handles site names entered into the address bar. The exploit, discovered by David Vieira-Kurz of MajorSecurity, involves spoofing (faking) the name of the site the user thinks they are going to in Safari while secretly redirecting them to a different, potentially malicious website without their knowledge.

The vulnerability has been reproduced on every device running iOS 5.1 including the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad 2 ,and the new iPad. Given the reproducible results, the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice has issued a warning.

A proof of concept has been provided by Vieira-Kurz and the results have been acknowledged by Apple as far back as March 3rd. That said; it stands to reason that an update from Apple is being worked on to close the hole.

If you're looking to test out the proof of concept yourself, you can visit the Vieira-Kurz website in the source link below. If you test it, you can see how simply pushing the demo button will load a new site but the address bar would have you believe it's still apple.com.

Until an update is pushed from Apple, ensure you do not go clicking on any random links you don't trust and also avoid offering up any personal details on sites you're not 100% sure about. When it doubt, type in the address yourself rather than clicking a link to better make sure you're going to the right place. These are common safety measurements for the internet, but certainly worth repeating with this new found exploit now known to the masses.

Source: The Next Web; Via - Vieira-Kurz

The video above shows how Safari on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S trounce the Windows Phone 7 browser without even breaking a sweat.

Mobile Safari is one of the most advanced mobile browser currently available, and it's clear that competitors have a lot of catching up to do.

The proof is in the pudding, folks.

Source: YouTube

Safari is getting a huge update with iOS 5, which will include a new Reading List for later reading of interesting articles, tabbed browsing (finally!) and Safari Reader for a distraction-free view of the webpage or article you're reading.

Reading List is a huge addition, letting users save an interesting article for later, much akin to Read It Later or Instapaper. Just tap the Reading List button and you're presented with all the articles you've recently saved.

Tabbed browsing is just how you'd expect it to be in Safari, with a look and feel the same as Safari on Mac OS X. This is a much-welcomed addition.

Safari Reader is a button you tap to clear all distractions and view the article in a text-only view with inline images. It's going to make reading on Safari painless, especially when you're on a site with a bunch of annoying and distracting ads.

We're looking forward to these additions in Safari for iOS 5 -- what about you?

Twitter is rolling out a significant redesign to their mobile website, the one you see when accessing Twitter.com via Safari on iPhone or iPod touch, and other mobile device browsers. The new web app layout is molded around the official Twitter for iPhone app and is heavily doused in HTML5 goodness (however the menu bar has been switched to the top instead of the bottom).

We want you to be able to access Twitter no matter where you are; regardless of what device you use; or, whether you prefer to access Twitter through a mobile application or the browser. Today, we’re starting to roll out a new version of twitter.com for mobile devices. This web app allows us to provide a high-quality and consistent Twitter experience on high-end touchscreen devices – whether or not an official Twitter application is available. It was built from the ground up for smartphones and tablets, which have more advanced browsers that support the latest web technologies, including HTML5.

We're not seeing the redesign on our end just yet, as Twitter has only allowed a small percentage of users to see the new layout. Word around town is that it looks and functions a lot better than the previous design, and judging from the screenshots, we get the feeling we'll all be in full agreement once it's rolled out to everyone.

Any TiPb readers out there seeing the update?

[Twitter Blog]

Want to find out how to clear your browsing history in Safari? Need to make sure no one has a way of knowing what websites you've visited on your iPhone or iPad? Keeping that special gift you got your friend a secret or any other reason (at TiPb we don't judge). Lucky for you there's a quick and easy way to clear all of your browsing history in Safari so hit the jump to find out how!

To clear your browsing history in Mobile Safari all you need to do is follow these quick steps:

1. Go into the Settings app and select Safari

1. Scroll down to the very bottom and tap 'Clear History'

1. Confirm.

That's it! All of your browsing history will be gone the next time you launch Mobile Safari, so you don't have to worry about someone finding something you didn't want them to see!

Bonus Tip: From the Safari settings pane you also have options to clear cache and cookies. Mobile Safari stores a cache of websites you visit to help reduce bandwidth usage and server load. Cookies are used to store authentication information, site preferences etc. If you want to clear your cookies and cache just tap 'Clear Cookies' and 'Clear Cache'. You'll be asked to confirm for both, just like when you cleared your browsing history.

Bonus Tip 2**: Need to clear more than just safari? Check out our full iPhone and iPad clearing tip!

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

As you can see from the video above, the iPad 2 using the Apple A5 chip combined with more RAM performs much better than the original iPad when browsing in Mobile Safari. If you load up all nine tabs, you'll see that the original iPad starts to choke up pretty badly when compared to the iPad 2. This is due to the original iPad only coming with 256MB of RAM while iPad 2 comes packed with 512MB. (We hoped for as much as 1GB in the video before getting more test results back. Maybe next year!.)

The original iPad tends to "kill" background tabs whenever it runs out of available memory, which can get pretty annoying if you use the iPad primarily for web browsing. The iPad 2 performed flawlessly and had no hiccups when browsing. Also the dreaded "checkerboard effect" -- where significant lag would occur before Safari could render the web page content -- is nowhere to be found. Scrolling in Safari is smooth as butter, and gone are the days when switching between tabs meant loading the entire page from scratch.

The difference in performance is quite clear, and browsing on the iPad 2 is definitely a step up from the original iPad in every way. If you were able to pick up an iPad 2 then let us know your thoughts on RAM performance and how it compares to the first iPad in the comments below!

Earlier today Google rolled out their Instant Previews feature for mobile devices like iPhone. The feature adds elegant thumbnail previews to your search results and works perfectly on your iPhone or iPod touch, even bearing a resemblance to the way Mobile Safari handles tab management.

Instant Previews has been available on the desktop since last year but I never found myself actually using it. I've only been playing with it on my iPhone for a few minutes but can already tell you I'll be using Instant Previews a lot more on the go than I ever did on the desktop. Just tap the little magnifying glass next to your search results to see Instant Previews in action.

If you don't have your iPhone handy then check out the video after the break to get a better idea of how it works, and don't forget to let us know what you think in the comments!

During Apple's iPad 2 announcement yesterday Scott Forstall announced that Mobile Safari was getting a 2x performance boost, in part by porting over Mac OX's Nitro JavaScript engine.

As you surf the web, your fingers will love the responsiveness of the new Nitro JavaScript engine powering Safari. It runs JavaScript up to twice as fast as in iOS 4.2.2 Which means you get more speed behind each page load. And sites with lots of interactive features can appear on your screen even faster.

Users should see noticeable speed improvements under iOS 4.3 when visiting highly-interactive and complex websites across iOS devices, and when paired with the A5 chip and (presumably) more RAM on the iPad 2 it should really scream. Mac OS X Lion has recently been given a WebKit2 boost as well but there's no word yet on whether that will be carried over to iOS or when.

Are you looking forward to the Safari performance boosts coming in iOS 4.3? Let us know in the comments below!

[Apple]

We knew Apple had added accelerometer and gyroscope support to iOS 4.2.1 for iPhone, but leave it to Occipital, the company who brought us 360 Panorama, to show it off in full, Augmented Reality mode.

What they've done is created an Augmented Reality type experience for viewing panoramic photos all through the Safari Mobile browser. As far as we know no other mobile browser is equipped to be able to make use of this... yet. To sample this simply visit http://occip.it/pt3dmqna on your mobile Safari browser and you will see a Gyro On notice show up. Once that appears move your iPhone/iPod touch around and check out the panoramic picture they use as an example. (iPad won't work -- no gyroscope.)

If you have 360 Panorama, once you complete an upload of a panoramic photo you captured, you can use the URL to view it in Safari Mobile or send the link to others for them to check out what you captured.

This feature could be used for other things such as web apps and can only help using Safari Mobile become even better. Try this out on your iPhone 4 or iPod Touch and let us know how you like it. Also if you upload some cool panoramic shots leave the URL in the comments section so we can all experience what you experienced!

For more, see our iOS 4.2 walkthrough for iPhone and iPod touch.

[ The Next Web ]

Google Blogs (via Gizmodo) has announced that the long-rumored Geo-Location based services in Mobile Safari are indeed included in iPhone 3.0 and being put to use in "My Location" searches by Google.com on the iPhone.

As of today, when you visit www.google.com from Safari on your iPhone 3.0, you can choose to turn on My Location by tapping on the link on the homepage. When you tap on the "update" link, your location will be updated and displayed right there on the homepage. Whenever you want to refresh your location, just tap the "update" link. Testing this in New York, my search for "jazz clubs" returned a handful of places within walking distance. I picked one, tapped the phone number, made a reservation, and we were set for the night.

As to privacy concerns, Google stresses the service is opt-in and can be turned off via the Preferences link at the bottom of the page. Also, it currently only works in English in the US and UK, though other languages and regions are said to be coming soon.

Good news for those looking for a local burger joint, bad news for those hoping Latitude wouldn't be stuck in the browser...

We mentioned yesterday that iPhone OS 3.0's Mobile Safari Browser was being reported as faster than the current iPhone OS 2.2.1 version. Now Ars Technica has run the numbers and the results are pretty impressive. Check out their full report for all the details, but this sums it up nicely:

According to our sources, the 3.0 beta still has some stability and speed issues, so that makes these results that much more impressive. While the overall average gives the iPhone 3.0 beta a 300 percent speed advantage, some of the individual tests show 6x, 8x, or even 11x improvements—the bitwise "AND" function even runs 16x faster than in the current version of Mobile Safari.

Should make the release version of the new, Nitro-powered Mobile Safari 3.0 fairly impressive, come summer! Bring on them multi-app Facebook pages, the iPhone will be ready! (Joking... a bit.)

Tap and hold is a multi-touch gesture that Apple introduced into Mobile Safari in iPhone OS 2.0. It triggered a popup a menu that allowed users to Save Image to the camera roll.

In iPhone OS 3.0 it's been given a bit more power. Now, in addition to selecting blocks of text for Copy and Paste, when you tap and hold on a link, you trigger the same type of popup as the Save Image function, but instead you get the URL path for the link and options to Open (in the same page/tab), Open in New Page (tab), or Copy (the URL path).

If the link is also an image, you get all of the above options, with Save Image combined into the mix.

May not seem as sexy as MMS or Stereo Bluetooth but we heart this new functionality. It will make our lives easier, which is what OS updates should do.

Apple has gotten some much-deserved heat in the past for not adapting anti-phishing measures into their Safari browser. Phishing is when "bad guys" make look-alike websites and try to trick users into entering personal data like passwords or credit cards numbers, so they can be used to break into user accounts or make fraudulent purchases. We've had some warnings about MobileMe phishing attacks in the past for example.

Safari 4 Beta on the desktop finally took steps to address this, and it looks like Apple is rolling the anti-phishing alerts out to Mobile Safari as well! As more and more people start using mobile browsers for banking, email, and other security-sensitive tasks, Apple can't be too careful.

Also of note in the screen shot above is auto-fill. We're guessing this works like the desktop, automatically entering common data in text fields like name, email address, etc. (Of course, the convenience comes at the expense of the very security mentioned above -- balance your usage accordingly!)

Ars Technica has a great article up on the future of web design, involving 2D and 3D graphics and transformations, and what's most interesting is that it's the iPhone's Mobile Safari browser that right now seems to be leading the way in surfacing this next-gen (Flash killing?) goodness for general users:

The WebKit team added CSS Transforms to nightly builds of WebKit back in October 2007, transforms that included scaling, rotation, skewing, and translation in 2D space. As the specification matured, 3D and animation capabilities were added. Eventually, the 3D transforms were broken out into a specification of their own. Though WebKit has had these 3D transform capabilities for some time, only Mobile Safari on the iPhone and iPod touch has them enabled.

Check out some of the other demos, and get the full scoop, over on Ars.

Heh. Internet Explorer, for reasons unfathomable to any modern web designer, still rules the desktop with a massive, if waning browser share. In the mobile space, however, things they are a different.

Net Applications (via CNet) is reporting that the iPhone owns 66.61% share, which compare to Java2ME (RIM's OS) 9.06% and WinPho's 6.91%, Android and Symbian's 6.15% each, and Palm's 2.37% and the assorted others' at 2.75%.

No doubt rivals will gain share as the overall market increases, and new products like the Palm Pre hit. What's interesting, however, is that the WebKit engine beneath Safari is also powering Android's Chome Lite and will also be powering the Palm Pre, making WebKit's share of the market extra impressive...

It should also be noted that, when looking at these numbers, even with 16+ million iPhones on the market, the sheer usability of Mobile Safari has to be factored in. Simply put, on many platforms the browsers are still crippled from a rendering standpoint, and frustrating from a interaction standpoint. Make it usable and people will use it, who'd a thunk it?

No doubt other platforms will be addressing this in future updates... but will it be enough to catch Apple's lead?

(Thanks to Phil from sibling site WMExperts for sharing!)

We've mentioned this in passing before, but the parallels, if any, are worth making more prominent.

Using webOS, which is a localized, almost widget-ized development environment (using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and enhanced local access), the Palm Pre can run many WebApps at the same time. The way it's visualized is with the "card" metaphor, where a touch of the Home-like button shrinks the current screen down to a thumbnail that's kept live and updated in real time. The interface also lets users shuffle the apps like cards in a fanned-out deck. You re-arrange the cards and can even terminate an app by "throwing it away".

While the iPhone doesn't keep them live or let you re-arrange them, and has an X to close rather than the throw-away gesture, going as far back as two years ago when Steve Jobs introduced it at Macworld 2007, it let you zoom out of the Mobile Safari web browser with an eerily similar thumbnail representation. (Though there doesn't seem to be any patent contention over that just yet...)

Actually, given Apple's recent obsession with Cover Flow in iTunes, OS X 10.5 Leopard's Finder and now Safari 4 Beta, we're surprised they didn't just default to that for Mobile Safari tabs from the get go as well...

Apple has just released the first public beta of their new Safari 4 web browser for both the Mac and Windows (the Windows version now looking like an actual XP or Vista app). New features include an iTunes/Finder-like CoverFlow visualization for exploring browser history, and Apple TV commercial-esque visual wall of Top Sites (which should cause the same potential pr0nbarassment for some as Chrome and Opera's "favorite" visualizers in the past), the ability to search, spotlight-like through past sites, Chrome-style top-mounted tabs, robust developer tools... and most important for the iPhone and iPod touch's future -- the new Nitro Engine for screaming fast JavaScript rendering.

Yes, JavaScript engines are the new speeds and feeds. Bottom line, the more script, the slower and heavier the site. Hey, BlackBerry still turns JavaScript off by default on the Bold and Storm to get anything approaching decent rendering speeds. But with Google's V8 and Firefox's TraceMonkey helping push the technology -- not to mention every Web 2.0 site ladling on the AJAX -- we're going to need all the power we can get, especially on the iPhone.

As for the rest: CoverFlow already works well on the iPhone, though I'm not sure we need it in Mobile Safari, and the smaller screen might make Top Sites a little too tiny to be useful. And the search? Heh. We still need Spotlight on the entire iPhone, so how about we get that rolled up together?

Anything else you want to see in Mobile Safari 3.0?

According to Admob (via TUAW), Apple's share of the mobile Web is big and might just be getting bigger:

Worldwide requests from Apple devices grew 28% month over month to 1.2 billion in January. Building on its strong December, iPod Touch growth outpaced iPhone growth in top markets. The iPod Touch now represents 40% of Apple requests, up from 20% in September.

People like great mobile browsers that can handle HTML, CSS, and AJAX, who'd have thunk it?

Of course, competing devices from Nokia, Palm, and Google, are beginning to use Apple's WebKit in browsers of their own, Firefox keeps threatening to push their mobile Fennec client to release status, and RIM is inching the Bold towards usability, so can Apple and the iPhone/Safari team maintain their leading edge?

TiPb loves answering your emails, but we also love sharing our answers with the community in hopes that more people will benefit, and even better answers will present themselves (hey, that's why we have them forums!). Today's question comes from Joephoto5:

My Bookmarks are listed in the order that I created them... Is there a way to resort them??? Is there a way to "group" them ... (ala: sites dedicated to "news", or sites dedicated to the "iPhone", or sites dedicated to "aviation" etc.) ???

TiPb answers after the jump!

On the iPhone, you can hit the "Edit" button in the bottom left corner to delete (red circles on the left) and re-order (stacked lines on the right) your bookmarks in Mobile Safari. Once in Edit mode, you can also create new folders. However, I don't believe you can move items into or out of folders on the iPhone itself.

Update: twokidtech in the comments below points out that, if you tap a link, it will open up a properties inspector which, aside from letting you change the display name and other attributes, will let you re-file your bookmarks. Thanks twokidtech!

However, if you sync your bookmarks with Safari (Mac/Windows) or IE (Windows), you can organize your bookmarks on the desktop however you want, and your next Sync should update your iPhone to reflect this. (MobileMe users can also have this happen automagically through over-the-air "push" sync).

Anyone have any bookmark organization tips for Joephoto5? Let us know!

Between the time you click a link and a web page finishes loading on your iPhone, there are many factors that ultimately decide just how fast that process will be, including connection speed (2.5 G EDGE/3G HSDPA/WiFi) CPU speed, and rendering engine. Like desktop Safari, Mobile Safari uses Apple's open source WebKit rendering engine, and it seems like for 2.0, WebKit has gotten its turbo on, especially in handling Javascript. Says Daring Fireball:

For all the hubbub regarding the new App Store, most “iPhone software” runs in the web browser. But improvements in WebKit performance often help native iPhone app performance, too — a slew of my favorite native iPhone apps have built-in WebKit browsers (e.g., NetNewsWire, Twitterrific, Instapaper, and Cocktails). When WebKit performance improves, any app that uses WebKit improves, and WebKit improved a lot between iPhone 1.1.4 and 2.0.0

The original iPhone on 1.0 was already fast compared to some 3G phones because of the speed of its CPU and the optimization of its WebKit engine. Now it's getting silly fast. And I don't think we've even gotten the extra nitro from the new Safari 4 and SquirelFish tech yet either?

Check out Daring Fireball for the graphs and stats...