Mac OS X Leopard - ARCAism

Figure 10-10. The AutoFill options in Safari’s Preference window
Checking the “Using info from my Address Book card” option will enable you to use the
contact information about you stored in your Address Book card to fill in that information when
it is requested in an online form. This will detect fields like “Address,” “email,” and so on, and
fill in the appropriate information. Clicking the Edit... button next to this option will open up
the Address Book application to you Contact information.
The “User names and passwords” option, which is off by default, will store usernames and
passwords for various web sites. It will tie specific username/password combinations to a particular
web site and will only fill in the specific username/password combo for that specific site.
This data is stored safely in your keychain so that it would be difficult for someone discover your
password using devious means. However, if this is active, any user who has access to your
account will be able to access any web sites protected by information stored here (unless you do
not unlock your keychain). The Edit... button will allow you to view and edit web sites, and
usernames associated with those web sites that are stored in AutoFill. Passwords are not shown
(however, they can be viewed in your keychain with the Keychain Access utility).
If you check the “Other forms” option, data will be collected from forms on various web
sites, and that information will be stored for reuse the next time you visit those sites. You can
view what web sites AutoFill is storing data for by clicking the Edit... button.
AutoFill is clearly one of those things that, if enabled, adds a lot of convenience, but at the
cost of some security.
Security
CHAPTER 10 BROWSING THE WEB WITH SAFARI 187
As more and more services and activities shift over to taking place on the Internet, and particularly
on the Web, browser security becomes more and more important. Since its inception, Safari
has proven to be one of the more secure browsers out there, and the version of Safari that ships
with Leopard seems to uphold that level of security.
NOTE Safari isn’t without its security flaws. In the past, there was a potentially critical flaw that
could cause some security headaches if a user had the “Open ‘safe’ files after downloading”
option selected. Also, there were some potential issues discovered with the first public beta of
Safari 3 for Windows. While there are no reports that any of these things actually resulted in a
security breach, it underlies the importance of keeping your software up-to-date, as issues like
these are usually quickly resolved after they are discovered. Additionally, besides Safari itself,
certain plug-ins may possess their own security flaws.