What will break?

I bought a new hard drive, so I figured I'd jump to a new operating system when I moved over. I went from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. Now, I'm pretty set in my ways, when it comes to having things simple. Anyway, my question here is about Safari. I can't stand the unified search bar for several reasons. I was wondering if I could downgrade, and how much damage it really does to delete it. I know the terminal commands to do the deletion and everything, but what really breaks when I do that? I get the message

Mountain Lion said:

“Safari.app” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by Mac OS X.

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How is it required? Do system links open in safari? Will applications break? For the record, I use almost none of the native OSX applications, so if something like that breaks, I don't care. But if it's vital to the system, how? Will it get mad if I throw over the old safari.app from my Snow Leopard HD?

Random question: 2+3 is not 5.

I don't remember exactly what the system requirements were for the version of Safari that worked with Snow Leopard (OS 10.6)...but since you now have Mountain Lion (OS 10.8)...it is not always possible to "downgrade" an application when using a newer/newest OS. For example...Adobe Creative Suite 4 of applications (current version is CS 6)...or older versions of Microsoft Office will not not work with OS 10.8. "Downgrading" to an older version of Safari while running OS 10.8 may work the same way.

Please give this a read...and you may be able to extract some info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari_(web_browser)

You could also simply try the "brute force" method...and download & install the older version of Safari you prefer (if it can still be found)...launch it...and see if it runs properly with OS 10.8. If it doesn't...then you have your answer. Then just uninstall it (it won't "break" anything).

- Nick

Thanks for the reply. As for old applications, I've already got Skype 2.8 working, and that's about 4 versions old.

Also, since I still have the old hard drive and a USB mounting cable, I can just copy the old Safari right on to the new HD.

I'll report back with whatever happens.

I have this sinking feeling that Apple doesn't want their old applications working on new OS X versions.

It just quits unexpectedly, so that's the end of that.

Spot on Prof that is what will happen. You cannot remove or downgrade, but can always try other browsers ~ there are heaps of them.

http://lifehacker.com/5948212/brows...-chrome-22-firefox-15-safari-6-and-opera-1202

ProfJohn said:

I have this sinking feeling that Apple doesn't want their old applications working on new OS X versions.

It just quits unexpectedly, so that's the end of that.

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Not too surprising...Apple likes to do stuff like that!

Unfortunately this sort of thing happens all the time when new OS versions & new application versions are released. Some "liked" features are removed or "improved"...exposing us to a bit of a learning curve.

I bet if you mess around with the newest version of Safari long enough...you'll get used to it. You..."MUST conform to Apple's norm!!"

- Nick

harryb2448 said:

...but can always try other browsers ~ there are heaps of them.

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Excellent suggestion Harry!!!

- Nick

You..."MUST conform to Apple's norm!!"

Click to expand...

"You will be assimilated, resistance is futile!" ;P

I've actually been using Firefox to ask this

ProfJohn said:

Anyway, my question here is about Safari. I can't stand the unified search bar for several reasons. I was wondering if I could downgrade, and how much damage it really does to delete it. [...] For the record, I use almost none of the native OSX applications, so if something like that breaks, I don't care. But if it's vital to the system, how?

Click to expand...

Maybe I'm missing something but if you don't use any of the stock apps, why does it matter what Safari does?

A quick check says I use about 10%, which is close enough to "almost none".

Fair enough. I suppose I was just trying to figure out why the combined search/address bar mattered if you never used Safari.

Removing Safari is a tricky and risky endeavour, one probably not worth the fight. You can easily supersede the Finder based restriction that you've come up against but since Safari is a core part of OS X, you're likely to run into some issue down the road. For example (a minor one), Safari controls what browser is the system default.