Long time Firefox user, trying to switch to Safari.
Things that bug me:
1). New tabs aren't created directly to the right of current tab. Turned on/found/whatever this feature in FF and looooove it. It's especially nice for things like, oh, I dunno...4chan.
2). No site searches in the search bar? I have a feeling Safari must do this and I'm just missing it, but I used the wikipedia, youtube and amazon extensions all the time in Firefox.
3). [Something I think all browsers do] If you don't select "create tab with blank page" when you create your tab, you're usually mouse-focused on some part of the page. I'd like to create tabs with a blank google page, but still be focused on the address bar. That way I can type/paste something when I need to hop to a new site (which is probably 75% of the time) but quickly get to a google search if I need it (the other 25%). Having to open a new tab, and then type in google/get to the search window on the right isn't optimal (if I open a blank page), and neither is opening a new tab and having to mouse up to the address bar (if I open a blank google page).
4). Download window doesn't close automatically.
Glims allegedly does this, I couldn't get it to work months ago and haven't tried again since. I just got used it since I only began to see it with IE8 anyway.
Glims will give you something like what Firefox uses, namely that you go to the search bar and then can pre-select the engine (just about anything that you can think of), this is what my roommate uses.
I prefer to use Inquisitor, which has an advantage in that I can open a new tab (CMD+Tab), go to the search bar (Tab), type in my search term (delicious beer) and then hit a user-defined keystroke (CMD+Shift+A) to buy some 'delicious beer' from Amazon.
If I understand what you are wanting correctly... you want to have google.com set as your new tab page. You also want it set such that when you open a new tab it leaves the address bar selected and not the google.com search box. I think that Safari 5 does this (or for all I know it is a setting in Glims).
Glims
So, long story short, get Glims at the minimum (this will also put favicons on your tabs, something that I like), and also get Inquisitor if searching with a keystroke appeals to you, especially since you can jump from site to site with the same search term. Like, say I search for 'Mighty Ducks', and hit CMD+Shift+N to go to Netflix to see if they have it on instant play. Oh look, they do, but you know what, I want to own it too... So I hit CMD+Shift+A to check the price on Amazon, and if that is too expensive, CMD+Shift+E to get it cheaper on Ebay.
It is nice to have so I don't have to open new tabs unless I want to.
Also, Glims will give you website previews on Google and Yahoo.
Thanks! I haven't tried downloading anything yet, but I assume it'll close. The only thing I don't think it has is search for youtube, which is actually what I used the most. But I'll live.
I'm not sure what other features it has -- or if I need/want the features it has -- but so far it's great. Thanks again!
When using Chrome, is anyone able to right click the icon in the dock and select 'Quit'? When i try it, it does nothing.