Take back the 'feed:' URL from Safari 1.3

Apr 20, '05 09:10:00AM

Contributed by: n8gray

The new Safari 1.3 that appeared with 10.3.9 is pretty nice in most respects, but has the rude habit of stealing the feed:// URL type for RSS feeds. Even worse, it doesn't do anything useful with it -- when you click on a feed:// link, it just puts up an error sheet telling you that Safari 1.3 doesn't support RSS feeds. Never mind that you may have a perfectly good RSS reader set up to handle this URL scheme.

For those who want this URL scheme back and are willing to take it back by force, the hex editor is your friend -- PeekIt is one good free hex editor. I'll assume you're using it. We're going to find the string feed in Safari and change it to fxxd.

Here's how to do it:

  1. Back up your copy of Safari! I'm not kidding. This procedure is safe, but if you mess up it could be very bad for Safari's health.
  2. Open the Safari binary in PeekIt. This is accomplished by launching PeekIt, selecting File: Open, then choosing the file /Applications: Safari.app: Contents: MacOS: Safari
  3. From the Tools menu, select Find. Type feed into the "Search for" field and click "Find." This should place you at byte 704908, where you'll see the strings feed, feeds, and feedsearch in the left pane.
  4. Select the "modifiable" radio button at the bottom of the PeekIt window.
  5. Type fxxd, overwriting feed.
  6. Optional: Do the same for feeds and feedsearch if you want to reclaim those URL schema as well.
  7. Select File: Save and click through all the warnings about how dangerous this is.
  8. Launch Safari and test the feed: link at the upper right-hand corner of the Ranchero Software site to verify that it doesn't show you the stupid error pane.
While this may not be for the timid, it should be safe. Still, don't blame me if Safari blows up your computer.

[robg adds: According to Dave Hyatt's weblog, this 'feature' of Safari 1.3 on 10.3 is actually a bug. In his 'Response to Some 1.3 Comments' article, he writes: "The feed URL dialog that tells you 10.4 must be installed to view RSS feeds is simply a bug and not part of a master plan for global domination." If you view the comments for that article, you'll find another Terminal-only solution. Sandy McArthur (search for his name in the comments) posted a method that uses vim to edit the binary directly. Regardless of which method you use, please heed the advice and back up Safari before you start!]

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