Safari 16 is released by Apple with improvements to tabs, advanced syncing and more

Safari 15 was released in September 2021 with a big visual change and a year later Apple is releasing Safari 16 with other optimizations for browsing, tab groups, passwords and greater syncing between devices and more. This new version still arrives with macOS Ventura features for Monterey and Big Sur while the latest version does not arrive.

As detailed in the update log, Safari 16 has Tab Group landing pages with different background images and preferences for each Tab Group and the option to pin frequently visited sites for easy access.

There is also support for images in the AVIF format, which is an open alternative to JPEG and PNG formats, but has more color spaces, lossless compression, and many other benefits.

Now the tabs in the sidebar also show a view of open tabs and you can also manage passwords more conveniently so you don’t have problems generating new codes for websites with password requirements with the convenience of Passkeys, which replaces them on websites compatible.

Speaking of security, this release also brings security improvements to WebKit, but other features, like notifications with Safari closed, will only arrive with macOS Ventura.

Finally, another very cool feature coming with Safari 16 is Website Preferences Sync, which integrates website-specific preferences across all your Apple devices, so you don’t have to make these per-device adjustments.

Safari 16 is now downloadable on macOS Monterey and Big Sur via the System Preferences > Software Update menu.