I downloaded the Safari 4 Public Beta from Apple, and everything in it is so confusing and frustrating. Why did Apple change everything, and how can I go back to Safari 3?

If you want to go back to Safari 3 and ditch 4 altogether, simply run the Safari4.0BetaUninstall.pkg installer file that comes included on the Safari 4 disk image that you downloaded from Apple’s website. That will both uninstall Safari 4 and reinstall Safari 3 for you.

Safari 4 Buddy gives you a quick way to access the hidden preferences in Safari 4, so you can go back to a "normal" user interface again.

However, if you want to stick with Safari 4 for its improved speed but just want to suppress some of its most annoying features, you can do this by accessing Safari 4’s hidden preferences. The easiest way to do this may be to download Safari 4 Buddy (free, www.swoon.net), which gives you a graphical user interface to access all of Safari 4’s hidden preferences. Be sure to quit and relaunch Safari for your changes to take effect.

You can also modify the hidden preferences by using the Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities/). We also found a great list of Safari-fixin’ Terminal commands—for things like bringing back the blue progress bar and Stop/Reload button, putting the tabs back where they used to be, restoring the ability to clear recent Google searches, and more—on Caius Durling’s Random Genius blog at www.swedishcampground.com/safari-4-hidden-preferences. Again, you’ll need to relaunch Safari to see the changes take effect.