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Well, in my eyes all those things like safe_mode, open_basedir, ect ect are designed to prevent newly scripters, to write bad code that could possible create security problems on the site...
So, safe_mode off with badly written script could indeed cause problems. But, safe mode off is perfectly safe if your code is well written...
Also, safe mode limits quite a lot of things. One of the bigest problem with safe mode on (default settings), it that you impossible can upload files...
You might check this page:
http://www.php.net/features.safe-modeI hate host that enable safe mode by default. However, I my hosts would enable open_basedir (they did recently) I have no problem with that, since it doesn't limit any of my use of php. (open_basedir is set to my home dir, hosts that set open_basedir to "." make it impossible to let scripts work that need more dirs (ex. xoops))
Hopes my text helps a little bit.
Keywords:
open_basedir, open_dir, opendir, openbase_dir, safe mode, safe_mod, safemod, mod_safe.