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Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

andregarzia.com

171–180 of 927 posts

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Webkit's website says: "[..] deleting all of a website’s script-writable storage after seven days of Safari use without user interaction on the site." It is not clear that a user coming to your website before the 7 days, even offline, is exempt of it.

User not coming to website 7 days can't be invalid use-case. Losing important data simply because someone went on vacation is unacceptable.

Not allowing important data to be downloaded for cold storage is unacceptable.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#172
post #22

Safari already was lagging behind Chrome, Chrome forks and Firefox in a lot of feature adoption. This will only make it more of a "new Internet Explorer", a browser that sites recommend you NOT to use.

Good luck with telling people not to use Safari (or more accurately WebKit) on iOS....

Nothing to tell. They don't have a choice.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#173
post #80
post #4

Better title: Apple restricts tracking by limiting browser storage, which hurts my particular app. Browsers need to be severely limited due to them running arbitrary code from the web. Doesn't matter if it's an offline web app. If you want more access, make a native app (with or without web technologies).

> If you want more access, make a native app (with or without web technologies). How's installing a native app better for a random user privacy or security wise, exactly?

It must go through the App Store vetting process, whereas a web app can come from anywhere.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple restricts tracking by limiting browser storage But the argument that this will protect privacy in the first place seems really weak. Before this change in Apple's policy, an app could store my config data on my PC. After this change, they'd need to have me log in and send the config data to their servers. That seems like I've lost privacy, not gained it.

> they'd need to have me log in and send the config data to their servers You'd have to log in. That's a hurdle that involves implicit consent.

Most people don't care about logging into services anymore. just implement a fb login and it takes less than 5 secs

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#176
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So store this data on the server.

But wouldn't that make it have less privacy? Now my webapp cannot be used offline and anonymously, user has to be logged in and tracked

If it’s your app how not being tracked is an argument ? I mean you just can just not track him (unless I’m not understanding your point)

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#178
post #129
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could also be exactly what they say it is: a way to prevent the abuse of local storage for tracking.

People who want to track users will always find a way to do so, it's a endless cat-and-mouse game. Now they will just use cookies instead... The only way to win this is to legislate away the freedom to track users by using privacy-invasive methods. That's the only way that will work long-term. But that'll make half of the internet industry disappear, along with it's shareholders, so it's unlikely to happen.

> People who want to track users will always find a way to do so, it's a endless cat-and-mouse game. Now they will just use cookies instead...

Isn't the new policy for local storage being copied from an existing policy for cookies? How can they switch to cookies?

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#179

I’m guessing that Apple will start hindering web apps because the new mouse support in iPadOS is going to be such a boon to web apps. Because of sandboxing, web apps are the only cross-platform apps that can run in their full versions on iPadOS. I wrote a quick summary of the situation[0]. Therefore, since native apps are more of a platform differentiator than web apps, moving forward we can expect Apple to start sys…

moving forward we can expect Apple to start systemically hindering web apps They have been doing this for quite some time now. Always ostensibly to protect users but always also conveniently putting webapps at a permanent disadvantage to native apps. For my part I'm not interested in being a user of a platform so hostile to the web that it disallows any third party browsers.

Apple disallows third-party web rendering engines. Google Chrome on iOS uses own networking stack.

It is still a significant restriction, but it is rather understandable. Without it it could be just Blink everywhere at this point.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#180
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m guessing that Apple will start hindering web apps because the new mouse support in iPadOS is going to be such a boon to web apps. As a web developer , I've never believed Apple has hindered web development on their platform, purposefully or not. They just don't spend their resources adding in WebBluetooth or whatever new API-of-the-day Google has decided to come up with. As I see it, their focus is on the user…

That’s a very rosy way of looking at it. iOS has had bugs with its “add to home screen” webapps that kicked around literally for years . If they were being “user first” they’d support it fully or not support it at all. Instead they implemented then neglected it.

What bugs exactly? Been using this feature for years and have never had issues with it.
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