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

andregarzia.com

281–290 of 927 posts

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

#281
post #257

I think looking at Apple as saviour of Privacy, is for lack of better term just wrong. They have always favoured closed systems even if didn't provide privacy advantages or as in this case was counter-intuitive for privacy. I feel the comparison of Apple with data companies such as Google, Facebook is by itself at fault. Apple like any computer company of 70's was not into data, just because Internet itself didn't ex…

I think looking at ANY company as the savior of privacy is a waste of time. Companies have proven time and time again that they are unable to self-regulate this. Only way forward is to introduce legislation that makes it illegal to track users using privacy-invasive practices, otherwise we'll never get rid of it. A company can be privacy-preserving today, but then the leadership changes or acquisition happens, and no…

>> I simply see no technological solution to this problem, it'll always be a cat-and-mouse game, until governments catch up and makes it illegal.

Then you we will have privacy-avoidance companies just like we have tax avoidance. Problem solved!

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

#282
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great point with a simple explanation: How good Safari was on iPad was irrelevant before mouse support. Before mouse support, we had apps made with UIKit, which is a touch-first app framework, competing with web apps, which are keyboard-and-mouse first. So UIKit apps won, because UIKit apps are better for touch. With mouse support, that situation becomes exactly inverted: In UIKit apps, the keyboard and mou…

We’re all speculating about Apple’s motivation, but none of us really knows why Apple made its decision. Perhaps it’s best to focus on the trade-offs—privacy vs. functionality—and not the speculative Kremlinology.

Respectfully, no. Learning software is a big investment in time and effort. Since I'm on Apple's platforms, because I think they're the best compromise for running the software I want to run, I am going to continue to speculate their reasoning to try to predict which software will be successful on their platforms in the future, because that's how I choose where to invest my time and effort.

I respect you have some other motivations here, but I'm not doing this for fun. I'm doing this because it's important to how I spend my most important resources: my time and effort. So no, I'm not going to stop speculating, the mere idea is laughable. Like buying an individual stock while having no opinion of what direction the company might take in the future.

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

#283
post #250

I think the original post is oversimplifying the new behaviour a little. If you look at the other blog post on ITP 2.3 [1] it says: > ITP 2.3 caps the lifetime of all script-writeable website data after a navigation with link decoration from a classified domain. i.e. the 7 day timeout for local storage only kicks in if you've been redirected from a domain that ITP has classified as one that tracks users. So, for exam…

Okay that's good but still, couldn't a domain on that list be weaponized against legitimate sites this way? For example:

- Somehow goodsite.com's user ends up on evil.com

- evil.com redirects to goodsite.com?clickID=1234

- goodsite.com's storage gets flagged

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

#284
post #250

I think the original post is oversimplifying the new behaviour a little. If you look at the other blog post on ITP 2.3 [1] it says: > ITP 2.3 caps the lifetime of all script-writeable website data after a navigation with link decoration from a classified domain. i.e. the 7 day timeout for local storage only kicks in if you've been redirected from a domain that ITP has classified as one that tracks users. So, for exam…

When will Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager get onto this list of trackers? Lots of web apps are using them.

As far as I understood this is not a "list of trackers" per se but a "list of websites that track you when you navigate to another website from them" and people don't navigate away from the Google Tag Manager or Google Analytics domains because they don't serve content with links.

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

#285
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re all speculating about Apple’s motivation, but none of us really knows why Apple made its decision. Perhaps it’s best to focus on the trade-offs—privacy vs. functionality—and not the speculative Kremlinology.

Respectfully, no. Learning software is a big investment in time and effort. Since I'm on Apple's platforms, because I think they're the best compromise for running the software I want to run, I am going to continue to speculate their reasoning to try to predict which software will be successful on their platforms in the future, because that's how I choose where to invest my time and effort. I respect you have some ot…

Of course you are free to speculate, but my point was that we lack evidence of Apple’s motivations that would help us to make predictions of any value. All we can do is tell a plausible story, and without evidence your story is no more likely to be true than mine.

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

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When will Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager get onto this list of trackers? Lots of web apps are using them.

As far as I understood this is not a "list of trackers" per se but a "list of websites that track you when you navigate to another website from them" and people don't navigate away from the Google Tag Manager or Google Analytics domains because they don't serve content with links.

So this would apply to t.co links from Twitter, for instance?

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

#287
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Native app != Electron app (fortunately!) The less of that bloated slow crap the better.

If we had to make non-electron, native version of our app, that would mean Windows[1] and Android, because that's where the current users are. Forget the rest. Is that the future you want? [1] And they would not be happy about that either. For many that would mean RDP or Citrix. They prefer webapp right now.

Sure, keep your (likely crummy if you’re OK with Citrix as a primary use case) Windows and Android apps.

The market will decide. Your comment is just on the user-hostile side of assuming it will prefer your technology choices.

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

#288
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).

> which hurts my particular app

A big chunk of the web these days uses JWT and localStorage for auth.

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

#290
post #250

I think the original post is oversimplifying the new behaviour a little. If you look at the other blog post on ITP 2.3 [1] it says: > ITP 2.3 caps the lifetime of all script-writeable website data after a navigation with link decoration from a classified domain. i.e. the 7 day timeout for local storage only kicks in if you've been redirected from a domain that ITP has classified as one that tracks users. So, for exam…

This! ^

Could someone please change the title of this post? It's rather inaccurate and spreading FUD... legitimate offline web applications are not going to randomly lose their storage abilities in Safari. Tons of people read this (admittedly hard to follow) blog post quickly and then took a nose-dive into their own hot takes.

Hoping Webkit pushes another of these posts later to clear things up.

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