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Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

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Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#101

Post by nubela »

freediver wrote: post #27

We are working on a new native macOS browser based on Webkit with native web extension API support built in. We have uBlock origin and many others extensions working already. By doing this we get best of both worlds - performance and energy use of Webkit and extensions from chrome/firefox. Screenshot: https://ibb.co/7V8sfyX We are open for beta testers. Please email me if interested with short background and area of…

The problem with browsers is that it is hard to monetize unless you go down some shady rabbithole. So exactly how are you going to make money and make your first million dollars?

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#102

Post by nubela »

freediver wrote: post #59
AnonC wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask what your business model is or would be, since you require people to email you with specific information to beta test your product?

Sure. We are also building a search engine and we believe that you need to think holistically about replacing Google, by offering other infrastructure as well and a browser is a part of that (privacy friendly, with ad blocking built in). Btw we are starting to take beta testers for the search engine as well. The extra info is only because I want to devote full personal attention to our beta testers, so some context h…

So, why not start with building a search engine? Why browser first?

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#103

Post by gumby »

JimDabell wrote: post #87
gumby wrote: post #73

Seems like it ought to be scriptable to wrap a little boilerplate around the custom js and call xcodebuild on it. Unfortunately "ought to be" != "easy". But if someone could do this it would be a service to extension developers and Safari users alike.

It practically already exists. Xcode can import an existing WebExtension and generate an Xcode project for it. Assuming you are happy with the default behaviour of the companion app (which basically just gives you info on the extension, whether it is enabled in Safari, and how to enable it if not), you can just hit build and submit it to Apple.

That sounds pretty low friction (to me -- but I already develop with Xcode) in exchange for being signed and available in the App Store.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#104

Post by Klonoar »

coldtea wrote: post #74
chmod775 wrote: post #71

As someone who has (re-)implemented and shipped quite a few native applications across ecosystems (Apple, Android, Windows, Linux) all I can say about this is: Xcode development, the Apple Developer Program, and the whole experience of trying to ship your application on the Apple ecosystem is the fucking plague . I will do it if I'm paid for it - I generally charge twice my hourly rate for anything Apple - but I cert…

> Xcode development, the Apple Developer Program, and the whole experience of trying to ship your application on the Apple ecosystem is the fucking plague. That's because you're a developer that works in different platforms ("Apple, Android, Windows, Linux"). So you probably spend most of the time working in some other platform, and doing macOS work for you is just an annoyance, having to context switch to another pr…

This.

So many Apple complaints boil down to "it's not Windows or Linux". If you learn the platform, little about Xcode/the dev program/etc is surprising. Perhaps slightly annoying in an extra step or two, but nothing too unmanageable.

IMO, the bigger problem with developing for Apple's side of things is documentation - particularly, for things that need to exist outside of Apple's "blessed" path. If you're just in Xcode, things will mostly work - if you're outside of it, it can be confusing at first, for sure.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#105

Post by onion2k »

ivanhoe wrote: post #96
coldtea wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Xcode development, the Apple Developer Program, and the whole experience of trying to ship your application on the Apple ecosystem is the fucking plague. That's because you're a developer that works in different platforms ("Apple, Android, Windows, Linux"). So you probably spend most of the time working in some other platform, and doing macOS work for you is just an annoyance, having to context switch to another pr…

> That's because such vendors (e.g. Panic, BareBones, Omni, and so on) won't do lowest common denominator apps, they keep up with the platform, they understand it, they hook in to new platform-only capabilities, etc.). What about thousands of small devs/companies who are not Panic or others having contacts inside Apple and a privileged position? Here on HN there's at least one horror story a month about issues someon…

Here on HN there's at least one horror story a month about issues someone had with Apple, from ever changing terms, to review process that takes for ever..

Looking at that pragmatically, if Apple are managing to keep "media worthy" problems down to about 12 cases a year they're doing an amazing job.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#106

Post by Klonoar »

Nextgrid wrote: post #8

In addition to the money argument raised in another comment, the Apple development experience is a major annoyance when all you need is a couple lines of JS. I have an extension idea; it's literally a single line of JS. However, to get it into Safari, I need to create a (useless, and empty) Mac app with a specific configuration in Xcode that'll allow it to appear in the "extensions" list in Safari. Then I need to dea…

>In addition to the money argument raised in another comment, the Apple development experience is a major annoyance when all you need is a couple lines of JS. > >I have an extension idea; it's literally a single line of JS. However, to get it into Safari, I need to create a (useless, and empty) Mac app with a specific configuration in Xcode that'll allow it to appear in the "extensions" list in Safari. Then I need to deal with all the signing & App Store distribution stuff if I actually want to distribute it.

I've shipped an extension like this, and it took me an hour to build (which included testing), and then I hit "archive" and submitted it.

The signing pieces "just work" in modern Xcode if you have a developer account associated.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#107

Post by refulgentis »

nubela wrote: post #102
freediver wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. We are also building a search engine and we believe that you need to think holistically about replacing Google, by offering other infrastructure as well and a browser is a part of that (privacy friendly, with ad blocking built in). Btw we are starting to take beta testers for the search engine as well. The extra info is only because I want to devote full personal attention to our beta testers, so some context h…

So, why not start with building a search engine? Why browser first?

Gotta start small

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#108

Post by josephg »

coldtea wrote: post #98
apple_innocent wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but there's nothing that says the Xcode experience has to be so painful[1] or that people have to pay Apple or that software has to be approved by Apple in order to preserve this flexibility. Purchasers should have options, including the option to write software (for themselves) that works on the computer they paid for but might not work if Apple introduces computers based on a new architecture, which the existi…

> Yeah but there's nothing that says the Xcode experience has to be so painful Well, who says it is objectively painful (as opposed to just not what the grandparent is used to or prefers)?

Its pretty bad.

XCode (with swift) seems to crash on me regularly just with normal usage. The last time I used it occasionally it would lag so badly that it sometimes lost characters I was typing, and my code would come out completely garbled (what!?). A few weeks ago I tried to do a local build of Signal's iOS app and the swift compiler errored out on some random function. Apparently it spent so long doing type inference that it decided to just generate a compilation error instead. I guess I'm not wealthy enough to even compile swift code slowly. (For reference, this on a $3000 (AUD) macbook pro from 2016 with 16 gigs ram, the latest xcode and nothing else open).

Back in the objective-C days I used to really like XCode and loved interface builder. The documentation and ecosystem seemed top notch. But in the last few years its gotten much, much worse. Its like the old guard have left and a young generation have come in to develop the swift ecosystem - and they just don't have good judgement yet. The documentation is halfbaked at best. The whole environment is an overcomplicated, buggy, laggy mess. Its a pity too, because I think Swift is a lovely language and I love what they're doing with SwiftUI.

In comparison I find microsoft's tooling around their languages to be excellent. Visual studio + vs code are fast, stable, feature rich and responsive. Particularly with microsoft's own languages: C# and typescript.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#109

Post by walty8 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #8

In addition to the money argument raised in another comment, the Apple development experience is a major annoyance when all you need is a couple lines of JS. I have an extension idea; it's literally a single line of JS. However, to get it into Safari, I need to create a (useless, and empty) Mac app with a specific configuration in Xcode that'll allow it to appear in the "extensions" list in Safari. Then I need to dea…

We recently converted a chrome extension into safari extension using the tool provided by apple [1]. While the conversion is smooth in general, the generated app (not the extension) got UI issue during extension review! Reviewer insists the app does not fit the UI guideline. I need to write back and explain the entire app is actually generated by the official Apple tool. The only use of generated app is open the preferences page of Safari. Anyway, after two back and forth, the extension is finally launched.

[1]: https://bartsolutions.github.io/2020/11/20/safari-extension/

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#110

Post by coldtea »

ivanhoe wrote: post #96
coldtea wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Xcode development, the Apple Developer Program, and the whole experience of trying to ship your application on the Apple ecosystem is the fucking plague. That's because you're a developer that works in different platforms ("Apple, Android, Windows, Linux"). So you probably spend most of the time working in some other platform, and doing macOS work for you is just an annoyance, having to context switch to another pr…

> That's because such vendors (e.g. Panic, BareBones, Omni, and so on) won't do lowest common denominator apps, they keep up with the platform, they understand it, they hook in to new platform-only capabilities, etc.). What about thousands of small devs/companies who are not Panic or others having contacts inside Apple and a privileged position? Here on HN there's at least one horror story a month about issues someon…

>Here on HN there's at least one horror story a month about issues someone had with Apple

With 2 million programmers, a marketplace of 100billion, and millions of apps, "one horror story a month" (i.e. "somebody was annoyed on the internet and posted about it") sounds like a huge success story. And many of these are non-stories, or stories of the kind "Me, one of 1.5000.000 programmers on iOS/macOS stores, had an app rejected for some reason".

We never hear the Linux horror stories of commercial developers trying to sell native apps. If we did it would be more like:

"I tried to make a living with a native desktop app - FOSS or proprietary - for Linux, but nobody seems to care and fewer would pay, plus between GNOME, KDE, XFCE, and 10 popular distros, the landscape is a fragmented mess. Oh, god I wish there was an App Store for all, and $100/year to give me access to customers who will actually pay and a way out of this mess".

>while still doesn't manage to catch many real offenders

Why would one expect it to? No system is perfect, it's enough that it catches most offenders, or more offenders than alternative systems. E.g:

https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/mediacenter/mobile-security....

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