Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

hacks.mozilla.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 242 posts

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#101

Post by lambada »

gigatexal wrote: post #82
loufe wrote: post #2

We talk often on this forum of how innaccessible giants like Google and Amazon are for the little guy. I thus found this point particularly interesting: >"Attempts to contact the vendor through regular support channels were unsuccessful so we ended up searching LinkedIn and managed to find an engineer working on the core antivirus detection. They immediately understood the seriousness of the problem and took prompt a…

It's not like Mozilla is a nobody software outfit. For this to be what they had to do go get someone's attention at Apple is terrible.

It wasn't Apple they were trying to contact, it was a random anti-virus vendor who were flagging all new Universal Binaries as malware.

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#102

Post by dhritzkiv »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #96
dhritzkiv wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything stopping Netflix from working in Safari on iOS? and then being installed as a bookmark to the Home Screen? I believe it's Netflix that prefers that users use the app.

Off the top of my head, mobile Safari can't handle push notifications for new content or downloading videos to watch later. I'm sure there are other problems with it as well.

Good points.

Being able to download/cache content reliably would be welcome, on all browsers. However, I haven't seen a good example of using PWAs' storage APIs to cache video content, Safari or otherwise.

Lack of push notifications in iOS Safari is a giant shortcoming. It's especially baffling since it exists for Safari on macOS. That being said, I can't say that Netflix's push notifications (in the app) are particularly useful (to me). They always spam me with newly released yet irrelevant in-house produced titles.

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#103

Post by tines »

duxup wrote: post #10
loufe wrote: post #2

We talk often on this forum of how innaccessible giants like Google and Amazon are for the little guy. I thus found this point particularly interesting: >"Attempts to contact the vendor through regular support channels were unsuccessful so we ended up searching LinkedIn and managed to find an engineer working on the core antivirus detection. They immediately understood the seriousness of the problem and took prompt a…

I was a back channel route to engineering at a company I worked for a while. A few of the engineers trusted me and a couple select customers / sales guys knew they could come to me to run a bug by me 'in theory' and if we had enough information I could unofficially run it by engineering without going through the song and dance of the typical support channels. I could get a quick ya or nay form them on some things and…

Just for reference, the pair is spelled "yea or nay" rather than "ya or nay".

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#104

Post by have_faith »

coldtea wrote: post #45
skrowl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On iOS there are no web browsers other than Safari, per the app store rules. "Chrome" / "Firefox" / etc on iOS are just basically skins on top of Webkit. See 2.5.6 here - https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ This is why you don't get any of the features / extensions / etc of Chrome or Firefox on iOS. Apple does this so that the mobile web can never replace apps that they have a monopoly on and get…

> Apple does this so that the mobile web can never replace apps that they have a monopoly on and get a % from Or you know, because they disallow dynamic code execution of arbitrary downloaded code in apps, and JIT JS compilers do just that. > If you could just visit netflix.com and have it install a Netflix SPA that worked as well as the native app, why would you ever install the native app? It's like asking "why wou…

>Still, I (and most I guess) wouldn't use it to watch Netflix over individual apps.

If the experience is so much better why are Apple scared to let other browsers into the app store?

Phones are general purpose computers for the majority of the world's population, exercising such authoritarian grip over what a user can do with the device is very depressing to see being defended.

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#105

Post by hoten »

brundolf wrote: post #21

> If the user visits such a site, Firefox will automatically download and install such a proprietary EME/CDM module. This presented a problem to us as we would be dependent on those third-party vendors to publish ARM64 versions of those decoders. Wait, modern browsers still download and run native binaries at the request of certain sites? How is this different from the days when native plugins like Flash were massive…

The site is not making any such request, it is simply using a browser feature. The browser, on demand, downloads a known and trusted binary.

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#106

Post by SahAssar »

coldtea wrote: post #45
skrowl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On iOS there are no web browsers other than Safari, per the app store rules. "Chrome" / "Firefox" / etc on iOS are just basically skins on top of Webkit. See 2.5.6 here - https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ This is why you don't get any of the features / extensions / etc of Chrome or Firefox on iOS. Apple does this so that the mobile web can never replace apps that they have a monopoly on and get…

> Apple does this so that the mobile web can never replace apps that they have a monopoly on and get a % from Or you know, because they disallow dynamic code execution of arbitrary downloaded code in apps, and JIT JS compilers do just that. > If you could just visit netflix.com and have it install a Netflix SPA that worked as well as the native app, why would you ever install the native app? It's like asking "why wou…

> Or you know, because they disallow dynamic code execution of arbitrary downloaded code in apps, and JIT JS compilers do just that.

What would you call a webview? Is it that much different if it is webkit or gecko or blink doing it? If I used a webview to run js-linux, xfce and firefox should that be disallowed too?

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#107

Post by coldtea »

have_faith wrote: post #104
coldtea wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple does this so that the mobile web can never replace apps that they have a monopoly on and get a % from Or you know, because they disallow dynamic code execution of arbitrary downloaded code in apps, and JIT JS compilers do just that. > If you could just visit netflix.com and have it install a Netflix SPA that worked as well as the native app, why would you ever install the native app? It's like asking "why wou…

>Still, I (and most I guess) wouldn't use it to watch Netflix over individual apps. If the experience is so much better why are Apple scared to let other browsers into the app store? Phones are general purpose computers for the majority of the world's population, exercising such authoritarian grip over what a user can do with the device is very depressing to see being defended.

>If the experience is so much better why are Apple scared to let other browsers into the app store?

Well, the weasel word "scared" kind of begs the question.

Who said it's "scared"?

Apple spearheaded the modern browser with Safari. Chrome wasn't even a thing then (it forked off of Apple's work on Safari/Webkit later, just like v8 came after Apple's own JSC JIT work).

As for Mobile Safari, it took several years for Android browsers to come close: Android Browser in particular was a piece of crap, slower, and lacking more features, than Mobile Safari. Was Google also "scared" of web apps?

Also note that, when Apple suggested to developers they make their own web apps in lack of a native SDK, most dissed those and wanted, nay, demanded a native SDK.

And Mobile Safari is not exactly some bad browser holding those apps back. You can watch Netflix on mobile safari, on the web, if you so want. Why would you though?

And here's the 1000 pound argument: do you see many people watching Netflix on Android Chrome, as opposed to using the Android Netflix app?

Didn't think so.

Why would they do it on the iPhone then, if Chrome was available in the App Store?

>Phones are general purpose computers for the majority of the world's population

Not even close.

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#108

Post by julienfr112 »

jkaptur wrote: post #40
zerkten wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exists in almost every company by design. Engineering teams wouldn't make any progress towards their mission if they are constantly dealing with outside interruptions, but at the same time there are things which should be qualified. Customer support is a cost center and the focus is on mitigating the cost of providing that support. If you fail to do this you can burn through a lot of cash quickly. What managemen…

The binary distinction between "cost centers" and "profit centers" has always seemed arbitrary to me (especially since, as an engineer, I've been in both without my work being substantially different). To be frank, it seems like an organizational way to say "we don't find this work to be valuable or interesting, and we'd like to do the bare minimum of it - in fact, we'd like to unleash smart people to explore new fro…

You should have shared you wisdom with Boeing in 2010 ...

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#109

Post by coldtea »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #77
coldtea wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple does this so that the mobile web can never replace apps that they have a monopoly on and get a % from Or you know, because they disallow dynamic code execution of arbitrary downloaded code in apps, and JIT JS compilers do just that. > If you could just visit netflix.com and have it install a Netflix SPA that worked as well as the native app, why would you ever install the native app? It's like asking "why wou…

I can't speak to the mobile/desktop distinction, but comparing "watching Netflix in Firefox on my desktop" with "watching Netflix on my LG WebOS TV", there's barely any difference. If anything, the browser version wins because of the superior input devices (kbd, mouse) attached to it compared with the TV. This suggests to me that there would be little difference when comparing mobile/desktop or app/browser, other tha…

How many watch web-based Netflix on their Android phone, where Chrome is available, and "Safari" doesn't hold the marvel of web apps back?

How many care to use web based apps over native apps in Android?

Re: Porting Firefox to Apple Silicon

#110

Post by coldtea »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #94
coldtea wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple does this so that the mobile web can never replace apps that they have a monopoly on and get a % from Or you know, because they disallow dynamic code execution of arbitrary downloaded code in apps, and JIT JS compilers do just that. > If you could just visit netflix.com and have it install a Netflix SPA that worked as well as the native app, why would you ever install the native app? It's like asking "why wou…

> Or you know, because they disallow dynamic code execution of arbitrary downloaded code in apps, and JIT JS compilers do just that. No, they explicitly disallow other implementations, whether they JIT or not. Since Apple's WebKit is missing so many features, this has the effect that GP noted. "2.5.6 Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript." https://developer.apple.com…

>No, they explicitly disallow other implementations, whether they JIT or not. Since Apple's WebKit is missing so many features, this has the effect that GP noted.

So, do you know people who prefer web apps over native apps for their Android, where "other browsers" are not disallowed, and Chrome is available?

I'm sure you'll find some. I doubt you'll find any significant percentage though.

I, personally, never do, and haven't seen any doing it in the wild, except for things there's not an app for...

Post reply on HN