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Safari is now probably the influential wild card browser for user privacy

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Re: Safari is now probably the influential wild card browser for user privacy

#151

Post by endless1234 »

Google234 wrote: post #124
heavyset_go wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t want websites to be able to send notifications to my phone. You might not, but our users requested desktop and mobile notifications. The notifications let sick patients know when their prescriptions are ready, facilitate care-provider check ups, etc.

Have those users download some simple app if this is so important to them. Or let them enter their phone number to get more reliable text notifications. Just because you have a good use doesn’t outweigh the all the bad abuse.

>Have those users download some simple app

The whole discussion is about it being unnecessary resource use to develop said "simple app" due to Apple's restrictions on mobile Safari..

Re: Safari is now probably the influential wild card browser for user privacy

#152

Post by thysultan »

adrr wrote: post #38
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #5

This is why, despite it being monopolistic, I hope Apple can continue their requirement on using Safari's rendering engine on iOS. It's the sole remaining defense against a far worse monopoly. Neither the Mozilla nor Edge teams have the backbone to resist Google's web platform initiatives.

People choose to install chrome it doesn't come with Windows Machines or Macs yet is a very popular CHOICE of browser. IOS we have no choice and forced to to use Safari.

Even better: people choose to buy a thousand dollar phone to use Safari, i'd say that makes Safari better.

Re: Safari is now probably the influential wild card browser for user privacy

#153

Post by onion2k »

Google234 wrote: post #146
onion2k wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of notification requests being blocked is not the same as 99% of users blocking notifications. If every user visits 100 sites and accepts notifications from one of them, then 100% of users actually want notifications despite 99% of requests being denied. I'm not defending stupid notification popups from some website you'll only ever visit once. Those are annoying. I'm saying you can't tell what users want unless…

I would imagine that 99% of people wouldn’t be happy with a service that is 99% spam.

Again though you're making assumptions that the data can't back up. If a site asks to send me notifications and I say no that doesn't make the notifications spam. That just means I don't want to see them for some reason.

And besides, for something to be spam you need to actually see it. In the case of notifications if you deny the permission on a site you don't see the notifications. That's the perfect spam filter. Imagine a world where people could only send you email if you explicitly said you accepted it from them. Or if robocallers could only call you if you agreed first. Spam would be over. There would be no spam. That sounds fantastic.

Re: Safari is now probably the influential wild card browser for user privacy

#154

Post by Jcowell »

HDMI_Cable wrote: post #26
dialtone wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One day ycombinator will be full of people that talk after informing themselves, but that day is not today. The Chromium Edge doesn’t support 3rd party cookies already and thus isn’t really subject to targeted ads like Safari or Firefox. Now please continue with your reasoning.

I’m not an expert on this, but aren’t there other ways to track users (like fingerprinting based on extensions)?

Yes but it doesn’t really matter. If you’re using edge chromium , you’re probably using it on the platform it runs best on anyway, that already would probably do it all anyway.

Re: Safari is now probably the influential wild card browser for user privacy

#155

Post by foepys »

adrr wrote: post #38
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #5

This is why, despite it being monopolistic, I hope Apple can continue their requirement on using Safari's rendering engine on iOS. It's the sole remaining defense against a far worse monopoly. Neither the Mozilla nor Edge teams have the backbone to resist Google's web platform initiatives.

People choose to install chrome it doesn't come with Windows Machines or Macs yet is a very popular CHOICE of browser. IOS we have no choice and forced to to use Safari.

People chose to install Chrome because Google displayed prominent ads on their search engine and optimized their web apps to Chrome. Basically nagging people until they installed it.

Re: Safari is now probably the influential wild card browser for user privacy

#156

Post by KineticLensman »

yladiz wrote: post #43
djrogers wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a very long, thoughtful, and detailed document. Linking to it without any context at all isn’t super helpful. What exactly are you referring to when you claim Apple ‘spies on its [sic] users’? Every bit of data Apple has about me is a) made explicitly clear, b) used for a specific purpose or feature, and c) isn’t sold to or used in any adtech bs. That all sounds good to me…

Tangential: why did you put [sic] after its? "its" is correct there.

Yes. The way I remember this is that 'his' and 'her' don't have apostophes so neither does 'its' when used as a possessive.

Re: Safari is now probably the influential wild card browser for user privacy

#157

Post by endless1234 »

Spartan-S63 wrote: post #83
heavyset_go wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a mobile and desktop Firefox user, and Firefox has supported the features that are missing from iOS Safari like the Web Notifications API since 2013, and the Web Push API since January 2016.

Why should a web browser be able to send notifications? Why are we overloading web browsers to do more and more things? I get that transferring data over the internet is king, but surely we can devise better user interfaces than bloated browsers, etc?

>Why should a web browser be able to send notifications?

Why not? Web browsers are not just for reading text based articles. Most use a calendar, email, perhaps some kind of chat app through their browser. Aren't these and other similar use cases good reasons for notifications to exist?

Re: Safari is now probably the influential wild card browser for user privacy

#158

Post by mns »

bleachedsleet wrote: post #37

I love Safari as a browser, but I hate the fact that it neuters the web and makes it feel much less powerful. Web Bluetooth and webUSB are ignored by Safari and unsupported. Notification support is lacking last I checked. No PWA functionality to speak of and webNFC won’t be added. Extensions are lacking largely due to being basically native apps that bring with them all the cost and overhead of being such. As a brows…

On one hand you have people complaining Chrome kills their batteries and on the other you want to have a browser that does push notifications, Bluetooth and usb. I want my browser to be fast and light. These complaints seem to come more from companies wanting to save money and developers too lazy to develop native apps. I don’t want to load a 200Mb progressive web app that goes through 20 layers of abstraction to show a list of news items just because developers are lazy and companies want to make more money. This is not for the users, at least let’s be honest about that.

Re: Safari is now probably the influential wild card browser for user privacy

#159

Post by sbuk »

yunohn wrote: post #126
nwienert wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I accidentally disable this or something? I’ve never seen it. Everyone acts like 1. For some reason it has to be some sort of pop up, it could easily be a small icon in your bar 2. Apple couldn’t/wouldn’t design this so that it was unobtrusive 3. If the way they did design it was still too annoying, they wouldn’t make it less so, or make it easy to turn off Why do so many on HN argue from “if it existed it would…

>> it’s a total lack of capability of even the most incremental innovative thinking Honestly, HN is a cargo cult of native only, anti web app sentiment. It’s frustrating.

Or...

Your opinion isn’t held by other people, some of whom disagree with your opinion and are expressing that.

Re: Safari is now probably the influential wild card browser for user privacy

#160

Post by rewgs »

nwienert wrote: post #103
bleachedsleet wrote: post #37

I love Safari as a browser, but I hate the fact that it neuters the web and makes it feel much less powerful. Web Bluetooth and webUSB are ignored by Safari and unsupported. Notification support is lacking last I checked. No PWA functionality to speak of and webNFC won’t be added. Extensions are lacking largely due to being basically native apps that bring with them all the cost and overhead of being such. As a brows…

In this sense, it’s actually a good thing Chrome and others aren’t allowed on Apple. As someone whose fought against the App Store lockdown, I think I’ve come around a bit. The web is in a weird way a better place for apple locking down the browser choice.

But Chrome/etc are totally “allowed” on both macOS and iOS...? Not sure what you mean here.
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