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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

#221

Post by fragile_frogs »

Google234 wrote: post #97
fragile_frogs wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to test a web app and was naive enough to buy an old iPhone 6, thinking I could test and debug my app. To my disappointment you can't update Safari through the app store and developer tools are pretty much non existent...

To be fair, that’s a very old phone and IOS12 is still getting updates in 2021. I’m not sure that the issue is, safari is updated along with IOS.

I should have probably looked into that before buying the phone.

The issue that I have with safari being locked to a specific iOS version is that people on older model such as the iPhone 6 are being stuck with an outdated browser, even though the phone is still useable.

To be fair, Apple handles updating iOS a lot better than Android, but Chrome is not tied to the OS versions, this means I can update Chrome through the Play Store which means: 1) faster update cycle and 2) old android phones can still run the latest Chrome.

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

#222

Post by fragile_frogs »

endless1234 wrote: post #151
Google234 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

And not everyone has the resources to build a "simple app" just for iOS.

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

#223

Post by intricatedetail »

heavyset_go wrote: post #17

> (Conversely, if Safari refuses to implement some alleged 'feature', it becomes much less useful even if Chrome does implement it.) The fact that Apple refuses to implement basic features in mobile Safari that Firefox and Chrome have had for years now, and the fact that they refuse to allow other browser engines on iOS is the reason why we can't have nice things like progressive web apps. I recently worked on a heal…

This is another example of Apple anti competitive and anti consumer behaviour and regulators should start to look into it. Unfortunately Apple managed to amass so much wealth through various tricks and loopholes, they are now in position to buy any regulation they want and probably that's why they are allowed to continue with these practices.

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

#224

Post by pndy »

jeffchien wrote: post #104
JohnBooty wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ohh and you are on Windows and wan't to debug something on Safari? Forget it. Yeah, this utterly baffles me. You'd think Apple, out of sheer self-interest, would offer some sort of "Safari for Developers" that runs on Windows/Linux. Even if it's some kind of klunky suboptimally-performant thing. Just make it really obvious in terms of it's branding and theming that it's devs-only.

My hypothesis is that Apple is probably getting enough money from companies having to buy their devs Macbooks that they don't feel like releasing Safari on Windows/Linux (much less Xcode).

I think it's because at some point they start to rely on features solely available in OSX and at the same time repeating somehow what Microsoft did in dominant years of IE on Windows but without all that predatory tactics. The times obviously change; today companies give their users ecosystems of software and services successfully trapping them within these; Safari is the browser for Apple ecosystem, just like Edge tries to be for Microsoft one.

Safari on Windows was left alone in time Chrome was in the process of being bundled with various software installers as an additional option - which is the way how this browser become popular. I doubt it will be ever pushed forward with development, simply because Microsoft and Windows it's not Apple's subject of interest. Sure, they do offer iCloud services for Windows but it's a rather basic stuff that allows to use different platform from time to time, not on everyday basis (as in, you aren't buying just to remove OSX and install Windows).

Of course, would be great to have more options but we're living in almost homogeneous web browser world - it's all about Chromium/Blink, even Microsoft abandon their engine and took Chromium. There's of course Firefox but honestly, I don't think it's gonna last long - not will all these decisions that has been made and how Mozilla treated its (power)users. We're all dependent on Chromium, its devteam and what Google decides is "best" for the whole world and the Internet. Which I believe, is certainly a bad thing.

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

#225

Post by smoe »

phreack wrote: post #58
heavyset_go wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this specific use case, it's missing the Web Push API[1], which can be used to implement push notifications, and the Web Notification API[2], which can also be used for the same thing. [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Push_API [2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Notificatio...

I'm willing to go as far as to say it's The one feature that's singlehandedly holding back PWAs entirely. Most apps that you use every day needs notifications for one reason another, mainly communication apps, and if you could do them with a web app it'd be a game changer. But Apple is holding us all back and has been for years.

Pretty much none of the apps, native or web I use regularly, need notifications in order to do what I want them to do. It is usually the makers of said apps that really really want notifications as a strategy to increase engagement.

I’m not against web notifications per se, but I’m not buying that most web applications are held back because notifications are actually crucial to them functioning.

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

#226

Post by fragile_frogs »

intricatedetail wrote: post #223
heavyset_go wrote: post #17

> (Conversely, if Safari refuses to implement some alleged 'feature', it becomes much less useful even if Chrome does implement it.) The fact that Apple refuses to implement basic features in mobile Safari that Firefox and Chrome have had for years now, and the fact that they refuse to allow other browser engines on iOS is the reason why we can't have nice things like progressive web apps. I recently worked on a heal…

This is another example of Apple anti competitive and anti consumer behaviour and regulators should start to look into it. Unfortunately Apple managed to amass so much wealth through various tricks and loopholes, they are now in position to buy any regulation they want and probably that's why they are allowed to continue with these practices.

I wouldn't care about what Safari is doing if iOS would allow you to install browsers that are not based on webkit. The fact that Apple only allows webkit browser makes it so much worse and means that no one can compete on iOS against Apple

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

#227

Post by fragile_frogs »

mns wrote: post #158
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 sho…

> I don’t want to load a 200Mb progressive web app

And I don't want to download your 200Mb native app that I will only use once. Besides that, the average webpage size is 2Mb which IMO is still too big, where as the average iOS app size is 34.3Mb.

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

#228

Post by tobr »

enumjorge wrote: post #220
tobr wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your progressive web app stops working because the browser is missing a feature, by definition you have not built a progressive app. It’s supposed to work everywhere, with progressive enhancements if platform features are available.

The parent comment didn’t say their PWA stops working on Safari, only that it doesn’t have a full set of features on it. For some applications, features like push notifications are essential.

They said Safari is

> the reason why we can't have nice things like progressive web apps

I.e. implying that progressive web apps are only possible if a specific set of features are supported everywhere. It’s like saying that accessibility is only possible if no users have disabilities.

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

#229

Post by domano »

tobr wrote: post #204
heavyset_go wrote: post #17

> (Conversely, if Safari refuses to implement some alleged 'feature', it becomes much less useful even if Chrome does implement it.) The fact that Apple refuses to implement basic features in mobile Safari that Firefox and Chrome have had for years now, and the fact that they refuse to allow other browser engines on iOS is the reason why we can't have nice things like progressive web apps. I recently worked on a heal…

If your progressive web app stops working because the browser is missing a feature, by definition you have not built a progressive app. It’s supposed to work everywhere, with progressive enhancements if platform features are available.

I think this is more about the missing possibility to list it in the store

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

#230

Post by SahAssar »

tinus_hn wrote: post #209
zuppy wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they are not allowed to use their engine on iOS, they are just a customized skin over safari/webkit (and I honestly think that’s the right way, as google has no interest in saving iPhone battery).

The problem with browser engines is that they require just-in-time compilation to be fast, and Apple wants all code in an app to be signed and available to inspection. JIT compilation requires a way to add new, unsigned code to the process. That’s a rabbit hole of DLC, plug-ins and vulnerabilities they don’t want to go into.

If that's true then why do they have safari? What's the difference in this regard between safari and other browsers?
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