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Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

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Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#271

Post by forgotmypw17 »

BulgarianIdiot wrote: post #86

Browsers are doing well. I'm more worried about the fact the browser is turning into the entire operating system these days. Even the apps use the browser engine for a lot of functionality these days. It's like a parasite, the OS is being eaten inside out. I'd be fine with this, it's a typical disruption process. Except the browser stack is full of legacy features, is bloated, and I'd hate for this to be the de-facto…

I personally love the legacy features. There are fewer of them than you may think, but the ones that have stuck around are now 25 years stable.

This means that if you're careful about which features you use, you have a reasonable chance of your application not breaking randomly for 25 years ahead (Lindy Effect)

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#272

Post by hardware2win »

em-bee wrote: post #258
hardware2win wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If browsers had equal features support then yea

that's what the standards are for. any feature that is not implemented in all major browsers should be considered experimental. it might go away. it's fine to use such features for experiments, but they should not be put into production and relied upon. any differences in the implementation of the standard should be considered a bug. warning users about bugs is fine, but automatically redirecting me to some other bro…

Uh what?

If one browser laggs behind then the rest shouldnt deploy?

This is crazy

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#273

Post by GeekyBear »

mike_hearn wrote: post #234
GeekyBear wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> please lock down my machine The restriction is against programs that can download and execute code from random places on the internet, and you only need to look at a family of Android malware that Google has been unable to keep out of the Play Store to see why. >Known as Joker, this family of malicious apps has been attacking Android users since late 2016 and more recently has become one of the most common Android…

Nothing stops you executing arbitrary code on iOS, you just have to use an interpreter to do so, and Joker is in fact running interpreted code (a dex file). Bear in mind one reason you may hear less about malware on iOS is simply that security researchers aren't allowed to sell products for it and they are blocked by the infrastructure from examining apps like anyone else is anyway, so they have no incentive or abili…

> Nothing stops you executing arbitrary code on iOS

Nothing except the App Store review process?

We already have tech sites warning Android users to beware of apps inside the Play Store, because Google has been unable to block Android apps from downloading malicious code and executing it on a regular basis.

If you're happy with that state of affairs, by all means, buy an Android device.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#274

Post by yamtaddle »

brozaman wrote: post #54
lovich wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...(or better yet, Firefox Nightly) ... I think this is some of the disconnect between users on this site who don't understand why people would possibly actively choose iOS even with the lockin. Most people do not want to use a product that is constantly updating and adding features in that are going to be taken out shortly, for something as basic nowadays as web browsing. If you're on the cool new technology people…

> I think this is some of the disconnect between users on this site who don't understand why people would possibly actively choose iOS even with the lockin. Most people do not want to use a product that is constantly updating and adding features Precisely the reason why I have an iPhone and an iPad is because they give me 5 years of updates and even more of security fixes.

Firefox feels the need to scream at me every time it updates, which is all the time—far more often than iOS, and far more often than Safari. I think that's what the GP meant.

FF does the equivalent of a major iOS update several times per year, as far as the user experience of the update is concerned—iOS doesn't fill my screen with on-launch "hi! We updated!" notices unless the release is a big one and there's actually new stuff to tell me about, in which case they usually keep it short and to the point. FF opens & foregrounds a new tab to tell me about the exciting update (ugh) and sometimes also pops some call-out bubbles for Pocket or some other crap, way, way more often than any other software I use, and it's really annoying, especially for a piece of software I've been using exactly the same way since it was called Phoenix and before some of the people working on it were born, probably—none of the shit in those announcements has ever, once, been anything I needed or wanted to know about.

This, despite monkeying with UI and force-foregrounding unrequested content being UI poison for people with low computer literacy. I roll my eyes and close the crap; others get confused and are significantly delayed in doing whatever they actually wanted to do with the browser, on top of feeling confused and betrayed that their browser did something different when they opened it this time.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#276

Post by BulgarianIdiot »

jckahn wrote: post #260
BulgarianIdiot wrote: post #86

Browsers are doing well. I'm more worried about the fact the browser is turning into the entire operating system these days. Even the apps use the browser engine for a lot of functionality these days. It's like a parasite, the OS is being eaten inside out. I'd be fine with this, it's a typical disruption process. Except the browser stack is full of legacy features, is bloated, and I'd hate for this to be the de-facto…

> I'd hate for this to be the de-facto platform for "everything" going forward. How come? It seems like a positive, user-empowering shift to me.

How does it empower the user, you think?

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#277

Post by surge »

midoridensha wrote: post #2

Just reading the beginning, it looks like they're mainly complaining about proprietary OS vendors restricting users' choice in browsers through various shenanigans. Linux users (for desktop systems) don't have this problem, and for mobile, Android users can easily install Firefox (or better yet, Firefox Nightly) through the Google Play store and set it to be the default browser. Basically, if you want to have choice…

I have zero trouble using Firefox on my Mac, other than the OS wanting to use Safari sometimes, what's the problem?

Edit: Ah Apple products, I didn't factor in iPhone/Pad, yeah I dislike iOS and don't use it for that reason.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#278

Post by nicoburns »

JamesSwift wrote: post #266
nicoburns wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they just focus on power consumption more than the other browsers (they also have the advantage of not needing to work cross-platform, making this easier). This is often why Safari is behind other browsers on features: a focus on quality of implementation of quantity of features.

I also would want a source for that. At least in the mobile dev space, it has always been common practice for them to leverage private APIs to do things regular app devs cant.

> At least in the mobile dev space, it has always been common practice for them to leverage private APIs to do things regular app devs cant.

On mobile (iOS), yes. But power consumption comparisons tend to be on desktop (macOS) because the other browsers can't run on iOS at all. And I don't think Apple can enforce that API privacy on macOS because they unlike iOS they allow apps to be installed from outside the App Store.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#279

Post by yamtaddle »

izacus wrote: post #161
erik wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You mean Google will deliver a better browser than what currently iOS users have to the point that iOS users will decide to move away from the default No, I mean that Google will use their search monopoly, along with their dominant position across other product areas to undercut the market share of any competing browser. Any merit Chrome has is dwarfed by the strength of Google’s ability to push it on users. I have…

Please provide any proof that Google has a greater strength of pushing their browser to iOS users than Apple, the owner of the platform which sets Safari as default, sets Safari as default link handler, sets Safari icon on the preinstall and requires several steps, including creation of AppStore account, to even switch away. Please, provide ANY proof, that Google has this crazy amazing power against the company that…

The downvotes are probably because all the parts of this that didn't also apply to Windows when Chrome came out, aren't actually barriers because nearly all users will have already done them for other reasons (like creating an app store account), and Google demonstrably managed to gain huge share there through a massive advertising campaign on their properties, using what amounted to lies ("Youtube is better in Chrome"—eh, not really, not in any way that mattered to anyone reading that message, anyway).

You're exaggerating while also being abrasive and wrong ("is pretty crock that has no basis in reality or history"), basically.

Chrome didn't rely on word-of-mouth and geek evangelists to spread like FF did in the early years—Google leveraged their monopoly on multiple web products to do it. The proof is that they already did it once—a whole lot of users who truly don't give a shit which browser they run, ended up with Chrome, because Google told them it was better. The differences you list that make this situation seem different aren't actually notable barriers, as you imply they are. If anything, tapping an "install this!" call-out and following through in the app store is both an easier and higher-confidence action for most users than downloading a .exe installer file, running it, and clicking through the installer.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#280

Post by kllrnohj »

Falkon1313 wrote: post #230
flakeoil wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft OS isn't that bad these days Really? Edge is the default option, they push you to make Edge the default if you are using Chrome or Firefox and every now and then they ask you to accept Microsoft's default Windows settings. The show their MSN news by default, Bing is default, they show ads in the OS, they constantly ask you to log in to your Microsoft account, everything leads to MS 365 office products or…

I use Windows 10. Been using Firefox as the default browser since the day I installed it 7 years ago. It has never nagged me about Edge. Duckduckgo is the default search engine. If I want Bing for some reason, I have to actually type it in the address bar. I haven't gotten any ads in the OS, and the only time it tried to get me to log into a Microsoft account was once when I was first installing the OS 7 years ago. I…

> I use Windows 10. Been using Firefox as the default browser since the day I installed it 7 years ago. It has never nagged me about Edge.

Windows 10 definitely nags you about Edge from time to time. Some windows updates will re-trigger the "setup wizard" flow and ask you yet again to switch browsers & setup a microsoft account instead of using a local account. Or an Edge shortcut will just be quietly dropped on your desktop.

It's not super often, but it absolutely happens. That said, the real kicker is in Windows 11 where they removed the ability to change the default browser in a single spot. You're instead forced to change the app handler for every mimetype & extension, it's extremely tedious.

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