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Safari is the new IE

nolanlawson.com

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Re: Safari is the new IE

#331

Post by rubyn00bie »

I generally disagree with the article, but I was also making web apps ten years ago. Trying to write them for IE, Firefox, and Safari.... It was hell. IE was the centerpiece of it because it was the dominant browser by market share.

Now-a-days, I think Chrome was the new IE or rather causing the same type of problems IE created.

Why? Developers don't test other browsers by and large. They are choosing to support Chrome, and implement non-standard APIs, because they see it is the browser they use. IE got us into trouble because of its market position, and because it fixed a lot of broken code (so when someone went to use another browser they though the other browser was broken NOT IE).

Developers made apps which worked only for IE and not other browsers; most of the time by accident (as their app WAS broken) but still... Now with Chrome, I see this happening again. Websites/web-apps are needlessly broken in Firefox because the devs simply didn't even try it.

Maybe, I'm wrong, I fucking hope I'm wrong, but it feels like the shit winds are getting ready to pick up again...

Re: Safari is the new IE

#332

Post by briandear »

mikeash wrote: post #203
yzmtf2008 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Apple does allow you to install other browsers. But then again that depends on how you define browsers...

Let's define it as apps that actually use a different browser engine , and aren't merely a reskin of the exact same engine used in Safari. In short, something that is actually capable of supporting new features that Safari doesn't. This is not possible on iOS without a jailbreak, because Apple simply doesn't allow alternative browser engines to be used.

Why not? Apple also doesn't allow Flash, so the question is, why? Does Apple make money from Safari? Is there a technical reason that might preclude another browser engine?

Re: Safari is the new IE

#333

Post by andrewstuart »

NietTim wrote: post #38

Nolan, I'm not familiar with what you do or have done, but have you ever tried to make a website back in the day? Ever tried to support IE6? 7? 8? IE literally broke the web. CSS rules which worked in every browser ever wouldn't work in IE. Entire webpages weren't formatting correctly, having to spend hours, days, on workarounds. Comparing Safari to IE is just wrong. Safari doesn't break the web, it 'just' lacks supp…

The point is that Safari is the browser that destroys the ability to universally use new standards. It is the odd one out that makes it hard for all the others.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#334

Post by andrewstuart »

NietTim wrote: post #38

Nolan, I'm not familiar with what you do or have done, but have you ever tried to make a website back in the day? Ever tried to support IE6? 7? 8? IE literally broke the web. CSS rules which worked in every browser ever wouldn't work in IE. Entire webpages weren't formatting correctly, having to spend hours, days, on workarounds. Comparing Safari to IE is just wrong. Safari doesn't break the web, it 'just' lacks supp…

The point is that Safari is the browser that destroys the ability to universally use new standards. It is the odd one out that makes it hard for all the others.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#335

Post by Amezarak »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #323
Amezarak wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell you how many times I've had to help people who switched away from their iPhone and then saw eternal, intermittent issues with not receiving text messages because their friends iPhones were convinced they should be sending iMessages and not SMS. The situation gets even worse with group messages.

https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage

Yeah, I know. In some cases this somehow still doesn't always work for some people. Even after you delete the old conversation, which also sometimes has to be done.

But the very idea that someone has to know this has to be done and disable iMessage is insane to me, and I suspect part of the reason it is the way it is is because Apple doesn't really mind what (to the average Joe) is a major annoyance when switching phones.

To be fair, matters were even worse before Apple released that tool. But this has been an ongoing issue for something like four years.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#336

Post by buu700 »

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #328
azakai wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are wrong that the web matters less, and also wrong that only Google is pushing it. First, you forgot IndexedDB, another example from the article, which disproves your point. Other examples include fullscreen and WebAssembly. Web Components/Shadow DOM and Service Workers happen to be two technologies that Google is pushing. There are of course plenty of examples where Google is behind: Nested Workers, asm…

The end user doesn't care about IndexedDB. Just because web folks like you push new technologies doesn't mean that those technologies matter. It doesn't mean that the web will stay forefront. People have to want to use those technologies, but most of my non-tech friends don't even surf Facebook on the web. They check Facebook on their phones. A lot of people don't even book AirBnBs on their computers. Now, you guys c…

> The end user doesn't care about IndexedDB.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean; the end user also doesn't care about JavaScript or their OS kernel.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#337

Post by azakai »

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #328
azakai wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are wrong that the web matters less, and also wrong that only Google is pushing it. First, you forgot IndexedDB, another example from the article, which disproves your point. Other examples include fullscreen and WebAssembly. Web Components/Shadow DOM and Service Workers happen to be two technologies that Google is pushing. There are of course plenty of examples where Google is behind: Nested Workers, asm…

The end user doesn't care about IndexedDB. Just because web folks like you push new technologies doesn't mean that those technologies matter. It doesn't mean that the web will stay forefront. People have to want to use those technologies, but most of my non-tech friends don't even surf Facebook on the web. They check Facebook on their phones. A lot of people don't even book AirBnBs on their computers. Now, you guys c…

I don't disagree with any of that.

I do disagree with the things you said earlier: It is just not true that the web matters less, nor that Google is the only one pushing it.

The web still matters a whole lot. And many parties aside from Google are pushing it - Mozilla, Microsoft, Khronos, Khan Academy, among many others, are all pushing it forward; Google is behind in some areas, ahead in others, etc., just like everyone else.

Perhaps you assume that since mobile is important, it means the web matters less? I think it just means that in the new space of mobile, native apps matter more than the web. But that space didn't even exist before, it isn't a "loss" for the web. Native apps also matter more on game consoles, for example. But the web is still very important.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#338

Post by jordanthoms »

chii wrote: post #64
dmd wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> significantly less power This is the big issue for most people, I think. I would love to use Chrome, but when I do, (a) thighs burn to a crisp if my machine is on my lap directly and (b) the battery depletes, literally, 1.5x as fast.

why is that? does safari use some undocumented api, or that chrome sucks up more computing power in the name of rendering speed/responsiveness?

I think it's just a lack of optimization for battery usage on OSX Chrome. Google seems to have recently realized it is an issue though and is making progress on improving things: https://plus.google.com/+PeterKasting/posts/GpL63A1K2TF

Re: Safari is the new IE

#339

Post by jordanthoms »

rubyn00bie wrote: post #331

I generally disagree with the article, but I was also making web apps ten years ago. Trying to write them for IE, Firefox, and Safari.... It was hell. IE was the centerpiece of it because it was the dominant browser by market share. Now-a-days, I think Chrome was the new IE or rather causing the same type of problems IE created. Why? Developers don't test other browsers by and large. They are choosing to support Chro…

The big difference is that both Chrome and Firefox update very regularly, and a high percentage of users keep at least reasonably up to date - the biggest issue was really that IE had massive market share and was also not updated.

We use a lot of chrome-specific APIs, and they allow us to achieve things that otherwise we couldn't (e.g OCR running in the browser through Native Client with no performance penalty vs a native binary). We're often implementing improvements with APIs that are a few weeks or months old. We do test on other browsers though and make sure things either degrade cleanly or we provide an alternative implementation.

Re: Safari is the new IE

#340

Post by giovannibajo1 »

lotharbot wrote: post #235
disusered wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html?ut... What about the other 50% of Android users that don't have Chrome or Chrome WebView? I've been working mobile for a few years now and would love to drop anything before KitKat, but that's not something feasible given market share. In practice, pre 4.4 embedded WebViews have worse support for standards than Mobile Safari. Chrome for Android was in part a s…

> "pre 4.4 embedded WebViews have worse support for standards than Mobile Safari" My old Windows XP box also has worse support for standards than Mobile Safari. OK, so XP also doesn't have market share. But it's hard to blame older versions of Android for not supporting standards that didn't exist when they were implemented, just because people continue to buy low-end devices running those old versions.

The Android browser was a sore joke and didn't support years old standards. It was embarrassing for Google, the top web company, to release a browser that was so impaired and so slow at adopting standards, years after Mobile Safari. With Chrome, google has reverted the situation and they are now bleeding edge.
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