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Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

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Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#271

Post by henriquez »

davvolun wrote: post #260
henriquez wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the number of times my Firefox and Chromium profiles have been wiped clean due to browser or packaging bugs it's become clear to me that localStorage is not the end-all in terms of data persistence. It's always been a "best effort" rather than a guarantee. Browsers offer a lot of useful functionality, but people increasingly expect them to be a replacement or substitute for an operating system, and in terms of…

Not strictly disagreeing with you, but ChromeOS seems to be extremely healthy. Not familiar enough with Firefox OS to know why the disparity though.

Then that's just my ignorance - I've never used Chrome OS, though I was heartened to see they were migrating to standard PWAs instead of proprietary parts.

I worked with Firefox OS back when Mozilla was seeding dev kits to software companies. It was a great concept but really seemed marred by bad hardware and then organizational paralysis. IMO this is one of the greatest missed opportunities of the last decade - an (actually) FOSS alternative to Android and iOS. No one else making attempts in this space right now has close to the same engineering experience as Mozilla.

For Safari, Apple adding any PWA features came off as them rolling their eyes, sighing loudly and then putting out a half-assed attempt to deliver years-old standards. And rather than switch to a unified extension architecture like Chrome and Firefox (which they were very close to in previous versions), they've gutted extension support to the point where you need can only bundle very limited extensions with compiled MacOS apps distributed on the App Store.

I don't really understand what Apple is even playing at by offering features but not taking them seriously. But I just don't think the LSO expiry move is _that_ user hostile in the scheme of things.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#272

Post by simplify »

_0w8t wrote: post #127
fierarul wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But browsers are severely sandboxed already. What the article is talking about is: > deleting all local storage (including Indexed DB, etc.) after 7 days which I can see how it might help privacy (since you could be tracked via local storage too) but also how it might break any potential web app that might need data to last more than 7 days. > If you want more access, make a native app But then, everybody will compla…

Apple requires that all code-related assets for an app should be included into the app. So the app cannot just be a launcher that show a browser with a website.

That doesn't seem to be completely true. Basecamp has a "hybrid" app, where they use native frames to load web pages for content https://twitter.com/dhh/status/940358921960677376

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#273

Post by Jasper_ »

Arnt wrote: post #246
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #164

I think looking at Apple as saviour of Privacy, is for lack of better term just wrong. They have always favoured closed systems even if didn't provide privacy advantages or as in this case was counter-intuitive for privacy. I feel the comparison of Apple with data companies such as Google, Facebook is by itself at fault. Apple like any computer company of 70's was not into data, just because Internet itself didn't ex…

This is webkit, which is open source. Apple took an existing HTML/CSS/DOM engine, rewrote it, renamed it, and opensourced its version, too. It's compiled using LLVM, which also contains thousands of lines of open source code by Apple. Of course you might argue that these examples don't prove your sweeping statement false, but please read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman before arguing.

It was open sourced as WebKit because it derived from KHTML, which was copyleft, and it took lawyers getting involved before Apple played ball and released it as open source.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#274

Post by oefrha »

shadowgovt wrote: post #168
jbeam wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have to REALLY love your service to want to carry around an extra device to use it.

... or find it really necessary. Banks, for example, have the clout to expect this kind of behavior. The built-up reputation and long-term partnerships a company and a bank build up can out-value all kinds of IT inconveniences.

My bank logs me out after ten minutes of idling, not seven days. Not sure what kind of crazy bank allows you to persist login session / personal data indefinitely.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#275

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

davweb wrote: post #250

I think the original post is oversimplifying the new behaviour a little. If you look at the other blog post on ITP 2.3 [1] it says: > ITP 2.3 caps the lifetime of all script-writeable website data after a navigation with link decoration from a classified domain. i.e. the 7 day timeout for local storage only kicks in if you've been redirected from a domain that ITP has classified as one that tracks users. So, for exam…

When will Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager get onto this list of trackers? Lots of web apps are using them.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#276

Post by duxup »

diegoperini wrote: post #214
duxup wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can always add an interaction to your app which exports the stored data into a file which then can be saved by the user. But... why? Drag the user through some dialogue to save a file locally / manage / be responsible for that and then deal with that whole deal? That seems like very... old / unnecessary. The fact that applications store some random things locally to me is neither surprising nor a hassle. Browser…

This is a valid argument. Here is a fun idea that just came to me (trying to find middle ground here): - Allow localStorage writes automatically, persist forever (choose your favorite definition for "forever"). - Allow localStorage reads automatically for 7 old. - Prompt permission dialog if last read from localStorage is at least 7 days long.

I think that is reasonable ... maybe if the prompt is ... reasonable.

I'm kinda averse to the OMG COOKIES and other super technical warning type prompts that worry users, but really don't successfully educate them or direct them too good outcomes / choices. Granted education / good outcomes aren't easy tasks there, but what's the point of a prompt if the decision is made by an uneducated and just annoyed user?

I like the idea of empowering users, but not so sure about how we do it on the web / the best way to do it.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#277

Post by pspeter3 »

davweb wrote: post #250

I think the original post is oversimplifying the new behaviour a little. If you look at the other blog post on ITP 2.3 [1] it says: > ITP 2.3 caps the lifetime of all script-writeable website data after a navigation with link decoration from a classified domain. i.e. the 7 day timeout for local storage only kicks in if you've been redirected from a domain that ITP has classified as one that tracks users. So, for exam…

I think confirmation in the blog post yesterday would have provided a lot of clarity.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#278

Post by shadowgovt »

oefrha wrote: post #274
shadowgovt wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... or find it really necessary. Banks, for example, have the clout to expect this kind of behavior. The built-up reputation and long-term partnerships a company and a bank build up can out-value all kinds of IT inconveniences.

My bank logs me out after ten minutes of idling, not seven days. Not sure what kind of crazy bank allows you to persist login session / personal data indefinitely.

I was responding specifically to the question "I would have to REALLY love your service to want to carry around an extra device to use it." Some people's banks require their users to carry around a rotating 2FA key dongle, for example.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#279

Post by diegoperini »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #266
diegoperini wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a few suggestions in the comment section you may or may not find agreeable.

With all due respect, this comes off as apologizing for Apple's disagreeable design choice. If anything, it should be on Apple and the browser vendors to make local storage more useful by default, not less useful. Your suggestions might as well be aimed at browser vendors, who could conceivably offer user friendly controls for local storage (e.g. import/export without the dev panel). But as is usually the case each o…

I strongly oppose Apple's anti-consumer practices in their App Store policy, PWA policy (non-existent) and similar places. I just believe this (localStorage policy) is not one of those cases.

Agreeing with Apple's disagreeable design choices isn't an apology, it's an honest opinion. If these choices are disagreeable, which I believe they are, they must be also agreeable by definition.

Re: Private client-side-only PWAs are hard, but now Apple made them impossible

#280

Post by Arnt »

testtesttest wrote: post #254
Arnt wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is webkit, which is open source. Apple took an existing HTML/CSS/DOM engine, rewrote it, renamed it, and opensourced its version, too. It's compiled using LLVM, which also contains thousands of lines of open source code by Apple. Of course you might argue that these examples don't prove your sweeping statement false, but please read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman before arguing.

Open source is not the same as open. You can't run Firefox on an iPhone.

If I understand you correctly, "open source" is not a kind of openness and should be disregarded. Assuming that is so, for the sake of argument, what does count as openness?
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