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For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

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Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#481

Post by pacifier007 »

jlnthws wrote: post #289
yourenotsmart wrote: post #248

The problem isn't Safari as much, which pioneered HTML5, and is the most power-efficient browser on any platform I've seen. The problem is web devs. Web developers have increasingly the attitude of "I don't want to learn how to make apps, I want to use HTML/CSS/JS for all apps I make", and this plays directly into Google's interests, which benefits from everything being web, because it has its tentacles all over the…

This is the best answer. Web devs blindly following edgy Chrome trends which are nothing more than a way to slow down Apple's revenue (which is fair game). App Store revenue was over $70B last year, with a 20% increase every year. Let me put it into words for you: seventy billion dollars. This is more than the total revenue of Intel, HP, Walt Disney, Unilever, FedEx or Pfizer, from the App Store alone. Most of that r…

Sure, your Apple overlords are always right. Said like a true fanboy.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#482

Post by sf_rob »

jchw wrote: post #471
cmsj wrote: post #463

I say this every time a post like this comes up... Google is the web. Chrome is the web. It shouldn't be true, but it is.... almost. Safari, or more specifically Apple's requirement that all web rendering on iOS be done using WebKit, is THE ONLY thing standing in the way of Chrome's market share being functionally 100%. If you care about the web, and one would presume that web developers would care deeply about the w…

As far as not-Google browsers go, Firefox is far, far better than Safari.

I just got an M1 Mac after years on Ubuntu, and decided to give Safari a go. I literally could not figure out how to search for an extension (the extension menu's search box searches the app store). I'm probably missing something obvious, but I'm quick to reject unintuitive consumer software so I'm typing this from Firefox.

I know Firefox will inevitably decline one day, but honestly it's still a great browser and the compat complaints are over-blown.

Apple's hardware and integration is incredible, but I don't understand why people like their software on its own.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#483

Post by merrywhether »

chrizel wrote: post #231
dwaite wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you cannot use connect-src self. You can use CSP just fine if you are more explicit.

Checked it again. You are right about this - if I define it as 'connect-src 'self' wss:// ' it works - not without the 'wss://', which I tried last week. Thanks for the nudge. At least we have a workaround.

Protocol is part of a FQDN, so this isn’t entirely surprising.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#484

Post by admax88q »

csydas wrote: post #476
admax88q wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's absurd. I'm not targetting Lynx, Haiku, or 8 year old shitty phones. Nor are most web developers. And the attitude that you must support those things is detrimental to the web. It makes people feel like they're doing it wrong of they don't spend all their time chasing those rare edge cases. Which if you're trying to start something new, can kill your productivity. I'd rather have web developers target the comm…

I don't think it's about such things, it's about pushing features that are developer convenient but not really user convenient. I'm on an older MacOS version with Safari 12 (too lazy to update, but that's on me), and there are sites that work just fine one day and then break the next because they changed how they want to load random content for their forever scrolling. I'm sure there's a business case for the develop…

Personally I find very few sites that work in Chrome but not Firefox. But as a web developer I'm still irked by some of the more "fun" APIs that firefox refuses to support such as USB/PWAs/NFC etc.

Your issue however also ties in to what the article said about how Apple does not auto update Safari. You're tied to Safari 12 partially because the upgrade flow is a huge disruptive process as you have to update your entire OS to a new major revision.

Who can say why those sites are breaking for your version of Safari. Web devs do love to just use the "latest and greatest" APIs just for fun, but it could also be that their changes have improved the experience for the rest of users on modern browsers, and that for them outweighs the loss of users still of Safari 12.

I'm not saying every use of new APIs is justified by web devs, the population of web devs is too large and varied to make any statement about the group as a whole. I am saying that the lack of modern features by Safari and Firefox _is_ a detriment to users and web devs, and it pushes developers to make native apps instead which I would argue are a worse experience for many users for certain use cases, and a worse experience for many developers as well.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#485

Post by The_Colonel »

lucideer wrote: post #436
The_Colonel wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time of their release IE4-IE6 have been the most standard-compliant browser. IE was also the fastest at the time. Netscape was in a technological dead-end, and it took considerable time until its complete rewrite (Netscape 6/Mozilla/Firefox) stabilized and caught up. The biggest problem was MS simply dropping its development (IMHO their biggest strategic blunder of 2000s). Back then all browsers had unstandard…

> At the time of their release IE4-IE6 have been the most standard-compliant browser At the time of their release, Opera was the most standards-compliant browser. Beyond Opera, I'm not sure where Firebird, KHTML, etc. stood relative to IE4 specifically, but IE5.5/6.0 were well behind most contemporary browsers (lets exclude Netscape shall we; it was in crisis at the time and promptly discontinued). Opera, KHTML, Fire…

> At the time of their release, Opera was the most standards-compliant browser.

That definitely does not correspond to my recollections. It was only in Opera 7 (2003) with the new Presto layouting engine that drastically improved standards compliance.

> Beyond Opera, I'm not sure where Firebird, KHTML, etc. stood relative to IE4 specifically

There wasn't any Firebird (neither Phoenix) at the time of IE6 release so how can you discuss this in relation to IE4 is beyond me. Mozilla Suite was still in 0.x beta and a year away from official release when IE6 was released.

"The real work on KHTML actually started between May and October 1999" (wiki citation) so I don't think they had a big impact on the discussed time period.

> but IE5.5/6.0 were well behind most contemporary browsers

So let's get concrete, which browsers were better in 1999-2001?

> It's worth remembering that Acid1 was released in 1998; IE6 was released in 2001. So this wasn't a time before web standards and cross-browser compat: they were very much a part of the discourse at the time. A discourse MS largely refused to participate in.

Are you aware that IE6 is Acid1 compliant? IIRC the first one as the GA released browser (discounting Netscape 6/Mozilla 0.X betas).

> Opera, KHTML, Firefox and Webkit all passed Acid2 long before IE (IE8 was the first version).

Which is a direct consequence of the fact that Microsoft after IE6 release dissolved the IE development team. IE8 was the first substantial update of IE in 8 years. (IE7 was a minor update)

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#486

Post by jahewson »

masswerk wrote: post #435
no_way wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safari regularly breaks features that were stable for years: localstorage and indexedDB the most recent ones. So I am not sure how you can talk about "compatibility".

Hm, Safari has done it its own way right from the beginning. (Meaning, Chrome and Safari had never the same implementation.) Edit: As I recall it, Safari was an early adapter of the standard (even before its release), which comes with its own caveats. And it's actually because of not breaking things that there are these Safari idiosyncrasies. (The alternative would have been some kind of rolling prerelease standard,…

As a user of Web Audio I can tell you that it’s broken in the latest Safari. As in, we cannot play a simple sound. Our users are not happy about it.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#487

Post by howinteresting »

falcolas wrote: post #444
howinteresting wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's irrelevant, Mozilla's decision-making is quite independent of Google's. Firefox on Android is an excellent browser. Firefox on iOS could be the same if Apple let go of its chokehold.

Firefox on iOS is an excellent browser. I use it as my daily driver, and it works perfectly well.

It doesn't have uBlock Origin, which I consider an essential part of a good browser.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#488

Post by frusciante29 »

skydhash wrote: post #433
lucideer wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Safari is way more work today than IE was back in the day There's a bunch of good and bad arguments in sibling comments: some of them may be subjective. But this quote really caught me out. Wow. Wow. Presuming that you've been developing website for more than 10 years, and that your knowledge of IE6 is based on hard experience and not just reading... what on earth are you doing that is so difficult in Safari?

I’d say trying to make a PWA with Push Notifications on iOS.

Wouldn't it be nice to skip the $99 developer fee and just send Push Notifications to anyone and everyone, using Apple's servers?

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#489

Post by Jcowell »

skydhash wrote: post #433
lucideer wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Safari is way more work today than IE was back in the day There's a bunch of good and bad arguments in sibling comments: some of them may be subjective. But this quote really caught me out. Wow. Wow. Presuming that you've been developing website for more than 10 years, and that your knowledge of IE6 is based on hard experience and not just reading... what on earth are you doing that is so difficult in Safari?

I’d say trying to make a PWA with Push Notifications on iOS.

This seems to me like trying to catch a fish in space. It doesn’t exist. Everyone knows it doesn’t exists. So why are you trying for something that doesn’t exists and the only work wordings are inconvenient for the average users.

It’s like complaining that Xbox consoles are inadequate for not playing PS games when it’s already established that they won’t from the jump.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#490

Post by Yizahi »

admax88q wrote: post #484
csydas wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's about such things, it's about pushing features that are developer convenient but not really user convenient. I'm on an older MacOS version with Safari 12 (too lazy to update, but that's on me), and there are sites that work just fine one day and then break the next because they changed how they want to load random content for their forever scrolling. I'm sure there's a business case for the develop…

Personally I find very few sites that work in Chrome but not Firefox. But as a web developer I'm still irked by some of the more "fun" APIs that firefox refuses to support such as USB/PWAs/NFC etc. Your issue however also ties in to what the article said about how Apple does not auto update Safari. You're tied to Safari 12 partially because the upgrade flow is a huge disruptive process as you have to update your enti…

A few years ago there were no sites not working in FF. Now it's my banking site (top 10 or 20, BNP subsidiary), it's a local mountain resort integrated payment, it's several internet shops. My 2fa token is collecting dust because web sites support only google implementation of 2fa. Firefox itself if in shambles and constantly tried to googlify itself, be it UI or addon api. The trend is worse and worse every day, now that FF is below 10% adoption. Soon single Google Chrome browser will take over completely.
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