Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

blog.perrysun.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 623 posts

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#511

Post by yourad_io »

tartoran wrote: post #385
BoxOfRain wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What updates are actually important though? A good 80% of notifications I'd get before I started systematically disabling them by default weren't important at all, they were just pointless nagware trying to get me to engage with the software more frequently so some analytics manager can justify why they shouldn't be sacked that quarter. It doesn't matter to these people that most of the extra clicks and presses are p…

I agree and am of the same opinion, i’m glad Safari is playing by a slower tune and it definitely it isn’t google’s tune.

You don't want to be given the choice? Nobody is saying notifications should be silently accepted.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#512

Post by dhosek »

slindz wrote: post #13
dhosek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safari supports web push notifications. I have never wanted them.

Can you appreciate how a memory challenged/privacy conscious person might find it helpful to opt in to web push notifications?

I can see memory challenged, but not privacy conscious.

The big problem from my perspective is in the user experience. On my first visit to a site, they ask me if I want notifications. It's my first visit, I know nothing about the site. Why would I say yes? Later, if I had changed my mind, I might want to, although in most cases, I'd rather just use an RSS feed and get updates when it's convenient for me rather than for them. I have yet to encounter the scenario where website notifications are better than old-school RSS.

On the privacy front? I don't see how this helps in any way with privacy. It seems like it would be more likely to be a privacy nightmare than a privacy boon.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#513

Post by yourad_io »

skydhash wrote: post #441
the_gipsy wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been using Android for some years, and notifications are a non-issue. Yet it always comes up from safari apologists.

Don’t you think that notifications and all the associated things are what pushing people to iOS?

Not at all. On Android you've had the ability to mute notifications by type for some time now. Every app that spams me gets its "ad group" notification group muted. I hear that iOS 15 is going to include something similar.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#514

Post by admax88q »

dmitriid wrote: post #494
admax88q wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take Background Sync for example. Mozilla considers the periodic sync API "harmful" because you could use it to track users IP and consumer resources when it's not clear they're interacting with the site Their stated position: > We're concerned that this feature would allow users to be tracked across networks (leaking private information about location and IP address and how they change over time), and that it would…

> But you could achieve very similar behaviour by using Web Push The fact that something was implemented, shipped, and has security/privacy hole is not an argument to implement and ship something else with a similar hole.

If the hole exists and is not going to be closed, why refuse to add other useful features that use the same hole?

It's like taking a room, and refusing to add a back door for "security" when the front door already exists.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#515

Post by camgunz »

alwillis wrote: post #125
afavour wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re talking as if the W3C or even Mozilla don’t exist. This isn’t an Apple vs Google thing. This is an Apple vs web standards thing. That’s why Safari is outdated for developers.

This isn’t an Apple vs Google thing. This is an Apple vs web standards thing. It’s actually and Apple vs. APIs and technologies that allow fingerprinting on the web thing. Nobody mentions that Mozilla has sided with Apple much of the time to not implement some of these same APIs and technologies.

> It’s actually and Apple vs. APIs and technologies that allow fingerprinting on the web thing.

A sibling comment says:

> The article mentions explicitely: WebRTC, VP9, WebP, notifications, home screen icon shortcut, Local data storage, camera, microphone, USB port, and some more.

Some of these things enable (more) fingerprinting, but VP9 and WebP? Nah.

I have all kinds of Apple stuff--phones, laptops, accessories--but a lot of what they do is strategic in service of enlarging their profit margins (look at right to repair, for example). I don't necessarily blame them; capitalism is a race to the bottom here. But let's not cast Apple in this light of noble privacy defenders. They're doing that to make money too.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#516

Post by ascagnel_ »

mrtksn wrote: post #195
leppr wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way?

I see you are new here, would you like to receive notifications from us? You need to decide on it before even looking at out offerings. NO Okay, what about signing up to our newsletter? NO Okay, we will track you now all over the internet but if you like you can manage that. JUST GO AWAY Okay, btw to see the rest of the article or any of the pictures you need to create an account first. --- Web technologist are cluel…

As one of the rare Safari desktop users: the most useful key-bind I made was command-shift-r to bring up reader mode. A lot of the "growth hacking" metrics have made the web near-unusable, but reader mode goes a long way towards making it tolerable.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#518

Post by dmitriid »

admax88q wrote: post #514
dmitriid wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you could achieve very similar behaviour by using Web Push The fact that something was implemented, shipped, and has security/privacy hole is not an argument to implement and ship something else with a similar hole.

If the hole exists and is not going to be closed, why refuse to add other useful features that use the same hole? It's like taking a room, and refusing to add a back door for "security" when the front door already exists.

Why expand the surface are of the hole?

Besides, it's quite possible that the hole in WebPush does not allow for some/many scenarios that a background sync would.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#519

Post by yourad_io »

Vinnl wrote: post #254
alwillis wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t an Apple vs Google thing. This is an Apple vs web standards thing. It’s actually and Apple vs. APIs and technologies that allow fingerprinting on the web thing. Nobody mentions that Mozilla has sided with Apple much of the time to not implement some of these same APIs and technologies.

And yet nobody is writing such articles about Firefox. There's plenty that's not privacy-invasive and that Firefox thus does implement, that Safari does not or does buggily.

Perhaps it has to do with Firefox not being the only browser(/browser backend) available on an entire class of Mobile devices.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#520

Post by admax88q »

dmitriid wrote: post #492
admax88q wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy Mozilla's/Apple's concerns for those APIs. Sure if seems sketch to access USB from the web, but as a user if I'm trying to achieve something and I can't do it on the web, I'll end up installing a native app which has way more access to my system. As a developer I would much rather be able to just deploy cool things on the web instead of having to package up native apps for every platform just to do things…

> if I'm trying to achieve something and I can't do it on the web, I'll end up installing a native app which has way more access to my system. This is not an argument to just go ahead and implement WebUSB/Bleutooth/Serial/whatever. > As a developer I would much rather be able to just deploy cool things Ah yes. It would so very nice if we could just trust all developers to not be malicious actors.

The fewer features the browser has, the more code ends up as native apps or on cloud backends instead of the user's device.

How many IoT devices could have just used bluetooth for interactive with them, but instead they all phone home to some central cloud server because the user experience of just hitting a web page is better than installing some clunky native app.

Should we "just go ahead" and expose everything? Of course not. But there's room for thoughtful implementation of these features that users want. A super secure platform that nobody uses provides security to no one.

Post reply on HN