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For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

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Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#571

Post by the_other »

admax88q wrote: post #456
the_other wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re holding on too tight to an argument for the sake of analogy. It’s cute and evocative but it’s blinding you to the bigger picture. The issues with Google monopolising the direction of standards development are the major issue facing browsers, users and developers on the web, today. I get that you’re disappointed Safari doesn’t support the same stuff, the same way as Chrome. Tough. You’re attempting to develop a…

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…

You’re missing my point.

I’m not against browsers having features. They can add whatever they want. Devs can target them too.

But “the web”, the platform, the standards process, the language specs, the method of their development is all about maintaining access for the widest range of users for the longest time possible. Or it was. There’s nothing about it stopping you from restricting your own market to support users and devices you want to support… but insisting all mainstream browsers support all the brandest-newest features because ONE of them added it does a disservice to the platform.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#572

Post by the_other »

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…

> I am saying that the lack of modern features by Safari and Firefox

If only Chrome implements that feature, it’s not “a modern feature” for the web. It’s an “experimental technology”. It’s only a “modern feature” when several browsers implement it.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#573

Post by simondotau »

the_gipsy wrote: post #311
mrtksn wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are millions of native apps have become redundant on Android in those 10 years? What's the situation? What iOS users missing out?

Yes. Not having to install another shitty spying marketing-loaded app.

How is that any different to using the fully modern web app equivalent of this shitty spying marketing-loaded app?

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#574

Post by whywhywhywhy »

mikl wrote: post #401
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #318

Been a Safari user since the original Beta. Getting more and more disappointed every year as their decisions on what web technologies to implement and which to not are just blatantly obvious more about building a moat between the web and the App Store than anything else. In my day job we've been building physical devices and rather than building say an iOS app and an Android app that would have to be updated and cost…

Thanks to all the creepy adtech and malware on the net, webUSB/webBT would be a terrible thing to add to the browser. I understand that it would enable many good things, but the world’s just too full of assholes to trust random web applications with such power. The amount of security exploits and spyware they would enable is just too great. Putting them behind additional permission-prompts is not a solution. The amou…

There isn't a "Yes allow" prompt, it pops up a list and you have to select something specific.

Do you have an example of how these technologies have been used for ad tracking? I hear this as justification for Apples actions a lot but haven't seen it myself anywhere.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#575

Post by dmitriid »

admax88q wrote: post #561
dmitriid wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because if the hole exists at all, malicious actors will find a way to abuse it. Yes, they will. So the question remains: why expand the hole?

Because it makes no difference if the hole is small or large. To an attacker its the same size.

It does make the difference. You don't deliberately increase the surface of attack if you can help it.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#576

Post by jolux »

vagrantJin wrote: post #509
jolux wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are gunning for monopoly. No shame in that. It is pretty shameful if you’re simultaneously claiming to be the biggest defender of the open web. > Why put in the effort It’s pretty clear why at this point: developers hate them and antitrust regulators are looking for the right opportunity to go for the throat. Apple screwed up when they killed Safari on Windows, they could have had a solid shot at being the #2…

My sarcasm was missed. In any case, I'm the furthest from supporting Google or anything they do. But they aren't better or worse than Apple Inc. To defend google, yes their software has the windows problem. They have to support an absurd amount of devices. So them pushing standards is just a big whale trying to get ahead of itself. No harm in that as long as devs don't go for bleeding edge features and harbour any ex…

I believe I got that link from Daring Fireball originally.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#577

Post by admax88q »

dmitriid wrote: post #575
admax88q wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it makes no difference if the hole is small or large. To an attacker its the same size.

It does make the difference. You don't deliberately increase the surface of attack if you can help it.

I feel like your speaking in atitides, but not looking at this situation specifically.

If I can unlock your computer with your password or with the word "hello" and you have no intention of removing the "hello" feature, would you not agree that we might as well remove the password entirely?

How do we increase the attack surface of service workers by adding background sync, when we can get nearly identical behaviour using push?

If you goal is purely to not increase the attack surface, you might as well never add any new APIs ever.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#578

Post by DonHopkins »

throwawayswede wrote: post #478
DonHopkins wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means Brendan Eich is opposed to same sex marriage: Brendan doesn't believe that same sex couples should have equal rights as opposite sex couples. There's something about equality that deeply disturbs and confuses Brendan, so much that he donated a large amount of money to the cause of tearing apart families by destroying legally married loving couple's existing same sex marriages in California, while Brendan and…

Biden, Obama and Clinton were against same sex marriage until they "supposedly" switched. You can't judge a person based on what's reported on them. Have you read or talked to Brendan about why he thinks and why he thinks it? Being against same sex marriage does not necessarily mean he thinks same sex couple are lesser people or that he's greater than them, it means he has an opinion, people with means and opinions u…

Glad you brought that up. Let me point out that Biden, Obama, and Clinton switched from bad to good. That's called evolving. Trump used to be pro-gay, but then switched from good to bad, selling out gays to get elected. That's called devolving.

I prefer people who evolve like Biden, Obama, and Clinton did, instead of devolve like Trump did, by selling out to haters in exchange for political power.

As far as I know (and I've asked people who've known him for a long long time), Brendan has always been badly against gay marriage, with no plans of ever evolving or apologizing or even explaining himself.

And yes I've asked Brendan himself about it, and he outright refuses to explain or justify or apologize for either his hateful opinions or his hateful actions that hurt other people.

Brendan Eich went way beyond simply holding an opinion when he purposefully contributed money to the campaign to tear apart other people's marriages and destroy their families.

Brendan's money paid for TV commercials blasting lies, stereotypes, prejudices, and attacks against gay people.

Brendan's goals were satisfied: Proposition 8 passed, and marriages were destroyed because of his support, thanks to the anti-gay propaganda campaign he helped fund.

Brendan Eich knew quite well what he was doing by supporting Proposition 8, and he totally meant to do it, and he has never apologized or evolved, or even "argued his opinion" as you falsely claim he uses his means to do. He never even meant for his opinion to be known, let alone argued for it in pubic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8

But I strongly suspect he isn't thrilled that GamerGate and Alt-Right have made him their unwitting hero and martyr and poster child, and that they keep spreading the lie that Brendan was fired from Mozilla because of cancel culture, when Brendan actually resigned of his own free will, and Brendan has said repeatedly himself he resigned and was not pushed out, and the Mozilla board said "Brendan voluntarily submitted his resignation", and the board actually begged him to stay, and this is all very well documented and not contested except by batshit crazy conspiracy theorists.

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/faq-on-ceo-resignation/

>Q: Was Brendan Eich fired?

>A: No, Brendan Eich resigned. Brendan himself said:

>“I have decided to resign as CEO effective April 3rd, and leave Mozilla. Our mission is bigger than any one of us, and under the present circumstances, I cannot be an effective leader. I will be taking time before I decide what to do next.”

>Brendan Eich also blogged on this topic.

https://brendaneich.com/2014/04/the-next-mission/

>Q: Was Brendan Eich asked to resign by the Board?

>A: No. It was Brendan’s idea to resign, and in fact, once he submitted his resignation, Board members tried to get Brendan to stay at Mozilla in another C-level role.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#579

Post by tinus_hn »

zdragnar wrote: post #549
tinus_hn wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d be interested to see how the customers made an informed choice between a non existent native app and a PWA app. Probably they made the choice after listening to an opinionated story about ‘sitting around waiting for updates’. Which nobody does, of course, because if you mind that you just turn on automatic background updates. At least in this story Safari is good enough to have the features that matter. The world…

As for an informed choice, the company (and their clients) that I am thinking of is in a crowded market. Not having to make employees download a new app ended up being a surprisingly (to us) compelling selling point. As for safari, we supported IE11, chrome, Firefox, mobile / android chrome, desktop and mobile safari. Safari easily added about 10% to our development budget, and safari users got a downgraded experienc…

Here’s the magic part: if you are the developer, you get to decide if the backend works with only the newest version or also some earlier ones. And if you just do nothing, the user will be just as logged in in the new version. So, unless they are really unlucky, they’ll never have to wait for an update.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#580

Post by mikl »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #574
mikl wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks to all the creepy adtech and malware on the net, webUSB/webBT would be a terrible thing to add to the browser. I understand that it would enable many good things, but the world’s just too full of assholes to trust random web applications with such power. The amount of security exploits and spyware they would enable is just too great. Putting them behind additional permission-prompts is not a solution. The amou…

There isn't a "Yes allow" prompt, it pops up a list and you have to select something specific. Do you have an example of how these technologies have been used for ad tracking? I hear this as justification for Apples actions a lot but haven't seen it myself anywhere.

> There isn't a "Yes allow" prompt, it pops up a list and you have to select something specific.

And once hackers figure out a device they can use for attacks, they’ll tell the user some nonsense reason why they need to allow access and then pop a dialog for that device and hey presto you have a massive security mess.

I don’t know any concrete exploits, but the theoretical application is not complicated. Any information you can access about the user’s system (like what USB or Bluetooth devices are visible) will be used for fingerprinting purposes, just like they’re already using screen resolution, fonts, canvas tricks, etc.

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