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Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

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Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#61

Post by presentation »

LinguaBrowse wrote: post #37
floatingatoll wrote: post #30

The most popular web extensions are those that deprive sites of direct and indirect revenue, which necessarily means they can’t charge for the service or their userbase would revolt and steal their rule sets (which is easy to do for a web extension). Having to pay money for such things goes against the grain of those users, and the sort of breakage that people think is acceptable for content blockers isn’t quite as a…

> What browser extensions other than content blockers exist, that have any significant user base and value, that isn’t already met by better and more capable native apps on macOS and iOS, and somehow could charge people money for the extension with their willing cooperation? Language-learning extensions are reasonably popular, though most aren’t making the big bucks. Grammarly is probably one winner of note.

Language learning on Netflix is great :) also Yomichan for Japanese. I’d assume there’s a lot more money though for people trying to learn English due to the market being much bigger.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#62

Post by jws »

mkr-hn wrote: post #58
mfDjB wrote: post #45

As an extension developer, I am keen to put my extension on Safari however what is preventing me at this moment is dealing with Dun & Bradstreet to get a DUNS number. A DUNS number is required to sign up to the Apple Developer Program as a corporation. So far I have been pushed to 3 different departments by D&B who keep just hand-balling me to the next department without solving my issue, and this is taking on the or…

This appears to be the link to make one: https://developer.apple.com/enroll/duns-lookup/#/request Found here: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/90090

I got mine through Apple's page. It took a day or two to clear. No fuss.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#63

Post by filmgirlcw »

mietek wrote: post #42
sys_64738 wrote: post #26

I use Safari on the laptop because it's most efficient but it doesn't block all ads like ublock origin does. Particularly for YouTube so I need to use Firefox with ublock for viewing videos. I tend to not trust extensions otherwise and would really prefer Safari to have built in total ad blocking - zero tolerance for any ads at all.

Try Wipr.

Seconding Wipr. It’s the one I use in Safari on Mac and in iOS. It isn’t as good as uBlock Origin, but it works fairly seamlessly.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#64

Post by filmgirlcw »

no_wizard wrote: post #2

I wonder if the bigger hurdle here is that you have to spend money to get into the developer program (unless this is waived for these kinds of apps, I couldn’t tell when trying to dig up an answer) I don’t know that effectively slapping an app shell around an extension is a big hurdle, but no other web extension store charges for entry, so that very well could be the real barrier here.

I dunno, I think it’s both. I’ve paid the $100 a year fee for over a decade, even though I don’t have anything in the App Store right now. For me, it’s worth it for access to the betas and to be able to self-sign and notarize stuff on GitHub.

So I already pay the $100 a year. But there is a browser extension I help maintain that has a very limited audience (it is essentially an internal tool, though it is in the Chrome and Edge stores). I would like to bring it to macOS/Safari and started the process of doing it. But there are so many hoops, it will vastly change the build pipeline (I’ll literally have to package every single update differently than the other platforms), and the process is so convoluted that honestly, I’ve given up for now. Bear in mind, I’d be the primary user of said extension and even for me, I can’t make the internal argument to waste time doing it over just using Chrome or Edge when I need that feature.

Having said all that, I should go ahead and port it to Firefox. That at least is a lot more straightforward.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#65

Post by qwerty456127 »

floatingatoll wrote: post #30

The most popular web extensions are those that deprive sites of direct and indirect revenue, which necessarily means they can’t charge for the service or their userbase would revolt and steal their rule sets (which is easy to do for a web extension). Having to pay money for such things goes against the grain of those users, and the sort of breakage that people think is acceptable for content blockers isn’t quite as a…

> Imagine pi-hole charging a monthly subscription or else it allows ads through

I absolutely wouldn't mind paying additional 100% on top of my Internet subscription monthly if this could officially get me 100% ad-free, tracking-free, DRM-free and paywall-free web.

If only there were easy and efficient means for an Internet provider to distribute part of their revenue to content providers so they wouldn't have to deploy ads and tracking - that could be a beautiful world.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#66

Post by gnicholas »

My startup has two Chrome extensions, and we also have an Apple developer account. But even still, we haven't prioritized releasing an extension for Safari. We'll probably do it eventually, but over the last 6 years we just haven't received that many requests for Safari (desktop) support. It literally might be 3 requests per year.

I think this is because people who use extensions just don't use Safari, and therefore anyone who is savvy enough to want a tool like ours is already on Chrome or Firefox. There are a few people who use Safari for the battery life and are willing to live with the very few extensions that it offers, but I don't know many people like this.

We'll probably release a Safari extension eventually, but for now it is not a priority. We are actually going to be launching with a new iOS web browser that includes extension support, and given the trend toward mobile that's more of a focus for us right now.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#67

Post by gnicholas »

ElbertF wrote: post #24

We finally ported Wappalyzer across to Safari. The process was fairly straight-forward but Safari doesn't implement every API that Chrome, Firefox and even Edge support, so we had to do a bunch of work to get a single version of the extension to work consistently in all four browsers. I'm glad it's finally here though. https://apps.apple.com/app/wappalyzer/id1520333300

How has adoption been, and what percent of your user base do you think it will be in a year or two?

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#69

Post by st3fan »

jws wrote: post #62
mkr-hn wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This appears to be the link to make one: https://developer.apple.com/enroll/duns-lookup/#/request Found here: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/90090

I got mine through Apple's page. It took a day or two to clear. No fuss.

Same. I filled in Apples form. D&B called me back to verify some details. Took two or three days. Apple swallows the cost.

Re: Safari 14 added WebExtensions support, so where are the extensions?

#70

Post by recursive »

eznzt wrote: post #25
Nextgrid wrote: post #8

In addition to the money argument raised in another comment, the Apple development experience is a major annoyance when all you need is a couple lines of JS. I have an extension idea; it's literally a single line of JS. However, to get it into Safari, I need to create a (useless, and empty) Mac app with a specific configuration in Xcode that'll allow it to appear in the "extensions" list in Safari. Then I need to dea…

> I have an extension idea; it's literally a single line of JS. That's better suited as a userscript.

One of the reasons it's better suited to be a userscript is that there's so much friction to create an extension.
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