For developers, Safari is crap and outdated • Hacker News Board

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#601

Post by kasabali » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 4:55 AM UTC

hortense wrote: post #262

lucasyvas wrote: post #9

I'm at the point where, at least on the Desktop, I'd rather support a Chromium webview powered "native" app than bother supporting web browsers directly. Why should I be excited about Filesystem API and the like when we can already do that on the operating system directly? It's really easy to understand the rise of Electron in this context. I don't think Electron is the final form, however. There's nothing wrong with…

> Why should I be excited about Filesystem API and the like when we can already do that on the operating system directly? Because it's easier to update to a website than it is to release a ton of binaries ({windows, Linux, macos}x{x86,x64,arm64}) and have users download them. Not to mention it's safer and faster for the user.

> safer and faster

Safer, maybe. Faster? LMAO.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#602

Post by dmitriid » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 6:50 AM UTC

admax88q wrote: post #577

dmitriid wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

If you're going down the analogies rabbit hole: let's say your front door is unlocked. Should you then just open all your windows because, you know, everyone already has access to your house?

> when we can get nearly identical behaviour using push?

The devil is in the details: is it nearly identical behaviour? How nearly is it identical? I personally don't know.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#603

Post by joedoejr » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 7:02 AM UTC

Thank you Apple for caring about customers and protect us from all that security and performance nightmare that “standards” forced by google and microsoft intentionally brings in their controlled and spyware infested browsers. I don’t want any WPAs or webRTC or whatever only made to be cheap and poorly imitation of real software. It is great to have apple laptops that lasts long and have privacy protection without compromise!

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#604

Post by mrtksn » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 7:14 AM UTC

jeroenhd wrote: post #328

mrtksn wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All websites(with the exception of HN maybe?). Installation doesn't strictly mean putting the website on your home-screen. Whenever you encounter a new website you are required to go through installation process, you can't simply click a link and consume the content anymore. For most websites you need to read and accept the tracking terms and if you are not happy with the default options you need to do custom install…

I wouldn't call that "installation", just "setup". Installation implies some form of (local) persistence. I avoid setup screens as much as possible. I close many of the websites linked to on HN but I'm not accepting these newsletter popups and neither should anyone else. Websites will keep doing this for as long as people accept this behaviour. Depriving our browsers from useful features is not a solution, it's merel…

> Installation implies some form of (local) persistence.

You achieve a local persistence to some degree through cookies and local storage.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#605

Post by LAC-Tech » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 7:24 AM UTC

agloeregrets wrote: post #408

LAC-Tech wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes zero business sense for small-medium companies to make separate android and IOS apps. That's man hours that will be spent on a specific platform and its app store, instead of on improving the core product. PWAs are here to stay.

Except 0% of customers understand how PWAs work on mobile devices, 10% of webdevs understand how to make actually performant Apps, and 100% of execs think that using a PWA means their desktop site should be their mobile app (without realizing that, often times, your mobile UX likely has a vastly different context.)

0% of people know how to visit a website? :)

I should have specified B2B in my original comment though, B2C I have no experience in.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#606

Post by prox » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 7:48 AM UTC

techsupporter wrote: post #149

prox wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That I never got. You are a market leader and you just stop whatever you are doing? How did that happen? Arguably the biggest mistake of MS.

At the time, and perhaps still today but greatly lessened, Microsoft was used to both becoming the victor by crushing the opposition and then staying the victor because no one dared take a second swing. Anyone else who thought about challenging usually thought against and then went and carved out a quiet niche elsewhere. Besides, nobody got promoted at Microsoft for staying the course and making incremental improveme…

What a story… It’s crazy when no one owns something, it just gets abandoned. If there ever was a time for microsoft to have done things differently, it was then. Might even have helped transition to mobile better.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#607

Post by orionblastar » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 9:39 AM UTC

fouc wrote: post #131

orionblastar wrote: post #2

I used to like Safari for Windows.

It does seem like a shame there's no Safari for Windows

Not since 2012: http://www.oldversion.com/windows/safari/

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#608

Post by tripzilch » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 10:28 AM UTC

The_Colonel wrote: post #485

lucideer wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ho…

IE7 brought PNG transparency support. As a webdeveloper in those days, this was huge. IIRC this was just at the start of the "shiny buttons" web2.0 design era.

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#609

Post by fserb » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

"Safari/WebKit is the best browser for users"

"If other browser engines were allowed in iOS, Chrome/Blink would take over the web browser market"

Pick one, folks. Either Safari is the best, in which case the WebKit monopoly is unnecessary; OR the iOS monopoly is the only thing preventing users from switching to a better browser.

It doesn't matter if you like PWAs or WebUSB. Or what you think about new web standards. The best browser is the browser regular users choose to use. Good web standards are standards that enable sites/apps that users want to use.

Right now, we don't know any of that because the lowest common denominator for the web is not what users want, but what Apple allows users to have. Claiming that those two things are the same sounds a bit weird to me.

It's surprising that people think that Chrome pushing web standards forward means that "everyone has to do what Google wants", while the only true gatekeeper between users and developers these days is Apple's iOS policies.

If you think that's not true, please answer: if a user in any configuration (device+os) WANTS to access your app and you WANT to develop for them, what set of device+os are mediated and by whom? Whose policies you MUST follow to have access to a (major) set of users?

(disclaimer: I'm a Chrome blink engineer involved in web standards)

Re: For developers, Safari is crap and outdated

#610

Post by admax88q » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 3:48 PM UTC

dmitriid wrote: post #602

admax88q wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

If you're going down the analogies rabbit hole: let's say your front door is unlocked. Should you then just open all your windows because, you know, everyone already has access to your house? > when we can get nearly identical behaviour using push? The devil is in the details: is it nearly identical behaviour? How nearly is it identical? I personally don't know.

One wakes up the background page on a timer, the other wakes it up based upon a external controllable trigger. It's trivial to fire that external trigger based upon a timer.