8 ms·
But can you have a 3rd party browser or just an wrapper around Apple's Webkit?
by Darmody 6y ago
But can you have a 3rd party browser or just an wrapper around Apple's Webkit?
- m-p-3 6y agoBaby steps I suppose. I still dream of the day you see an actual Mozilla Firefox browser with its own rendering engine and addons support.
- Klonoar 6y agoConsidering how poorly macOS runs Firefox, I'm actually quite glad that Webkit is enforced.
- kennywinker 6y ago*citation needed. Recently switched to FF on a 6 year old mac, only complaints so far are small ui quirks
- staycoolboy 6y agoI'm a FF user on macOS, but it is a power hog. They have been working on it for some time: https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-reduced-power-usage-in-firefox-70-on-macos-with-core-animation/ https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-red...
- eugeniub 6y agoLongtime user of Safari on macOS, switched about 2 years ago to Firefox and I've been in love ever since.
- Klonoar 6y agoAbysmal battery life in comparison to Safari, different font rendering than normal, lack of correct rubberband scrolling (a ~10 year old bug), and more. Let me be clear: I like Firefox. I've committed patches to Firefox on iOS. I'd use Firefox on any other platform, but it is not a good citizen of macOS. I don't believe it'd be good on iOS given the room to use its own rendering engine.
- rydre 6y agoWhat if I want the choice of using firefox with extensions on mac os?
- hpfr 6y agoI don’t use macOS, but I know there was a good amount of news about significant battery consumption improvements in a recent Firefox release. I don’t think any third-party browser can hope to compete with Safari on macOS, though. I don’t know how level the playing field is there.
- Klonoar 6y agoYou may be thinking of Core Animation usage, which is really good to see. As I understand it this is also a prerequisite for WebRender. The bug in question: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522 A blog post breakdown: https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-reduced-power-usage-in-firefox-70-on-macos-with-core-animation/ https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-red... This does make a difference, but macOS is in many respects a "death by a thousand cuts" platform due to the UI/UX bar being fairly high. It notably clips in many areas where Chrome and Safari simply don't, which leads to a jarring experience. Scrolling and resizing is still not smooth, even after tweaking it behind the scenes - although to be fair, the post above calls out that they're aware they can make this smoother with CA. Firefox on macOS also still has issues with hardware acceleration. Comparing the following URL across browsers I can achieve 60fps, no drops, on Safari. Firefox on my Mac averages 45fps. https://webglsamples.org/aquarium/aquarium.html https://webglsamples.org/aquarium/aquarium.html I love Firefox (and the associated lineage) - I really do. I've kept it installed since the Mozilla Suite days. I still check every damn release to see if I could switch back. I'm sad every time I find I can't.
- lwansbrough 6y agoYou’re opposed to choice because..?
- zepto 6y agoIt wastes a huge amount of time when most of the choices are bad.
- lern_too_spel 6y agoThere are certain hypothetical cases where that is true. In this case, most of the choices are better than the app people are required to use today.
- zepto 6y agoAre they? Chrome is slower and sends more telemetry to Google. Firefox is more trustworthy, but also slower. I accept that there better options for many people than Apple Mail.
- lwansbrough 6y agoChoice does not necessitate an up-front decision to be made by the user. It simply means, at some point, I can choose an alternative. Safari fuckin’ sucks and I am forced to use it to have access to certain features on iOS - like webcam - which is bullshit.
- lern_too_spel 6y agoYes, Safari is far behind the other browsers in standards support, and at this point of being so far behind for so long, we can say that it will always be so just to kneecap the web as an alternative to the app store.
- zepto 6y agoI don’t think that’s a sound argument. iOS is behind android in terms of features, the top comment on the ios14 post points out that ‘it’s all just catchup to Android’. Clearly Apple isn’t trying to kneecap iOS as an alternative to Android, so why would be conclude that they are doing this with Safari? Their strategy has never been about rushing.
- kup0 6y agoRuns absolutely fine in situations where battery isn't a concern (iMac)
- Klonoar 6y agoIt doesn't, as I noted in another comment - "absolutely fine" overlooks notable issues with the macOS system experiences. Furthermore, while this is a point to be debated... the thread here is not about Firefox on macOS, but on whether it'd run fine on iOS. Given the performance of Firefox on Macbooks in general, I maintain my position that it would not fare well. The iMac has little to do with this. Given that they'll eventually need to have this running well on Apple Silicon, though, I'd be happy to eventually be wrong.
- kup0 6y agoI don't think it's irrelevant to speak to the fact that the latest Firefox runs well on my 2013 iMac. Anecdotal, sure, but I'm tired of seeing the generic "Firefox is bad on macOS" complaints because I just don't think it's true across-the-board anymore. 10-15 versions ago? That was a different story. It has come a long way. I abandoned Firefox back in those days, but lately I returned to it as my browser of choice on macOS, Windows, and Linux. However, in terms of iOS, I am not certain how either of our experiences (both on macOS) would really be relevant at all to how Firefox would perform on iOS. As much as Apple has tried to make them similar lately, they are still different worlds.
- nixpulvis 6y agoBrowser enforcement is a path to the dying web.
- behnamoh 6y agoNot if it ensures web usability w/o battery/performance issues.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago> Considering how poorly macOS runs Firefox, I'm actually quite glad that Webkit is enforced. Given that Webkit is available either way, why? If you prefer Webkit you can use Safari independent of whether actual Firefox is available or not. Having the choice doesn't force you to choose it. But it gives other people with different priorities an option. And then more people use Firefox, and it gets better, and Mozilla ends up with more support and resources to address your concerns even before you actually start using it.
- shuckles 6y agoAn efficient browser engine needs to run with security privileges that I don't imagine Apple ever giving to 3rd party code.
- chongli 6y agoYou never know. Perhaps Apple is working on public APIs to mitigate those issues? What if Apple released APIs that let you write an all-new, high performance browser engine and let you publish your own browser on iOS, but the APIs weren’t compatible with Firefox or Chromium, so a rewrite would be required?
- cbzoiav 6y agoApple has all of the APIs needed. You can compile and run chromium on iOS today (or at least it used to be possible - I work for an enterprise that did it for internal apps) - it'll just never make it through AppStore review.
- tarkin2 6y agoDo you know of these security privileges? I've never heard either google or mozilla complain about them.
- JoshTriplett 6y agoA browser's JIT needs permission to dynamically generate code and then execute it, which is the primary permission Apple doesn't grant to third parties. Other browsers on iOS just wrap Safari's WebKit in a different UI.
- summerlight 6y agoAllowing a 3rd party browser engine will significantly undermine Apple's control on its ecosystem, so won't likely happen anytime soon. This is more of running a show for the recent on-going antitrust case against Apple.