30 ms·

Safari is adopting an extensions API similar to Firefox’s WebExtensions

207 points by skellertor 6y ago

freediver 6y ago
Apple had a great opportunity to natively support web extensions in Safari. Instead they choose to do it through the app extensions System. Meaning a developer needs to have and pay for Apple dev account. They need to have a Mac to port and compile it. They have to sign it. And then maintain it. This will certainly affect adoption. Forcing an open standard into a closed system seems intuitively wrong. But at least kudos to Apple for recognizing the need for webextensions support.
- balladeer 6y ago
  At this point I think I should just switch to Firefox. It's just that Firefox still (unfairly) lags behind in performance because it's a Mac.
  - gabrielvincent 6y ago
    I think this is a worthy trade-off. The difference in performance is not that big.
    - Synaesthesia 6y ago
      I still much prefer Safari so I spent like $2 on an ad-blocker, not as good as ublock but my overall experience is still the best IMO.
      - philistine 6y ago
        I did the same. It’s strange to buy a Safari extension on the App Store, but I bought stopthemadness and 1Blocker and I’ve been satisfied for years.
        balladeer 6y ago
        I don't know about the other one but 1Blocker is now a subscription.
  - kgermino 6y ago
    Why is Firefox slower on a Mac? I know Safari is (supposedly) faster than a lot of the other options, but I haven’t seen anything about Apple slowing down other browsers on Macs[0]. [0] I know they force all browsers to use the same webkit engine as Safari on mobile devices, and used to limit competitors to an older slower version for “security reasons” but AFAIK they don’t slow down competitors on mobile anymore and never have on Macs
    - quantummkv 6y ago
      It's not Apple that slows down Firefox on Mac. It's just that Firefox cannot match the resources that apple and google throw around on their browsers. Firefox has to be economical on where their resources are directed towards. And understandingly Macos specific optimizations not the top priority.
      - MintelIE 6y ago
        They didn't have to rewrite everything in Rust thereby harming performance to a large degree.
        saagarjha 6y ago
        That's not how Rust works.
        MintelIE 6y ago
        >checks benchmarks And that's why I disagree. Also old-school Firefox and Seamonkey run great on my P3 450.
    - est31 6y ago
      One component was Safari using unofficial APIs. But some of these unofficial APIs have since been used by both Chrome and Firefox as well.
  - ebg13 6y ago
    Forget about performance. Firefox still lags horribly behind in battery life.
    - fauigerzigerk 6y ago
      Not for me, because Firefox's reader view stops the entire battery sucking JavaScript madness on the page I'm visiting whereas Safari doesn't.
    - dmix 6y ago
      Firefox natively suspends unused tabs which dramatically improved my memory usage and battery life. Chrome has a similar extension but it's nice having it built in to the browser natively. If anything you could argue that FF is behind Chrome security-wise with their more limited sandboxing and some other memory protections. But performance is largely a non-issue.
    - toyg 6y ago
      Everyone "lags behind" Safari in battery life on mac, unsurprisingly: a mono-platform app can pull tricks that multi-platform ones cannot. When comparing apples to apples, Firefox imho is actually lighter than Chrome on battery, at least on Macs.
      - npunt 6y ago
        Understandable from perspective of how apps are developed, but from the user perspective comparing Firefox on Mac to Safari on Mac is literally comparing software on Apples to software on Apples.
  - asimilator 6y ago
    > At this point I think I should just switch to Firefox. I use Firefox on Mac, but it is definitely a compromise. Still no multitouch support, which is crazy in 2020.
    - pehtis 6y ago
      Try setting apz.allow_zooming to true and restarting Firefox. No idea why this isn't true by default..
  - miohtama 6y ago
    With Firefox ad blockers you get that performance back in reduced download and CPU time spent in ad JavaScript.
  - Uupis 6y ago
    I switched to Firefox in the end of 2019, and I don't think it's entirely clear cut, slowness-wise. In my experience, Safari slows down to a crawl if I open more than 5 or 6 tabs at once, especially something sadness inducing (think new reddit); and it's very eager to.. dump things from memory? I am not sure what happens, but as I switch these gargantuan tabs, it seems to re-draw things a lot. Firefox handles that kind of thing like a champ. Add uBlock origin, and I have my almost ultimate browsing experience: JavaScript off default, enabled as I see fit. There is one nasty oddity where I often found myself having to slow down for Safari: when I edit URL query parameters. If I hit return before some indecipherable arbitrary time, which I guesstimate by the auto completions showing up, Safari will throw away my changes and merely reload the current page. I have unchecked and toggled all possible autofill or search checkboxes in Safari settings, and it still happens. This and the extension apocalypse are what drove me away from Safari. In contrast, I've got all the extensions I want, and never ever have to slow down for Firefox. Well worth giving it a shot for a few weeks. Container tabs are also awesome.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  I think it's worth looking at how Apple has gone about similar changes in the past. It dips its toe in the water. It then eases an ankle in. It finally jumps in fully when it's ready to, and not before. Along the way, the sort of developers who spend more time posting on Twitter and HN than actually developing complain about each of the first two steps being not enough, and when the third comes moan about "monopoly" this and "lock-in" that. Apple isn't going to make everyone happy. And it doesn't care to. It brings what it feels its customers want. But it is rarely rushed to something because it's cool or trendy. Apple gets there when it is ready. The times when it has rushed, it's botched the job. So I'm OK with Apple's measured approach. If what Apple offers you today in Safari isn't what you want, go Firefox.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - sigspec 6y ago
    Also things such as wireless charging, Apple Pay, etc. They were not the first by a long shot. They took their time to do it well and now it's everywhere.
tester89 6y ago
What does this mean for Ad-blockers like UOrigin which were removed after Apple disabled the API they used?
- greenhatglack 6y ago
  Not much, lots of missing APIs currently to accurately port uBlock to Safari, though not sure because it's incomplete or omitted by design.
- DavideNL 6y ago
  Apparently the uBO developer says still not possible: https://reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/hdz0bo/will_ublock_origin_back_to_macos_big_sur/fvoc7wk https://reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/hdz0bo/will_ubloc...
- bluedays 6y ago
  I'm going to be downvoted for saying this but... ublock origin actually does slow down rendering your webpage. I think that it's sad that there seems to be so much pushback from vendors in regards to options like ublock origin, but I have found equally impressive results with system wide options like adguard without it reducing the speed of pages rendering.
  - surround 6y ago
    Yes, I’m going to downvote you, but only because you misunderstand how ad blocking works. uBlock does marginally slow down webpage render because it has to inject CSS rules (cosmetic filters) to improve blocking quality. If you don’t want this feature, you can disable cosmetic filtering entirely within uBlock’s settings. The problem with AdGuard is that they charge for system-wide blocking which can be done for free with a hosts file or pi-hole.
    - stephenr 6y ago
      It’s almost as if the browser should provide an method for extensions to identify things to block, in a way that is optimised for performance and privacy, rather than just throwing even more JavaScript into the page.
drenvuk 6y ago
It's still gimped. No blocking requests. "Unlimited" storage (which is necessary for most non-trivial extensions) is actually limited to 10MB. You're stuck in Apple's app store which is equally as draconian as Chrome's and Firefox's but now you have to pay $99/year. No IndexedDB. The extensions aren't usable on mobile. I care little for Safari's users if I have to deal with all of this.
- kickscondor 6y ago
  I don't know. I mean, yes, I need 'blocked requests' and 'unlimited storage' for my extension (http://fraidyc.at/ http://fraidyc.at/). However, at least I can give Safari users a taste of it - which could either: * draw them into fuller platforms for using it. (or) * pressure safari to support more of the standard. Stepping stones.
  - stephenr 6y ago
    I’d never heard of your extension before but IMO that is not at all what I think of as a “browser extension” - it seems to me that it’s more using the browser as an application runtime than actually providing more functionality for the current page.
    - kickscondor 6y ago
      Well - you could look at it as extending the browser (into a feed reader) rather than extending the current page.
  - unityByFreedom 6y ago
    I love the concept of your extension. You're right, the 24/7 feeds from social media encourage spam, and the way out of it is to take control of the view with software like yours. Great work!
- danShumway 6y ago
  Agreed. This is a step in the right direction, but, "Firefox works on Mac", is still the easiest, most straightforward answer to anyone who's asking me, "how can I get a decent adblocker for the web?" Having a shared API matters for extensions primarily because it makes it easier for a developer to say, "well, I might as well throw that on the Apple store as well." But if Safari literally can't do the things your extension needs it to do, then the API is kind of a secondary concern.
AnonC 6y ago
I don’t have a lot of hopes that this will satisfy my needs. I just want these extensions in Safari, to start with: * uBlock Origin (confirmed as of now as not supported, and unlikely to be supported in the future either, with content blocking handled at the browser engine level) * Privacy Possum or Privacy Badger * Session Buddy or some good Session saving extension
- baggachipz 6y ago
  Seriously. Not being able to block ads with Safari makes an automatic no-go for me. Even if they make their own built-in ad blocker, you can bet they'll let companies pay to become "platinum sponsors". No thanks.
  - toyg 6y ago
    > Not being able to block ads with Safari makes an automatic no-go for me I actually turned it into a very specific use-case: when I need to be tracked for cashback/referral purposes on big purchases, I use Safari. Everything else goes on Firefox. It's a bit ironic to use Apple software when I want less privacy, after all their spiel.
  - peruvian 6y ago
    I've been happy with Wipr on macOS and 1Blocker on iOS for years. In fact I think you can just use 1Blocker in both platforms now. Neither is as "good" as uBlock Origin but I don't really care.
    - a2tech 6y ago
      I believe Wipr works on both iOS and macOS. I'm also a happy Wipr user.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - olliej 6y ago
    The full app extension apis do let you do that (based on my installed as blocker), there’s just a bunch if restrictions that apply to those extensions to prevent arbitrary content manipulation (iirc).
MBCook 6y ago
Does this mean Safari may get the React or Redux extensions? That’s all I care about.
- silviogutierrez 6y ago
  I'm hoping for that too. I really try to make Safari my daily driver (performance, privacy, battery life). But the dev experience is lacking. Also the network tab is just... odd.
  - NVI 6y ago
    What's odd about the network tab?
  - om2 6y ago
    Have you tried it lately? A recent-ish rework made it more like Chrome's, but with cleaner design.
erdaniels 6y ago
I really wanted to stick with Safari a little over two years ago when I moved off of Google products. It was (is) snappy and battery conversant. Beyond poor extension support, I realized the absolutely most important features to me in a browser are password, bookmark, and history synchronization. Since I use Windows and macOS, Safari was out of the question (RIP Windows edition of it). Thankfully in the last year Firefox has mad leaps and bounds on performance and battery life consumption on macOS (on Windows it is fantastic). Also at the end of the day, you have what I believe is the most unlimited ad-blocking experience on Firefox compared to Chrome, Chromium, and Safari.
felixfbecker 6y ago
As someone who works at a company with a web extension, one big thing I care about is automated deployment. We have automated releases with Chrome and Firefox (although it has to use Puppeteer). The new Edgium recently wanted to get us to publish but I found zero docs on potential automation so that's a blocker. Wonder what process Safari has to offer here?
- twodayslate 6y ago
  fastlane?
- kccqzy 6y ago
  Perhaps you can do it through Apple Configurator to create a configuration profile?

207 points by skellertor 6y ago

Apple had a great opportunity to natively support web extensions in Safari. Instead they choose to do it through the app extensions System. Meaning a developer needs to have and pay for Apple dev account. They need to have a Mac to port and compile it. They have to sign it. And then maintain it. This will certainly affect adoption. Forcing an open standard into a closed system seems intuitively wrong. But at least kudos to Apple for recognizing the need for webextensions support.

balladeer 6y ago
At this point I think I should just switch to Firefox. It's just that Firefox still (unfairly) lags behind in performance because it's a Mac.
- gabrielvincent 6y ago
  I think this is a worthy trade-off. The difference in performance is not that big.
  - Synaesthesia 6y ago
    I still much prefer Safari so I spent like $2 on an ad-blocker, not as good as ublock but my overall experience is still the best IMO.
    - philistine 6y ago
      I did the same. It’s strange to buy a Safari extension on the App Store, but I bought stopthemadness and 1Blocker and I’ve been satisfied for years.
      - balladeer 6y ago
        I don't know about the other one but 1Blocker is now a subscription.
- kgermino 6y ago
  Why is Firefox slower on a Mac? I know Safari is (supposedly) faster than a lot of the other options, but I haven’t seen anything about Apple slowing down other browsers on Macs[0]. [0] I know they force all browsers to use the same webkit engine as Safari on mobile devices, and used to limit competitors to an older slower version for “security reasons” but AFAIK they don’t slow down competitors on mobile anymore and never have on Macs
  - quantummkv 6y ago
    It's not Apple that slows down Firefox on Mac. It's just that Firefox cannot match the resources that apple and google throw around on their browsers. Firefox has to be economical on where their resources are directed towards. And understandingly Macos specific optimizations not the top priority.
    - MintelIE 6y ago
      They didn't have to rewrite everything in Rust thereby harming performance to a large degree.
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        That's not how Rust works.
        MintelIE 6y ago
        >checks benchmarks And that's why I disagree. Also old-school Firefox and Seamonkey run great on my P3 450.
  - est31 6y ago
    One component was Safari using unofficial APIs. But some of these unofficial APIs have since been used by both Chrome and Firefox as well.
- ebg13 6y ago
  Forget about performance. Firefox still lags horribly behind in battery life.
  - fauigerzigerk 6y ago
    Not for me, because Firefox's reader view stops the entire battery sucking JavaScript madness on the page I'm visiting whereas Safari doesn't.
  - dmix 6y ago
    Firefox natively suspends unused tabs which dramatically improved my memory usage and battery life. Chrome has a similar extension but it's nice having it built in to the browser natively. If anything you could argue that FF is behind Chrome security-wise with their more limited sandboxing and some other memory protections. But performance is largely a non-issue.
  - toyg 6y ago
    Everyone "lags behind" Safari in battery life on mac, unsurprisingly: a mono-platform app can pull tricks that multi-platform ones cannot. When comparing apples to apples, Firefox imho is actually lighter than Chrome on battery, at least on Macs.
    - npunt 6y ago
      Understandable from perspective of how apps are developed, but from the user perspective comparing Firefox on Mac to Safari on Mac is literally comparing software on Apples to software on Apples.
- asimilator 6y ago
  > At this point I think I should just switch to Firefox. I use Firefox on Mac, but it is definitely a compromise. Still no multitouch support, which is crazy in 2020.
  - pehtis 6y ago
    Try setting apz.allow_zooming to true and restarting Firefox. No idea why this isn't true by default..
- miohtama 6y ago
  With Firefox ad blockers you get that performance back in reduced download and CPU time spent in ad JavaScript.
- Uupis 6y ago
  I switched to Firefox in the end of 2019, and I don't think it's entirely clear cut, slowness-wise. In my experience, Safari slows down to a crawl if I open more than 5 or 6 tabs at once, especially something sadness inducing (think new reddit); and it's very eager to.. dump things from memory? I am not sure what happens, but as I switch these gargantuan tabs, it seems to re-draw things a lot. Firefox handles that kind of thing like a champ. Add uBlock origin, and I have my almost ultimate browsing experience: JavaScript off default, enabled as I see fit. There is one nasty oddity where I often found myself having to slow down for Safari: when I edit URL query parameters. If I hit return before some indecipherable arbitrary time, which I guesstimate by the auto completions showing up, Safari will throw away my changes and merely reload the current page. I have unchecked and toggled all possible autofill or search checkboxes in Safari settings, and it still happens. This and the extension apocalypse are what drove me away from Safari. In contrast, I've got all the extensions I want, and never ever have to slow down for Firefox. Well worth giving it a shot for a few weeks. Container tabs are also awesome.
reaperducer 6y ago
I think it's worth looking at how Apple has gone about similar changes in the past. It dips its toe in the water. It then eases an ankle in. It finally jumps in fully when it's ready to, and not before. Along the way, the sort of developers who spend more time posting on Twitter and HN than actually developing complain about each of the first two steps being not enough, and when the third comes moan about "monopoly" this and "lock-in" that. Apple isn't going to make everyone happy. And it doesn't care to. It brings what it feels its customers want. But it is rarely rushed to something because it's cool or trendy. Apple gets there when it is ready. The times when it has rushed, it's botched the job. So I'm OK with Apple's measured approach. If what Apple offers you today in Safari isn't what you want, go Firefox.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sigspec 6y ago
  Also things such as wireless charging, Apple Pay, etc. They were not the first by a long shot. They took their time to do it well and now it's everywhere.

tester89 6y ago

What does this mean for Ad-blockers like UOrigin which were removed after Apple disabled the API they used?

greenhatglack 6y ago
Not much, lots of missing APIs currently to accurately port uBlock to Safari, though not sure because it's incomplete or omitted by design.
DavideNL 6y ago
Apparently the uBO developer says still not possible: https://reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/hdz0bo/will_ublock_origin_back_to_macos_big_sur/fvoc7wk https://reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/hdz0bo/will_ubloc...
bluedays 6y ago
I'm going to be downvoted for saying this but... ublock origin actually does slow down rendering your webpage. I think that it's sad that there seems to be so much pushback from vendors in regards to options like ublock origin, but I have found equally impressive results with system wide options like adguard without it reducing the speed of pages rendering.
- surround 6y ago
  Yes, I’m going to downvote you, but only because you misunderstand how ad blocking works. uBlock does marginally slow down webpage render because it has to inject CSS rules (cosmetic filters) to improve blocking quality. If you don’t want this feature, you can disable cosmetic filtering entirely within uBlock’s settings. The problem with AdGuard is that they charge for system-wide blocking which can be done for free with a hosts file or pi-hole.
  - stephenr 6y ago
    It’s almost as if the browser should provide an method for extensions to identify things to block, in a way that is optimised for performance and privacy, rather than just throwing even more JavaScript into the page.

drenvuk 6y ago

It's still gimped. No blocking requests. "Unlimited" storage (which is necessary for most non-trivial extensions) is actually limited to 10MB. You're stuck in Apple's app store which is equally as draconian as Chrome's and Firefox's but now you have to pay $99/year. No IndexedDB. The extensions aren't usable on mobile. I care little for Safari's users if I have to deal with all of this.

kickscondor 6y ago
I don't know. I mean, yes, I need 'blocked requests' and 'unlimited storage' for my extension (http://fraidyc.at/ http://fraidyc.at/). However, at least I can give Safari users a taste of it - which could either: * draw them into fuller platforms for using it. (or) * pressure safari to support more of the standard. Stepping stones.
- stephenr 6y ago
  I’d never heard of your extension before but IMO that is not at all what I think of as a “browser extension” - it seems to me that it’s more using the browser as an application runtime than actually providing more functionality for the current page.
  - kickscondor 6y ago
    Well - you could look at it as extending the browser (into a feed reader) rather than extending the current page.
- unityByFreedom 6y ago
  I love the concept of your extension. You're right, the 24/7 feeds from social media encourage spam, and the way out of it is to take control of the view with software like yours. Great work!
danShumway 6y ago
Agreed. This is a step in the right direction, but, "Firefox works on Mac", is still the easiest, most straightforward answer to anyone who's asking me, "how can I get a decent adblocker for the web?" Having a shared API matters for extensions primarily because it makes it easier for a developer to say, "well, I might as well throw that on the Apple store as well." But if Safari literally can't do the things your extension needs it to do, then the API is kind of a secondary concern.

AnonC 6y ago

I don’t have a lot of hopes that this will satisfy my needs. I just want these extensions in Safari, to start with: * uBlock Origin (confirmed as of now as not supported, and unlikely to be supported in the future either, with content blocking handled at the browser engine level) * Privacy Possum or Privacy Badger * Session Buddy or some good Session saving extension

baggachipz 6y ago
Seriously. Not being able to block ads with Safari makes an automatic no-go for me. Even if they make their own built-in ad blocker, you can bet they'll let companies pay to become "platinum sponsors". No thanks.
- toyg 6y ago
  > Not being able to block ads with Safari makes an automatic no-go for me I actually turned it into a very specific use-case: when I need to be tracked for cashback/referral purposes on big purchases, I use Safari. Everything else goes on Firefox. It's a bit ironic to use Apple software when I want less privacy, after all their spiel.
- peruvian 6y ago
  I've been happy with Wipr on macOS and 1Blocker on iOS for years. In fact I think you can just use 1Blocker in both platforms now. Neither is as "good" as uBlock Origin but I don't really care.
  - a2tech 6y ago
    I believe Wipr works on both iOS and macOS. I'm also a happy Wipr user.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- olliej 6y ago
  The full app extension apis do let you do that (based on my installed as blocker), there’s just a bunch if restrictions that apply to those extensions to prevent arbitrary content manipulation (iirc).

MBCook 6y ago

Does this mean Safari may get the React or Redux extensions? That’s all I care about.

silviogutierrez 6y ago
I'm hoping for that too. I really try to make Safari my daily driver (performance, privacy, battery life). But the dev experience is lacking. Also the network tab is just... odd.
- NVI 6y ago
  What's odd about the network tab?
- om2 6y ago
  Have you tried it lately? A recent-ish rework made it more like Chrome's, but with cleaner design.

erdaniels 6y ago

I really wanted to stick with Safari a little over two years ago when I moved off of Google products. It was (is) snappy and battery conversant. Beyond poor extension support, I realized the absolutely most important features to me in a browser are password, bookmark, and history synchronization. Since I use Windows and macOS, Safari was out of the question (RIP Windows edition of it). Thankfully in the last year Firefox has mad leaps and bounds on performance and battery life consumption on macOS (on Windows it is fantastic). Also at the end of the day, you have what I believe is the most unlimited ad-blocking experience on Firefox compared to Chrome, Chromium, and Safari.

felixfbecker 6y ago

As someone who works at a company with a web extension, one big thing I care about is automated deployment. We have automated releases with Chrome and Firefox (although it has to use Puppeteer). The new Edgium recently wanted to get us to publish but I found zero docs on potential automation so that's a blocker. Wonder what process Safari has to offer here?

twodayslate 6y ago
fastlane?
kccqzy 6y ago
Perhaps you can do it through Apple Configurator to create a configuration profile?