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Genuine question: how do you reconcile a desire for a “liver ecosystem” with backing Chromium/WebKit? I never thought I’d be backing Apple, but at this point

Genuine question: how do you reconcile a desire for a “liver ecosystem” with backing Chromium/WebKit? I never thought I’d be backing Apple, but at this point I’m hoping that safari remains independent of Google to provide some decentralization.

pojntfx 6y ago
I absolutely see your point; in theory, a web of many engines and browsers would be awesome. In practice however, at least IMHO, Safari isn’t really a competitor to Chrome at this point, but rather a means of Apple to curb the web and to conform to it’s standards. Think WebP, WebM, WebA (or Ogg/Vorbis - no support for any free/libre codecs at all), PWAs, offline support, push notifications and the list goes on. A serious competitor like the Firefox from a few years ago would have been awesome, but Safari really just seems to push people away from the web platform, much like IE’s lack of support in the past has done. The alternative to a (kinda, but not really) monoculture web platform is IMHO preferable to a platform of fully proprietary native platforms.
- Betelgeuse90 6y ago
  Worth noting that WebP support was added to Safari 14 in Big Sur and iOS 14.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  > Safari isn’t really a competitor to Chrome at this point, but rather a means of Apple to curb the web and to conform to it’s standards You got this wrong. Currently it's Chrome that pushes its own standards at neck-breaking speed with utter disregard to any objections. For example, all of the standards that Mozilla considers harmful are enabled by default in Chrome. Or standards that both Safari and Mozilla consider woefully under-specced or badly implemented? Well, Chrome ships them to Google's own teams and then refuses to hide them back under a flag. Apple may not give enough resources to Safari, that's true. But don't for a second assume that Apple is unequivocally bad and Google is unequivocally good when it comes to the web. I'll take Safari over Google any day of the week.

pojntfx 6y ago

I absolutely see your point; in theory, a web of many engines and browsers would be awesome. In practice however, at least IMHO, Safari isn’t really a competitor to Chrome at this point, but rather a means of Apple to curb the web and to conform to it’s standards. Think WebP, WebM, WebA (or Ogg/Vorbis - no support for any free/libre codecs at all), PWAs, offline support, push notifications and the list goes on. A serious competitor like the Firefox from a few years ago would have been awesome, but Safari really just seems to push people away from the web platform, much like IE’s lack of support in the past has done. The alternative to a (kinda, but not really) monoculture web platform is IMHO preferable to a platform of fully proprietary native platforms.

Betelgeuse90 6y ago
Worth noting that WebP support was added to Safari 14 in Big Sur and iOS 14.
dmitriid 6y ago
> Safari isn’t really a competitor to Chrome at this point, but rather a means of Apple to curb the web and to conform to it’s standards You got this wrong. Currently it's Chrome that pushes its own standards at neck-breaking speed with utter disregard to any objections. For example, all of the standards that Mozilla considers harmful are enabled by default in Chrome. Or standards that both Safari and Mozilla consider woefully under-specced or badly implemented? Well, Chrome ships them to Google's own teams and then refuses to hide them back under a flag. Apple may not give enough resources to Safari, that's true. But don't for a second assume that Apple is unequivocally bad and Google is unequivocally good when it comes to the web. I'll take Safari over Google any day of the week.