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I love Safari as a browser, but I hate the fact that it neuters the web and makes it feel much less powerful. Web Bluetooth and webUSB are ignored by Safari and

I love Safari as a browser, but I hate the fact that it neuters the web and makes it feel much less powerful. Web Bluetooth and webUSB are ignored by Safari and unsupported. Notification support is lacking last I checked. No PWA functionality to speak of and webNFC won’t be added. Extensions are lacking largely due to being basically native apps that bring with them all the cost and overhead of being such. As a browser Safari is beautiful (loving the look of it on Big Sur), efficient, lightweight and has a lot of little creature comforts that other browsers can’t or won’t implement because they are Mac specific (keychain, Touch/FaceID, native share sheet, 2fa code reads direct from Messages, etc). But it’s also hard to see a future in a browser that is still stuck in a Web 2.0 philosophy. The author’s point is good though: Safari is becoming the final bastion of hope against a purely Chromium landscape just by virtue of being an Apple product with an immediately large market share. I hope Apple will use this position of power wisely and help drive browser behavior rather than just being comfortable to exist in their own little world. Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. For Apple Safari seems to be little more than a talking point when advertising MacOS/iOS. It’s just another feature. For what it’s worth I’ve been really enjoying Vivaldi of late (I have no affiliation with the project, just including for context on my day to day browser).

ksec 6y ago
>to exist in their own little world. Today, the iPhone has 66% market share in the United States, 75% of U.S. App Store revenues, and over 80% of time spent on the mobile internet.
- onion2k 6y ago
  Apple sell phones globally, so really you should be using global statistics to determine what Safari needs to implement.
  - ksec 6y ago
    Are we going to include stats from Africa and India where the target market are not within the current pricing bracket of entry level iPhone? And even if you do, it is still 25%+, hardly a minority.
tasogare 6y ago
> Web Bluetooth and webUSB are ignored by Safari and unsupported. Notification support is lacking last I checked. No PWA functionality to speak of and webNFC won’t be added. Very good, none of those webCVE features deserve to be potentially accessible from malicious scripts on the web.
nwienert 6y ago
In this sense, it’s actually a good thing Chrome and others aren’t allowed on Apple. As someone whose fought against the App Store lockdown, I think I’ve come around a bit. The web is in a weird way a better place for apple locking down the browser choice.
- rewgs 6y ago
  But Chrome/etc are totally “allowed” on both macOS and iOS...? Not sure what you mean here.
  - zuppy 6y ago
    they are not allowed to use their engine on iOS, they are just a customized skin over safari/webkit (and I honestly think that’s the right way, as google has no interest in saving iPhone battery).
    - tinus_hn 6y ago
      The problem with browser engines is that they require just-in-time compilation to be fast, and Apple wants all code in an app to be signed and available to inspection. JIT compilation requires a way to add new, unsigned code to the process. That’s a rabbit hole of DLC, plug-ins and vulnerabilities they don’t want to go into.
      - SahAssar 6y ago
        If that's true then why do they have safari? What's the difference in this regard between safari and other browsers?
        tinus_hn 6y ago
        They control that the Safari JIT doesn’t enable DLC or plugins because the web view control it runs in can’t be used to implement this. With regards to vulnerabilities, they are mitigated as much as possible by making sure the JIT runs in separate, unprivileged processes. And anyway it is easier to secure one Javascript engine that is included in OS updates than it is to keep a multitude of engines up to date which came with apps most people don’t even think of as a browser.
paulmd 6y ago
The only thing I really miss on Safari is a good adblocker. Everything else is fine, I don't use my mobile browser the way I do on desktop.
- manuelmoreale 6y ago
  You might want to give the combination of 1Blocker (https://1blocker.com/ https://1blocker.com/) and NextDNS (https://nextdns.io/ https://nextdns.io/) a try. Personally using both on all my Apple devices and they work great IMO.
  - paulmd 6y ago
    Will definitely give 1blocker a try. I hadn't thought of going with the route of tampering with DNS but that's a good idea, same basic idea as pihole.
    - lloeki 6y ago
      Was a 1blocker user, but I recall there was some discrepancy between iOS and macOS that broke it. Moved to AdGuard, seems good for now. Also, try Hush on iOS, I don’t know the magic behind it but it seems to be much more potent at killing nagging questions.
      - manuelmoreale 6y ago
        I think they fixed those issue with the latest version. I just checked and I'm running 3.14.1 on iOS and 3.13 on Mac and they're both getting updates regularly. Hush looks excellent. Thanks for the tip.
- tchalla 6y ago
  Wipr is really good. https://giorgiocalderolla.com/wipr.html https://giorgiocalderolla.com/wipr.html
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I use Wipr and I can’t remember the last time I saw an ad.
hyko 6y ago
Web Bluetooth and webUSB Hard to tell without looking if these things are real or a parody!
- Redoubts 6y ago
  Seriously, these top level complaints make me very happy Safari isn’t doing this stuff.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  I’m pretty sure they exist only for Chromebooks. Nobody else supports them, nobody else ever will.
mns 6y ago
On one hand you have people complaining Chrome kills their batteries and on the other you want to have a browser that does push notifications, Bluetooth and usb. I want my browser to be fast and light. These complaints seem to come more from companies wanting to save money and developers too lazy to develop native apps. I don’t want to load a 200Mb progressive web app that goes through 20 layers of abstraction to show a list of news items just because developers are lazy and companies want to make more money. This is not for the users, at least let’s be honest about that.
- Black101 6y ago
  > because developers are lazy and companies want to make more money I think that Apple don't implement these features because they want to make more money and have developers make apps for their platform for free (and actually collect a fee from the developers that are improving the Apple ecosystem).
- fragile_frogs 6y ago
  > I don’t want to load a 200Mb progressive web app And I don't want to download your 200Mb native app that I will only use once. Besides that, the average webpage size is 2Mb which IMO is still too big, where as the average iOS app size is 34.3Mb.
- katbyte 6y ago
  Nailed it - basically everyone here saying safari should do these things is app devs vs a ton of people going nope no thank you I don’t want that
gkbrk 6y ago
Web Bluetooth and Web USB, along with other useless things like Web Battery that Google loves don't make the web more powerful. It only serves to make the web more bloated and user hostile. And making new browsers that much harder to implement while taking the time of existing competitors. As a user I have never needed or wanted web bluetooth or web usb, and I have never seen a person in real life that uses these either. For all I know, it's just mythical users mentioned in HN comments that want those.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  The Web is gone, ChromeOS it is.
- sircastor 6y ago
  I want them. I’ve wanted to build out hardware interactive controls, and use them in a web app. Building a web app is an easy and universal platform.
- bleachedsleet 6y ago
  I have a Ledger Nano X I use for storing an ADA wallet on. It interfaces over webUSB with most ADA wallet managers. I also have a Pax Era Pro vape pen that can only interface over web Bluetooth because Apple banned their native app. These two uses alone require I always have at least one Chromium browser installed. Niche, yes, but I also know I’m not alone here in finding uses for these APIs.
dwaite 6y ago
> Web Bluetooth and webUSB are ignored by Safari and unsupported. Web Bluetooth: A Chrome only feature. Not a standard or standards track. Firefox and Safari both said that they will not implement due to the security issues. Web USB: A Chrome only feature. Not a standard or standards track. Firefox and Safari both said they will not implement due to the security issues.
mark_l_watson 6y ago
Thanks, you just said what I was going to comment on. One additional thing: over use of devices is also a problem. Apple tracks use for you and I find the weekly reports useful. Apple does not need us to be addicted to social media and marginally useful stuff on the web, their business model doesn’t require it. I don’t want many apps on my devices and I don’t want every web site to effectively be an app on my device. If I do spend time on a digital device, I either want to be doing something useful, or working on a book project that hopefully some people might find useful. It takes some care to not waste time, and since I am approaching my 70th birthday, I have stronger feelings about not wasting time than I had when I was younger.

ksec 6y ago

>to exist in their own little world. Today, the iPhone has 66% market share in the United States, 75% of U.S. App Store revenues, and over 80% of time spent on the mobile internet.

onion2k 6y ago
Apple sell phones globally, so really you should be using global statistics to determine what Safari needs to implement.
- ksec 6y ago
  Are we going to include stats from Africa and India where the target market are not within the current pricing bracket of entry level iPhone? And even if you do, it is still 25%+, hardly a minority.

tasogare 6y ago

> Web Bluetooth and webUSB are ignored by Safari and unsupported. Notification support is lacking last I checked. No PWA functionality to speak of and webNFC won’t be added. Very good, none of those webCVE features deserve to be potentially accessible from malicious scripts on the web.

nwienert 6y ago

In this sense, it’s actually a good thing Chrome and others aren’t allowed on Apple. As someone whose fought against the App Store lockdown, I think I’ve come around a bit. The web is in a weird way a better place for apple locking down the browser choice.

rewgs 6y ago
But Chrome/etc are totally “allowed” on both macOS and iOS...? Not sure what you mean here.
- zuppy 6y ago
  they are not allowed to use their engine on iOS, they are just a customized skin over safari/webkit (and I honestly think that’s the right way, as google has no interest in saving iPhone battery).
  - tinus_hn 6y ago
    The problem with browser engines is that they require just-in-time compilation to be fast, and Apple wants all code in an app to be signed and available to inspection. JIT compilation requires a way to add new, unsigned code to the process. That’s a rabbit hole of DLC, plug-ins and vulnerabilities they don’t want to go into.
    - SahAssar 6y ago
      If that's true then why do they have safari? What's the difference in this regard between safari and other browsers?
      - tinus_hn 6y ago
        They control that the Safari JIT doesn’t enable DLC or plugins because the web view control it runs in can’t be used to implement this. With regards to vulnerabilities, they are mitigated as much as possible by making sure the JIT runs in separate, unprivileged processes. And anyway it is easier to secure one Javascript engine that is included in OS updates than it is to keep a multitude of engines up to date which came with apps most people don’t even think of as a browser.

paulmd 6y ago

The only thing I really miss on Safari is a good adblocker. Everything else is fine, I don't use my mobile browser the way I do on desktop.

manuelmoreale 6y ago
You might want to give the combination of 1Blocker (https://1blocker.com/ https://1blocker.com/) and NextDNS (https://nextdns.io/ https://nextdns.io/) a try. Personally using both on all my Apple devices and they work great IMO.
- paulmd 6y ago
  Will definitely give 1blocker a try. I hadn't thought of going with the route of tampering with DNS but that's a good idea, same basic idea as pihole.
  - lloeki 6y ago
    Was a 1blocker user, but I recall there was some discrepancy between iOS and macOS that broke it. Moved to AdGuard, seems good for now. Also, try Hush on iOS, I don’t know the magic behind it but it seems to be much more potent at killing nagging questions.
    - manuelmoreale 6y ago
      I think they fixed those issue with the latest version. I just checked and I'm running 3.14.1 on iOS and 3.13 on Mac and they're both getting updates regularly. Hush looks excellent. Thanks for the tip.
tchalla 6y ago
Wipr is really good. https://giorgiocalderolla.com/wipr.html https://giorgiocalderolla.com/wipr.html
lotsofpulp 6y ago
I use Wipr and I can’t remember the last time I saw an ad.

hyko 6y ago

Web Bluetooth and webUSB Hard to tell without looking if these things are real or a parody!

Redoubts 6y ago
Seriously, these top level complaints make me very happy Safari isn’t doing this stuff.
pwinnski 6y ago
I’m pretty sure they exist only for Chromebooks. Nobody else supports them, nobody else ever will.

mns 6y ago

On one hand you have people complaining Chrome kills their batteries and on the other you want to have a browser that does push notifications, Bluetooth and usb. I want my browser to be fast and light. These complaints seem to come more from companies wanting to save money and developers too lazy to develop native apps. I don’t want to load a 200Mb progressive web app that goes through 20 layers of abstraction to show a list of news items just because developers are lazy and companies want to make more money. This is not for the users, at least let’s be honest about that.

Black101 6y ago
> because developers are lazy and companies want to make more money I think that Apple don't implement these features because they want to make more money and have developers make apps for their platform for free (and actually collect a fee from the developers that are improving the Apple ecosystem).
fragile_frogs 6y ago
> I don’t want to load a 200Mb progressive web app And I don't want to download your 200Mb native app that I will only use once. Besides that, the average webpage size is 2Mb which IMO is still too big, where as the average iOS app size is 34.3Mb.
katbyte 6y ago
Nailed it - basically everyone here saying safari should do these things is app devs vs a ton of people going nope no thank you I don’t want that

gkbrk 6y ago

Web Bluetooth and Web USB, along with other useless things like Web Battery that Google loves don't make the web more powerful. It only serves to make the web more bloated and user hostile. And making new browsers that much harder to implement while taking the time of existing competitors. As a user I have never needed or wanted web bluetooth or web usb, and I have never seen a person in real life that uses these either. For all I know, it's just mythical users mentioned in HN comments that want those.

pjmlp 6y ago
The Web is gone, ChromeOS it is.
sircastor 6y ago
I want them. I’ve wanted to build out hardware interactive controls, and use them in a web app. Building a web app is an easy and universal platform.
bleachedsleet 6y ago
I have a Ledger Nano X I use for storing an ADA wallet on. It interfaces over webUSB with most ADA wallet managers. I also have a Pax Era Pro vape pen that can only interface over web Bluetooth because Apple banned their native app. These two uses alone require I always have at least one Chromium browser installed. Niche, yes, but I also know I’m not alone here in finding uses for these APIs.

dwaite 6y ago

> Web Bluetooth and webUSB are ignored by Safari and unsupported. Web Bluetooth: A Chrome only feature. Not a standard or standards track. Firefox and Safari both said that they will not implement due to the security issues. Web USB: A Chrome only feature. Not a standard or standards track. Firefox and Safari both said they will not implement due to the security issues.

mark_l_watson 6y ago

Thanks, you just said what I was going to comment on. One additional thing: over use of devices is also a problem. Apple tracks use for you and I find the weekly reports useful. Apple does not need us to be addicted to social media and marginally useful stuff on the web, their business model doesn’t require it. I don’t want many apps on my devices and I don’t want every web site to effectively be an app on my device. If I do spend time on a digital device, I either want to be doing something useful, or working on a book project that hopefully some people might find useful. It takes some care to not waste time, and since I am approaching my 70th birthday, I have stronger feelings about not wasting time than I had when I was younger.