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The author was testing these browsers on an iPhone — but neglected to note that Apple actually prevents other browser engines on iOS. So if you use Firefox or

The author was testing these browsers on an iPhone — but neglected to note that Apple actually prevents other browser engines on iOS. So if you use Firefox or Brave on an iPhone, you’re simply using Safari with a different “skin.” This skin can clearly do some content blocking, and it can provide a different browser UI — but it cannot change the fundamental web technologies that are available in the browser. As such, Safari is basically the new IE6 — it lags all other modern browsers and prevents websites from taking advantage of nice new features. (Yes, some of these features are available with polyfills but others are not polyfillable.) I wish the author had noted this, given the high visibility of the NYT. More people need to know about Apple’s neutering of browsers on iOS. It’s crippling the growth of the web. One specific example: Safari still doesn’t support AudioWorklet, which means iOS users get lower-quality slowdown in my product Soundslice (a feature we rolled out last week: https://www.soundslice.com/blog/199/introducing-enhanced-slowdown-and-perfect-looping/ https://www.soundslice.com/blog/199/introducing-enhanced-slo...). If more iOS users knew about this, perhaps they’d lobby Apple for better web support.

ricc 6y ago
The author probably doesn't know this.
franklyt 6y ago
I can’t believe this was overlooked by a prestigious publication.
- izacus 6y ago
  Honestly, I find NYTs privacy articles to be full of errors and deliberate omissions to drive the agenda. It's seriously made me question about their reputation.
  - finiteseries 6y ago
    I’m still in a state of outrage/shock over their article on the “far right” joining telegram in the millions in the aftermath of the capitol riots. There I was, a week or two removed from helping my roommate move his gigantic Nigerian family group chat away from WhatsApp when [0] pops up in my HN feed. They actually implied most of those millions of new Telegram users, 94% of which weren’t even in North America, were motivated entirely by the capitol riots. Completely omitting the fact the WhatsApp -> FB data sharing message was sent to every single user in the world on that very same day, January 6th. [0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/world/europe/telegram-app-far-right.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/world/europe/telegram-app...
  - JadeNB 6y ago
    I think the same is true of just about any non-specialist reporting organisation. Find the reporting they do on a subject on which you're an expert, and see how much they get wrong. Don't write them off for it—everybody gets stuff wrong—but read the stories on the material about which you're not expert with the same skepticism.
  - HWR_14 6y ago
    It's far more likely that the errors are because the editors are non-technical and they seem to have one primary author. It could reflect his bias or his ignorance.
- dtx1 6y ago
  Doesn't surprise me at all. The reality is that journalists are just that, journalists. They rarely have any relevant expertise about what they write. Coupled with strict limits on content size enforced by publishers and an audience that often understands even less about the topics discussed you get major errors like these. The amount of text necessary to explain to the average NYT reader what a rendering engine is probably more then the allotted text size for this piece of pseudo-intellectual garbage. Should make you worry about everything else journalists write with the same lack of care and understanding of details. This is why podcasts and longform youtube content form actual experts is thriving while traditional media is dying. They have optimized so much for short attention span, clickbaity and inflammatory content that they have lost all resemblance of quality and expertise. In short, for any given topic, if the explanation is less than an hour long discussion piece, it's almost guaranteed to be simplified to the point of being wrong and useless.
  - spookybones 6y ago
    I read the comment you’re replying to as being sarcastic, but good points nonetheless.
  - clairity 6y ago
    > "The amount of text necessary to explain to the average NYT reader what a rendering engine is probably more then the allotted text size..." it's not that hard to summarize: a rendering engine transforms html into pixels on the screen. most people will have at least a vague idea of what html and pixels are. there's no further need to dive into the details where that description is less than 100% accurate (e.g., sreen readers). that's to say, the reporting is just lazy and uninformed. no need to bail them out with a technical excuse.
    - dtx1 6y ago
      > most people will have at least a vague idea what html and pixels are. there's no further need to dive into the details where that description is less than 100% accurate (e.g., sreen readers). I doubt very much the average person on the street has a clear idea what a pixel is, let alone what HTML is. And even your description is so incomplete it's wrong since the safari engine also includes JavaScript execution, media rendering etc. on safari, proving my point: if you try to simplify it for the average reader, your description ends up wrong
- buzzert 6y ago
  Hard to believe anyone still thinks of the NYT as “prestigious” these days.
nwienert 6y ago
Which is actually a good thing for the diversity of browser engines and preventing Google from commandeering web standards and “embrace, extend, extinguish”ing them. If Chrome was allowed on iOS be sure Google would dump unlimited money to get people to use it. Websites would further go down the path of only testing on Chrome, and Google would continue stuffing their browser full of oftentimes needless features. And they’d continue all their other disgusting practices like AMP even less fettered than before. The literal only hedge against this right now is Safari. I thank the powers that be that Apple doesn’t let other engines on. That, and, Safari is miles ahead of any other engine in terms of performance. It’s not even close. And answer this: how would allowing other engines increase privacy? WebKit does more for privacy than almost any other, and allows installing privacy extensions and wrappers like Firefox. Without that, you’d have people using Chrome more than using Firefox.. a regression in privacy.
- cmeacham98 6y ago
  > That, and, Safari is miles ahead of any other engine in terms of performance. It’s not even close. How is it fair to make this statement about iOS where no other engine is even allowed? Maybe Chrome(ium) and/or Firefox would be faster than Webkit on iOS if they were actually allowed to develop for it, or maybe Safari would be the best. It's impossible to know because Apple prevents any competition here.
  - nwienert 6y ago
    Because it’s the same engine on Mac and it’s far, far faster (and less battery consuming). Sure, opening it may incentivize Chrome to compete, but I doubt much more than they already are incentivized in general.
  - skinnymuch 6y ago
    We have MacOS to see this is true to a huge degree there. The related and overlapping iOS wouldn’t change things that much.
- jefftk 6y ago
  > Safari is miles ahead of any other engine in terms of performance. It’s not even close. link?
geofft 6y ago
I'm not sure that's relevant for privacy - for privacy, the specific thing you need is content blocking, right? I agree it's important for functionality and the general health of the web as a platform, but those don't seem to be the point of the article.
- OminousWeapons 6y ago
  > I'm not sure that's relevant for privacy - for privacy, the specific thing you need is content blocking, right? Yes, and for example (to my knowledge) there is no good granular script blocker (e.g. umatrix, ublock origin, noscript) in any browser available for iphone because there is no extension support in browsers like Chrome and Firefox.
- dtx1 6y ago
  Not really. If your rendering engines does the spying for you than blocking other tracking and adware still leaves you without real privacy. Coupled with a lack of fingerprinting protection, simple content blocking may not even be enough to reasonably protect you from third party trackers.
  - geofft 6y ago
    Is the rendering engine doing the spying for you? This article seems like it's focusing on websites spying on you, and I don't think anyone (either this article or elsewhere) has made a serious allegation that WebKit does actually spy on you. It would be pretty newsworthy if it did!
teekert 6y ago
I recently switched from Android to iOS and this was super confusing. No plugins, except for on the OS level (like AdGuard) and then those don’t even work in that weird neutered Firefox, only in Safari :s Oh and Bitwarden does not work in FF. It it does work in Safari! So now I, a Firefox by default person switched to Safari (on iOS at least). I wish full Firefox was present.
- skrowl 6y ago
  A lot of people notice that when downgrading from Android to iOS. Be prepared to no longer be able to easily install new launchers / home apps / emulators / adult apps / etc either. Hopefully we have you back on the open source side soon!
  - teekert 6y ago
    Hehe well, there were some pleasant surprises: Nextcloud works well (auto picture upload), imap mail, webdav, caldav all work with no extra apps needed (with Nextcloud as backend). WireGuard vpn works well, Home Assitant works. No extra app needed for podcasts. Element works, facetime is the best video call experience so far. I do really miss fdroid indeed and apps like GadgetBridge and OSMand (full version). Yeah it’s a walled garden but it has enough gates for me so far. I do like the privacy notices a lot more though, often they’ll state that nothing is shared and everything stays on the phone. Android with Google play is not as open and under my control as I wished, it’s one of the reasons why the step to iOS is minor imho (freedom-wise).
- ornornor 6y ago
  Try nextdns.io. It blocks ads systemwide (except the YT app, and a few websites that use JS tricks to inject ads) Bitwarden works very well for me in iOS FF and any other app.
  - teekert 6y ago
    Oh I see, indeed it works on iOS Firefox, thanx that makes a big difference, back to (neutered) FF it is.
xoa 6y ago
>As such, Safari is basically the new IE6 — it lags all other modern browsers and prevents websites from taking advantage of nice new features. I strongly disagree with you. The new IE6 is Chrome: overwhelming dominance of the web to the extent that Google can dictate "standards" themselves and users begin to lose the ability to use other browsers because "site works best(only) in Chrome", and I think that having my data forcefully harvested and active opposition from the developer to ad-blocking is a LOT worse than "stagnation". I like Firefox a lot on the desktop, but I have no illusions it'd stand in the way of total Chrome domination on its own. The only thing that really throws a wrench in Google's plans is iOS. >More people need to know about Apple’s neutering of browsers on iOS. It’s crippling the growth of the web. Good. I don't want everything shoved into websites or web views thank you very much, the web eating the world is something I actively oppose. And I don't care if it makes your life (or my life, with a dev hat on) harder. I don't mind if you simply chose not to serve iOS/Mac/Firefox users at all, though of course most would then take their business elsewhere. And you offering worse quality is also perfectly within the market and I don't fault you for it either. I'd pick a competitor with a native app and high quality, but that's not free to develop, so how that all shakes out may vary. But while it has downsides, Apple serving as a concentrator for user buying power has upsides too so long as they stay as a small though significant part of the market, which is very likely given their business strategy. >If more iOS users knew about this, perhaps they’d lobby Apple for better web support. I'm wish the App Store supported upgrade pricing, and I would like laws requiring Apple to offer a purchase-time option for root signing key access, even if it's for money or reduces support or something. But I'm perfectly happy to see a bit of favor towards native experiences over the web and I hope they continue to push that.
- unreal6 6y ago
  > I don't mind if you simply chose not to serve iOS/Mac/Firefox users at all, though of course most would then take their business elsewhere. I use FF as my daily driver, but as much as I hate to admit it, whatever service I am using is almost always a stronger draw than FF, so I just open it up Chrominium or Brave. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the market for strictly native/browser-agnostic services is large enough to support most uses.
coldtea 6y ago
>As such, Safari is basically the new IE6 — it lags all other modern browsers and prevents websites from taking advantage of nice new features This tired trope must die. No, Safari is not "the new IE6". The problem with IE6 was not that it lagged a few years before adopting some features, it was moving fast and implementing things on its own, forcing standards, etc, and forcing a monoculture due to his large adoption (until Firefox came). The monoculture, moving too fast, dictating arbitrary standards, is what Google does with Chrome (and every Blink derived browser).
- true_religion 6y ago
  I thought the problem was that for 8+ years it had no feature updates, and he team behind it was disbanded. So everyone hated supporting it since it was buggy, and you knew the bugs would never be fixed.
  - HWR_14 6y ago
    Are you talking about IE on Mac? Because that was different from IE 6 (which was on Windows)
- iso1210 6y ago
  Safari on the iphone is probably the only thing keeping some semblence of the open web alive - it's the one place google can't take over.
robertoandred 6y ago
You speak as if other browsers never lag in new features. It took /how/ long for Chrome to get position sticky or backdrop filter?
uoaei 6y ago
NYT -- where the words sound nice, with no due diligence.
soulofmischief 6y ago
No, Chrome is the new IE6. Safari is... still safari.
knubie 6y ago
Actually safari has implemented some web standards before Firefox and chrome. For example beforeInput events that allow rich text editing.
tchalla 6y ago
> So if you use Firefox or Brave on an iPhone, you’re simply using Safari with a different “skin.” This skin can clearly do some content blocking, and it can provide a different browser UI — but it cannot change the fundamental web technologies that are available in the browser. Firefox Focus is a decent alternative with the best of both worlds. http://mzl.la/1NDD2IB http://mzl.la/1NDD2IB
- awwaiid 6y ago
  What do you mean? I think on iOS it is still rendering with Safari.

ricc 6y ago

The author probably doesn't know this.

franklyt 6y ago

I can’t believe this was overlooked by a prestigious publication.

izacus 6y ago
Honestly, I find NYTs privacy articles to be full of errors and deliberate omissions to drive the agenda. It's seriously made me question about their reputation.
- finiteseries 6y ago
  I’m still in a state of outrage/shock over their article on the “far right” joining telegram in the millions in the aftermath of the capitol riots. There I was, a week or two removed from helping my roommate move his gigantic Nigerian family group chat away from WhatsApp when [0] pops up in my HN feed. They actually implied most of those millions of new Telegram users, 94% of which weren’t even in North America, were motivated entirely by the capitol riots. Completely omitting the fact the WhatsApp -> FB data sharing message was sent to every single user in the world on that very same day, January 6th. [0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/world/europe/telegram-app-far-right.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/world/europe/telegram-app...
- JadeNB 6y ago
  I think the same is true of just about any non-specialist reporting organisation. Find the reporting they do on a subject on which you're an expert, and see how much they get wrong. Don't write them off for it—everybody gets stuff wrong—but read the stories on the material about which you're not expert with the same skepticism.
- HWR_14 6y ago
  It's far more likely that the errors are because the editors are non-technical and they seem to have one primary author. It could reflect his bias or his ignorance.
dtx1 6y ago
Doesn't surprise me at all. The reality is that journalists are just that, journalists. They rarely have any relevant expertise about what they write. Coupled with strict limits on content size enforced by publishers and an audience that often understands even less about the topics discussed you get major errors like these. The amount of text necessary to explain to the average NYT reader what a rendering engine is probably more then the allotted text size for this piece of pseudo-intellectual garbage. Should make you worry about everything else journalists write with the same lack of care and understanding of details. This is why podcasts and longform youtube content form actual experts is thriving while traditional media is dying. They have optimized so much for short attention span, clickbaity and inflammatory content that they have lost all resemblance of quality and expertise. In short, for any given topic, if the explanation is less than an hour long discussion piece, it's almost guaranteed to be simplified to the point of being wrong and useless.
- spookybones 6y ago
  I read the comment you’re replying to as being sarcastic, but good points nonetheless.
- clairity 6y ago
  > "The amount of text necessary to explain to the average NYT reader what a rendering engine is probably more then the allotted text size..." it's not that hard to summarize: a rendering engine transforms html into pixels on the screen. most people will have at least a vague idea of what html and pixels are. there's no further need to dive into the details where that description is less than 100% accurate (e.g., sreen readers). that's to say, the reporting is just lazy and uninformed. no need to bail them out with a technical excuse.
  - dtx1 6y ago
    > most people will have at least a vague idea what html and pixels are. there's no further need to dive into the details where that description is less than 100% accurate (e.g., sreen readers). I doubt very much the average person on the street has a clear idea what a pixel is, let alone what HTML is. And even your description is so incomplete it's wrong since the safari engine also includes JavaScript execution, media rendering etc. on safari, proving my point: if you try to simplify it for the average reader, your description ends up wrong
buzzert 6y ago
Hard to believe anyone still thinks of the NYT as “prestigious” these days.

nwienert 6y ago

Which is actually a good thing for the diversity of browser engines and preventing Google from commandeering web standards and “embrace, extend, extinguish”ing them. If Chrome was allowed on iOS be sure Google would dump unlimited money to get people to use it. Websites would further go down the path of only testing on Chrome, and Google would continue stuffing their browser full of oftentimes needless features. And they’d continue all their other disgusting practices like AMP even less fettered than before. The literal only hedge against this right now is Safari. I thank the powers that be that Apple doesn’t let other engines on. That, and, Safari is miles ahead of any other engine in terms of performance. It’s not even close. And answer this: how would allowing other engines increase privacy? WebKit does more for privacy than almost any other, and allows installing privacy extensions and wrappers like Firefox. Without that, you’d have people using Chrome more than using Firefox.. a regression in privacy.

cmeacham98 6y ago
> That, and, Safari is miles ahead of any other engine in terms of performance. It’s not even close. How is it fair to make this statement about iOS where no other engine is even allowed? Maybe Chrome(ium) and/or Firefox would be faster than Webkit on iOS if they were actually allowed to develop for it, or maybe Safari would be the best. It's impossible to know because Apple prevents any competition here.
- nwienert 6y ago
  Because it’s the same engine on Mac and it’s far, far faster (and less battery consuming). Sure, opening it may incentivize Chrome to compete, but I doubt much more than they already are incentivized in general.
- skinnymuch 6y ago
  We have MacOS to see this is true to a huge degree there. The related and overlapping iOS wouldn’t change things that much.
jefftk 6y ago
> Safari is miles ahead of any other engine in terms of performance. It’s not even close. link?

geofft 6y ago

I'm not sure that's relevant for privacy - for privacy, the specific thing you need is content blocking, right? I agree it's important for functionality and the general health of the web as a platform, but those don't seem to be the point of the article.

OminousWeapons 6y ago
> I'm not sure that's relevant for privacy - for privacy, the specific thing you need is content blocking, right? Yes, and for example (to my knowledge) there is no good granular script blocker (e.g. umatrix, ublock origin, noscript) in any browser available for iphone because there is no extension support in browsers like Chrome and Firefox.
dtx1 6y ago
Not really. If your rendering engines does the spying for you than blocking other tracking and adware still leaves you without real privacy. Coupled with a lack of fingerprinting protection, simple content blocking may not even be enough to reasonably protect you from third party trackers.
- geofft 6y ago
  Is the rendering engine doing the spying for you? This article seems like it's focusing on websites spying on you, and I don't think anyone (either this article or elsewhere) has made a serious allegation that WebKit does actually spy on you. It would be pretty newsworthy if it did!

teekert 6y ago

I recently switched from Android to iOS and this was super confusing. No plugins, except for on the OS level (like AdGuard) and then those don’t even work in that weird neutered Firefox, only in Safari :s Oh and Bitwarden does not work in FF. It it does work in Safari! So now I, a Firefox by default person switched to Safari (on iOS at least). I wish full Firefox was present.

skrowl 6y ago
A lot of people notice that when downgrading from Android to iOS. Be prepared to no longer be able to easily install new launchers / home apps / emulators / adult apps / etc either. Hopefully we have you back on the open source side soon!
- teekert 6y ago
  Hehe well, there were some pleasant surprises: Nextcloud works well (auto picture upload), imap mail, webdav, caldav all work with no extra apps needed (with Nextcloud as backend). WireGuard vpn works well, Home Assitant works. No extra app needed for podcasts. Element works, facetime is the best video call experience so far. I do really miss fdroid indeed and apps like GadgetBridge and OSMand (full version). Yeah it’s a walled garden but it has enough gates for me so far. I do like the privacy notices a lot more though, often they’ll state that nothing is shared and everything stays on the phone. Android with Google play is not as open and under my control as I wished, it’s one of the reasons why the step to iOS is minor imho (freedom-wise).
ornornor 6y ago
Try nextdns.io. It blocks ads systemwide (except the YT app, and a few websites that use JS tricks to inject ads) Bitwarden works very well for me in iOS FF and any other app.
- teekert 6y ago
  Oh I see, indeed it works on iOS Firefox, thanx that makes a big difference, back to (neutered) FF it is.

xoa 6y ago

>As such, Safari is basically the new IE6 — it lags all other modern browsers and prevents websites from taking advantage of nice new features. I strongly disagree with you. The new IE6 is Chrome: overwhelming dominance of the web to the extent that Google can dictate "standards" themselves and users begin to lose the ability to use other browsers because "site works best(only) in Chrome", and I think that having my data forcefully harvested and active opposition from the developer to ad-blocking is a LOT worse than "stagnation". I like Firefox a lot on the desktop, but I have no illusions it'd stand in the way of total Chrome domination on its own. The only thing that really throws a wrench in Google's plans is iOS. >More people need to know about Apple’s neutering of browsers on iOS. It’s crippling the growth of the web. Good. I don't want everything shoved into websites or web views thank you very much, the web eating the world is something I actively oppose. And I don't care if it makes your life (or my life, with a dev hat on) harder. I don't mind if you simply chose not to serve iOS/Mac/Firefox users at all, though of course most would then take their business elsewhere. And you offering worse quality is also perfectly within the market and I don't fault you for it either. I'd pick a competitor with a native app and high quality, but that's not free to develop, so how that all shakes out may vary. But while it has downsides, Apple serving as a concentrator for user buying power has upsides too so long as they stay as a small though significant part of the market, which is very likely given their business strategy. >If more iOS users knew about this, perhaps they’d lobby Apple for better web support. I'm wish the App Store supported upgrade pricing, and I would like laws requiring Apple to offer a purchase-time option for root signing key access, even if it's for money or reduces support or something. But I'm perfectly happy to see a bit of favor towards native experiences over the web and I hope they continue to push that.

unreal6 6y ago
> I don't mind if you simply chose not to serve iOS/Mac/Firefox users at all, though of course most would then take their business elsewhere. I use FF as my daily driver, but as much as I hate to admit it, whatever service I am using is almost always a stronger draw than FF, so I just open it up Chrominium or Brave. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the market for strictly native/browser-agnostic services is large enough to support most uses.

coldtea 6y ago

>As such, Safari is basically the new IE6 — it lags all other modern browsers and prevents websites from taking advantage of nice new features This tired trope must die. No, Safari is not "the new IE6". The problem with IE6 was not that it lagged a few years before adopting some features, it was moving fast and implementing things on its own, forcing standards, etc, and forcing a monoculture due to his large adoption (until Firefox came). The monoculture, moving too fast, dictating arbitrary standards, is what Google does with Chrome (and every Blink derived browser).

true_religion 6y ago
I thought the problem was that for 8+ years it had no feature updates, and he team behind it was disbanded. So everyone hated supporting it since it was buggy, and you knew the bugs would never be fixed.
- HWR_14 6y ago
  Are you talking about IE on Mac? Because that was different from IE 6 (which was on Windows)
iso1210 6y ago
Safari on the iphone is probably the only thing keeping some semblence of the open web alive - it's the one place google can't take over.

robertoandred 6y ago

You speak as if other browsers never lag in new features. It took /how/ long for Chrome to get position sticky or backdrop filter?

uoaei 6y ago

NYT -- where the words sound nice, with no due diligence.

soulofmischief 6y ago

No, Chrome is the new IE6. Safari is... still safari.

knubie 6y ago

Actually safari has implemented some web standards before Firefox and chrome. For example beforeInput events that allow rich text editing.

tchalla 6y ago

> So if you use Firefox or Brave on an iPhone, you’re simply using Safari with a different “skin.” This skin can clearly do some content blocking, and it can provide a different browser UI — but it cannot change the fundamental web technologies that are available in the browser. Firefox Focus is a decent alternative with the best of both worlds. http://mzl.la/1NDD2IB http://mzl.la/1NDD2IB

awwaiid 6y ago
What do you mean? I think on iOS it is still rendering with Safari.