7 ms·

>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 disa

by 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.
- xoa 6y ago
  >Unfortunately, I'm not sure the market for strictly native/browser-agnostic services is large enough to support most uses. I guess "strictly" is debatable, but the point here is that the market for at least somewhat browser agnostic services includes, well, the entirety of iOS at the least. Precisely because there is no "choice", which means big services/developers can't force a choice on us either. If I browse somewhere on my iPhone, I won't be told "go install Chrome" because a I can't (or rather, it'd make no difference because an iOS browser is still the same engine so like "iOS Firefox", "iOS Chrome" is mainly a skin). Sometimes I may see a "better in the app" which I don't mind if it's dismissible because if it's somewhere I actually like, well, maybe I really will try their app. And while iOS users aren't remotely the majority of the global market by user count, they tend to punch above their weight in spending; they aren't a random sample of the population. It's a not insignificant market to entirely forego. Different people will have different services they depend on and different views of the web in turn, so YMMV, but at least for me that seems to have been enough. I completely uninstalled both Chrome and Chromium, and between Safari and Firefox on Mac and FF on FreeBSD or Ubuntu I haven't encountered anything critical that was non-functional. Apple has effective collectivized the buying power of a picky subset of people. That's definitely not always good, but nor is it always bad. I think at this point a lot of us are making a conscious choice to join that ecosystem, and those of us unhappy with some of it handle it by keeping our main computing environment mixed up.
- davidf18 6y ago
  The NYT article should simply have recommended using 1blocker which works with safari for users that have Mac laptops and iPhones, which I am guessing is perhaps the majority of readers. I have been using 1blocker for several years and it seems to work well enough. On the Mac laptops safari is the best browser for most people including NYT readers because it has the best battery life.
Shorel 6y ago
> and users begin to lose the ability to use other browsers Begin? No. This has been happening for years. This is what killed Opera browser rendering engine.
xnx 6y ago
For me the primary characteristic of IE6 was not that it had a large market share like Chrome, but that it didn't update for over 5 years. Chrome is nothing like IE6 in that regard. The web would be better off if iOS users could benefit from the full Chrome codebase.
- saurik 6y ago
  Yeah: Chrome is the new IE4, pushing ridiculous new technologies simply because they can.
  - smitty1e 6y ago
    'Ridiculous' is unfair. Google has enough technical chops and market heft to set new internet standards and not look as silly as Redmond did in the 90s in the process.
    - t-writescode 6y ago
      I think you’re equally being unfair to who Microsoft was and employed in the 90s.
      - smitty1e 6y ago
        Very possibly so, especially on an individual basis. Yet the echos of a bazillion BSODs that have seemed less prevalent with Chrome are there. To your point, comparing an OS to a browser is lame.
        HWR_14 6y ago
        I'm not sure how you expected MS to prevent BSOD, which often derived from behavior of programs or drivers. The worst BSOD timeframe seemed to predate computer resources being so vast that common OS protections were viable. And when programs were more hard-crash prone in general.
  - xnx 6y ago
city41 6y ago
The web is the only open platform we have ever had and probably will ever have. To shun it for proprietary app stores and OSes is really disheartening. I'm the exact opposite, the more web apps the better. And sadly, Safari is holding the web back. Not only does it miss many features of modern browsers, it's very buggy. I find I have to make work arounds for Safari specific bugs in almost every website I make now.
- xoa 6y ago
  >The web is the only open platform we have ever had and probably will ever have. Are you trying to make some sort of joke here? How is the Web more open than Linux or the BSDs running FOSS applications? And in fact how is the web under Chrome any more open than macOS or Windows? Seriously. In all cases, you can't just freely modify everything about the platform you're running on top of or most of the "applications" you're running. There's a megacorp behind each whose interests may or may not align with yours. You don't get to choose what they do or how. But you can still make whatever you'd like on top for no cost, though you may have to spend money to get attention. And if you make something malicious, you might get added to a blacklist that is distributed to all users. Etc. In essence Google wants our "operating system" to be Chrome or another of their properties, either as a sort of meta-OS layered on top of the hardware OS or more directly via Chrome OS/Android+Google Play Services. And their financial interest in that is almost exclusively to get data about us to run ads at us, and to the extent possible prevent or hinder avoidance of that harvest or those ads. It's not just that I don't want an ad company to make my operating system, I don't want an internet-required OS at all. And I want a wide variety of software with zero WAN dependency beyond maybe initial delivery somewhere in the chain. If that's not something you're interested in fine, but lots of us will remain willing to put our money where our mouths are on that one. I also disagree that Safari is "holding the web back" because I like simple, readable and parseable websites.
  - city41 6y ago
    You're conflating two issues. Chromium's dominance is a problem for sure, but that is separate from the web being an open platform. The web is more open than Linux (which I use btw) because a web app can run on Linux, MacOS, Windows, FreeBSD, Android, iOS and more without recompiling, redistributing or re-anything. Would it be nice if it wasn't HTML/JS/CSS based? Absolutely. But we gotta take what we can get. I couldn't agree more that Google's dominance in web technology is a problem. But you're throwing the baby out with the bath water. And just to add, the current situation is still better than proprietary native apps on MacOS and Windows. I can at least use Chromium in many forms and on virtually any operating system. Not ideal, but the alternative people in this thread are suggesting is far worse.
kd913 6y ago
>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. The thing that currently is holding Google from extreme derivations is actually Microsoft's edgium I think. Microsoft is one of the few companies out there with enough resources to hold a hostile fork of Chromium capable of easy/fast adoption. If Chromium decides to do something ridiculously egregious. It is possible for it to 1) not affect Microsoft browsers or 2) for Microsoft to maintain a fork and win marketshare fast.

by xoa 6y ago

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.

xoa 6y ago
>Unfortunately, I'm not sure the market for strictly native/browser-agnostic services is large enough to support most uses. I guess "strictly" is debatable, but the point here is that the market for at least somewhat browser agnostic services includes, well, the entirety of iOS at the least. Precisely because there is no "choice", which means big services/developers can't force a choice on us either. If I browse somewhere on my iPhone, I won't be told "go install Chrome" because a I can't (or rather, it'd make no difference because an iOS browser is still the same engine so like "iOS Firefox", "iOS Chrome" is mainly a skin). Sometimes I may see a "better in the app" which I don't mind if it's dismissible because if it's somewhere I actually like, well, maybe I really will try their app. And while iOS users aren't remotely the majority of the global market by user count, they tend to punch above their weight in spending; they aren't a random sample of the population. It's a not insignificant market to entirely forego. Different people will have different services they depend on and different views of the web in turn, so YMMV, but at least for me that seems to have been enough. I completely uninstalled both Chrome and Chromium, and between Safari and Firefox on Mac and FF on FreeBSD or Ubuntu I haven't encountered anything critical that was non-functional. Apple has effective collectivized the buying power of a picky subset of people. That's definitely not always good, but nor is it always bad. I think at this point a lot of us are making a conscious choice to join that ecosystem, and those of us unhappy with some of it handle it by keeping our main computing environment mixed up.
davidf18 6y ago
The NYT article should simply have recommended using 1blocker which works with safari for users that have Mac laptops and iPhones, which I am guessing is perhaps the majority of readers. I have been using 1blocker for several years and it seems to work well enough. On the Mac laptops safari is the best browser for most people including NYT readers because it has the best battery life.

Shorel 6y ago

> and users begin to lose the ability to use other browsers Begin? No. This has been happening for years. This is what killed Opera browser rendering engine.

xnx 6y ago

For me the primary characteristic of IE6 was not that it had a large market share like Chrome, but that it didn't update for over 5 years. Chrome is nothing like IE6 in that regard. The web would be better off if iOS users could benefit from the full Chrome codebase.

saurik 6y ago
Yeah: Chrome is the new IE4, pushing ridiculous new technologies simply because they can.
- smitty1e 6y ago
  'Ridiculous' is unfair. Google has enough technical chops and market heft to set new internet standards and not look as silly as Redmond did in the 90s in the process.
  - t-writescode 6y ago
    I think you’re equally being unfair to who Microsoft was and employed in the 90s.
    - smitty1e 6y ago
      Very possibly so, especially on an individual basis. Yet the echos of a bazillion BSODs that have seemed less prevalent with Chrome are there. To your point, comparing an OS to a browser is lame.
      - HWR_14 6y ago
        I'm not sure how you expected MS to prevent BSOD, which often derived from behavior of programs or drivers. The worst BSOD timeframe seemed to predate computer resources being so vast that common OS protections were viable. And when programs were more hard-crash prone in general.
- xnx 6y ago

city41 6y ago

The web is the only open platform we have ever had and probably will ever have. To shun it for proprietary app stores and OSes is really disheartening. I'm the exact opposite, the more web apps the better. And sadly, Safari is holding the web back. Not only does it miss many features of modern browsers, it's very buggy. I find I have to make work arounds for Safari specific bugs in almost every website I make now.

xoa 6y ago
>The web is the only open platform we have ever had and probably will ever have. Are you trying to make some sort of joke here? How is the Web more open than Linux or the BSDs running FOSS applications? And in fact how is the web under Chrome any more open than macOS or Windows? Seriously. In all cases, you can't just freely modify everything about the platform you're running on top of or most of the "applications" you're running. There's a megacorp behind each whose interests may or may not align with yours. You don't get to choose what they do or how. But you can still make whatever you'd like on top for no cost, though you may have to spend money to get attention. And if you make something malicious, you might get added to a blacklist that is distributed to all users. Etc. In essence Google wants our "operating system" to be Chrome or another of their properties, either as a sort of meta-OS layered on top of the hardware OS or more directly via Chrome OS/Android+Google Play Services. And their financial interest in that is almost exclusively to get data about us to run ads at us, and to the extent possible prevent or hinder avoidance of that harvest or those ads. It's not just that I don't want an ad company to make my operating system, I don't want an internet-required OS at all. And I want a wide variety of software with zero WAN dependency beyond maybe initial delivery somewhere in the chain. If that's not something you're interested in fine, but lots of us will remain willing to put our money where our mouths are on that one. I also disagree that Safari is "holding the web back" because I like simple, readable and parseable websites.
- city41 6y ago
  You're conflating two issues. Chromium's dominance is a problem for sure, but that is separate from the web being an open platform. The web is more open than Linux (which I use btw) because a web app can run on Linux, MacOS, Windows, FreeBSD, Android, iOS and more without recompiling, redistributing or re-anything. Would it be nice if it wasn't HTML/JS/CSS based? Absolutely. But we gotta take what we can get. I couldn't agree more that Google's dominance in web technology is a problem. But you're throwing the baby out with the bath water. And just to add, the current situation is still better than proprietary native apps on MacOS and Windows. I can at least use Chromium in many forms and on virtually any operating system. Not ideal, but the alternative people in this thread are suggesting is far worse.

kd913 6y ago

>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. The thing that currently is holding Google from extreme derivations is actually Microsoft's edgium I think. Microsoft is one of the few companies out there with enough resources to hold a hostile fork of Chromium capable of easy/fast adoption. If Chromium decides to do something ridiculously egregious. It is possible for it to 1) not affect Microsoft browsers or 2) for Microsoft to maintain a fork and win marketshare fast.