5 ms·

While I agree with almost all of your comment--particularly strongly with regards to the way Apple has hobbled the web as a competitor to their App Store platfo

by saurik 5y ago

While I agree with almost all of your comment--particularly strongly with regards to the way Apple has hobbled the web as a competitor to their App Store platforms, but notably also with respect to Firefox being locked out here--given your first phrase, it is worth at least considering the argument that the only reason why there is currently any "competition in web browsers" at all is Apple being a stubborn asshole about the whole thing, as otherwise it feels highly likely that everyone, everywhere, on every single platform, would be using Chrome...

ginko 5y ago
Safari is just Webkit like Chrome and Edge. The only real competition is Firefox.
- doublerabbit 5y ago
  With Google providing Firefox with life-support.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  Technically Chrome forked off WebKit a few years back and Edge (and most other browsers) use that. I do wonder how different Blink and WebKit are at this point considering there’s quite a bit of manpower behind Blink.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    Blink gets many times more manpower than WebKit, it is also used by new IE, which assures Google the veto power on any new browser API.
- agust 5y ago
  Any web developer would tell you that nowadays Blink (Google's WebKit fork) and WebKit are very different. Blink has more features than WebKit, and less bugs. So with Gecko (Firefox's engine) we really have three different browser engines nowadays.
  - tremon 5y ago
    Firefox' engine is called Quantum nowadays. Not sure how much of the original Gecko code still exists in its depths though.
    - ksec 5y ago
      The engine is still called Gecko. Quantum was the project name that try ( and succeeded ) to bring components from Servo to Gecko. Where Servo was the experimental engine written in Rust.
- tomxor 5y ago
  > Safari is just Webkit like Chrome and Edge This incorrect, Blink (chromium) forked from webkit in 2013. Blink has significantly diverged from webkit over the last decade, they are very different layout engines today. Also this only applies to the layout engine, the JS engines and web APIs are entirely different. They are pretty much completely different browser engines today.
agust 5y ago
If apple was forced to allow competition in browser engines on iOS and wanted to keep some market share for Safari, then they would have to compete fairly with Chrome. So maybe they would start investing some real money in Safari's development and add the features everyone is using Chrome for? Maybe they'd also develop Android and Windows versions of Safari, like a normal browser trying to get market share would do?
- defaultname 5y ago
  "So maybe they would start investing some real money in Safari's development and add the features everyone is using Chrome for?" This sentence is interesting given that Safari is faster in virtually every single usage model. Safari is lighter on memory. Safari is far more efficient from a CPU cycle perspective (ergo battery life). Particularly notable, iOS web browsing is overrepresented on the web versus marketshare. "Everyone" is using Chrome because it was the browser in the early 2000s that they used on their Windows box. Do you think Chrome has made a particularly compelling argument over the past five to ten years? It's the incumbent that has been coasting on inertia. What "features" are people using Chrome for? What do you think iOS users are being deprived of? Notifications from web apps? Yeah, no. I have serious grievances with Apple's restrictions on their platforms, and some of these walls will fall at the hands of government demands, however iOS users are being deprived little by not having a full version of Chrome.
  - ginko 5y ago
    >What "features" are people using Chrome for? What do you think iOS users are being deprived of? I'm not a chrome user(I prefer Firefox) but viewing WEBMs for one. Proper ublock origin support as well.
    - defaultname 5y ago
      Chrome on Android doesn't support extensions at all, so that kind of invalidates that. Indeed, Chrome on Android is rather a piece of shit, so it's remarkable reading a thread by someone claiming that if only they could bring this to iOS they'd be winning. As to WebM, zero users are missing the lack of WebM. WebM was Google trying to boot-stomp a codec that offered virtually no compelling story for their own reasons, while offering a worse experience for the vast majority of users (e.g. worse energy profile given that little hardware has full hardware support).

by saurik 5y ago

ginko 5y ago

Safari is just Webkit like Chrome and Edge. The only real competition is Firefox.

doublerabbit 5y ago
With Google providing Firefox with life-support.
vlovich123 5y ago
Technically Chrome forked off WebKit a few years back and Edge (and most other browsers) use that. I do wonder how different Blink and WebKit are at this point considering there’s quite a bit of manpower behind Blink.
- baybal2 5y ago
  Blink gets many times more manpower than WebKit, it is also used by new IE, which assures Google the veto power on any new browser API.
agust 5y ago
Any web developer would tell you that nowadays Blink (Google's WebKit fork) and WebKit are very different. Blink has more features than WebKit, and less bugs. So with Gecko (Firefox's engine) we really have three different browser engines nowadays.
- tremon 5y ago
  Firefox' engine is called Quantum nowadays. Not sure how much of the original Gecko code still exists in its depths though.
  - ksec 5y ago
    The engine is still called Gecko. Quantum was the project name that try ( and succeeded ) to bring components from Servo to Gecko. Where Servo was the experimental engine written in Rust.
tomxor 5y ago
> Safari is just Webkit like Chrome and Edge This incorrect, Blink (chromium) forked from webkit in 2013. Blink has significantly diverged from webkit over the last decade, they are very different layout engines today. Also this only applies to the layout engine, the JS engines and web APIs are entirely different. They are pretty much completely different browser engines today.

agust 5y ago

If apple was forced to allow competition in browser engines on iOS and wanted to keep some market share for Safari, then they would have to compete fairly with Chrome. So maybe they would start investing some real money in Safari's development and add the features everyone is using Chrome for? Maybe they'd also develop Android and Windows versions of Safari, like a normal browser trying to get market share would do?

defaultname 5y ago
"So maybe they would start investing some real money in Safari's development and add the features everyone is using Chrome for?" This sentence is interesting given that Safari is faster in virtually every single usage model. Safari is lighter on memory. Safari is far more efficient from a CPU cycle perspective (ergo battery life). Particularly notable, iOS web browsing is overrepresented on the web versus marketshare. "Everyone" is using Chrome because it was the browser in the early 2000s that they used on their Windows box. Do you think Chrome has made a particularly compelling argument over the past five to ten years? It's the incumbent that has been coasting on inertia. What "features" are people using Chrome for? What do you think iOS users are being deprived of? Notifications from web apps? Yeah, no. I have serious grievances with Apple's restrictions on their platforms, and some of these walls will fall at the hands of government demands, however iOS users are being deprived little by not having a full version of Chrome.
- ginko 5y ago
  >What "features" are people using Chrome for? What do you think iOS users are being deprived of? I'm not a chrome user(I prefer Firefox) but viewing WEBMs for one. Proper ublock origin support as well.
  - defaultname 5y ago
    Chrome on Android doesn't support extensions at all, so that kind of invalidates that. Indeed, Chrome on Android is rather a piece of shit, so it's remarkable reading a thread by someone claiming that if only they could bring this to iOS they'd be winning. As to WebM, zero users are missing the lack of WebM. WebM was Google trying to boot-stomp a codec that offered virtually no compelling story for their own reasons, while offering a worse experience for the vast majority of users (e.g. worse energy profile given that little hardware has full hardware support).