17 ms·

“Safari's buggy” is valid criticism, “Safari's behind Chrome in features” is not

173 points by dmitriid 5y ago

Alex3917 5y ago
> Imagine a small company trying to write their own web browser from scratch nowadays. It's just not possible! PrinceXML seems to be doing reasonably well. Yeah, they're never going to catch up to Chrome, but they've been adding one or two new browser features every day for the last several years. And they have less than a dozen developers.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  Doesn't that only convert to pdf? Most modern features are interactive features, like Ajax and add-on APIs. I doubt we'll ever see an interactive facebook.com in pdf, though I'm sure Adobe would love to make it happen.
dmitriid 5y ago
Lars Knoll is one of the main authors of KHTML, the foundation for both WebKit (powers Safari) and Blink (powers Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge). And he has this to say about this Twitter thread [1]: --- start quote --- He’s absolutely right. Implementing a browser engine from scratch was a lot of work in 1999/2000, it’s close to impossible today. --- end quote --- [1] https://twitter.com/LarsKnoll/status/1421121639845187585 https://twitter.com/LarsKnoll/status/1421121639845187585
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  I've never understood the thought process that browsers need to be implementable from scratch cheaply, in general. Browsers are the new OS. Most attempts at a feature-complete OS that is able to run software intended for other OSes would be incredibly expensive. Plan 9's been in development for over 29 years, and it's still niche.
  - carlosrg 5y ago
    Right. Having the big three engines released as open source, where everyone can make a fork or use them like Microsoft is doing with Chromium, I don’t see the point.
    - mrweasel 5y ago
      My concern would be that Google decides that WebKit/Blink is a dead end and creates a new rendering engine, and not making it open source. Mozilla can just about keep up with new feature, but even Microsoft just gave up and uses Blink. Also what’s the point of standards if nobody can realisticly implement them? Yes, I can see that Apple perhaps isn’t giving WebKit sufficient attention, but Google and Chromiums dominans is the bigger problem.
      - asddubs 5y ago
        I think google is very happy with their current model of having everyone just ship blink. It means they control what the web can and can't do not just in their own browser, but many others. None of those browsers are running hard forks And sure, you could disable an API or this and that feature, but it means you're spending a lot of time to keep reintegrating upstream, because google changes a lot of things all the time, so you really have to pick and choose what diversions you afford yourself. you can poke around the brave repo a bit to see the devs bemoan that.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      Even Microsoft with their unlimited money and resources couldn't afford to develop their own engine. Even with the fork they can't keep up: https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence Mozilla survives by whatever money Google is giving them, laid off most of their staff and shut down development on engine improvements like Servo (whether you like it or not, Servo is dead). That leaves WebKit as almost the only meaningful opposition in the face of Chrome's onslaught. And it's going to get worse.
  - tannhaeuser 5y ago
- c7DJTLrn 5y ago
  It's basically a VM with a monstrously complicated ISA.
  - layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
    * and probably the most inefficient
- snet0 5y ago
  A small independent team would probably struggle to build an SUV, too. This is not an argument on its own, why is it important?
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    Websites are either made to only be as good as what the worst browser can render or needs enough developer time to work around it. In other words as if speed limits were set to 10mph on highways because my crap SUV dictate the road for everyone around me. The argument gets turned on its head when using a car analogy though. If only Google-sized companies can build a modern rendering engine then they dictate the web (and they rarely agree with users on what's important). If Ford could dictate roads they would make them impossible to drive on in other cars - or if Google did they would mandate only cars with RoadAd™ turned on, if Apple did only cars with iTires™ and so on. It's the road that gets dictated by the big companies like Apple and Google, not the cars. Roads luckily work just fine in an old or low-production car, unlike the web.
    - snet0 5y ago
      The argument that Google basically decides what a browser looks like is interesting. The negatives are often theoretical, "what if they just built ads into the engine" or privacy-oriented "they slurp your data". I pretty strongly believe that Google (and perhaps Apple in some respects) pushed the web far beyond where it could've stagnated, probably for self-oriented purposes. If you want to see a browser without selfish advancements, compare IE11 to its contemporaries, on their release and then after a few years. Microsoft had no reason to force new technology into their browser experience, so they didn't, and their browser turned into a boring antique. You mention that "[Google] rarely agree with users on what's important", but I'm not sure that's true. I think the HN crowd, and those adjacent to it, often disagree with Google's practices, but my intuition is that Google's browser changes have been effectively silent improvements for the vast majority of users. If you installed a massively outdated version of Chrome on a random user's phone or PC, they'd probably be almost immediately upset at some missing feature or function. At some point, these selfish advancements either become obsolete via the "official" way of doing things being implemented, or become themselves part of the spec. Should Google, Apple et al. have this much control over the future of the browser spec? My instinct is "of course not", but when I think about the history of the web, and how important these selfish decisions have been, it becomes harder to decide. My original point you're replying to was moreso "why should a small independant team be able to build a browser", and I'm not sure you replied to that.
rektide 5y ago
Safari can do what it wants, but telling every iphone user they can only have a low-feature, web-lite, period, is batshit insanity. This is absolutely a colossal anti-trust violation, doing colossal harm to society at large, keeping the web from being viable again and again, with it taking years to support WebRTC, years to supoprt ServiceWorkers, years to support every single thing, and the gap seemingly growing. This is a huge abuse of colossal market position, restricting the internet itself from competing with a closed platform, purely because it benefits Apple not to allow the situation to be fixed. Their warchest is huge, they could participate in calls to implement, could ship features, but they dont. Even if they did, I would still prefer users not to be locked in to a monoculture, to have to use a specific browser. This rhetoric that the standards bodies have been usurped is insanity, is bedlam. Show some evidence, make a case. No one does. This age keeps being swept by cheap, lying, low-grade dismissive politicians & schucksters selling popularist rage, and this post is some low quality grade-A unsupported zeal-filled techie-politics rage. It's not true. Standards bodies are alive and well. TAG is still elected, of good healthy techie stock, who review each of the various efforts & emphasize the better critiques & raise their own. The only selling out that's happened is that the ad-industry keeps Google from doing good things, and sells to sow dissent that someone is trying to ratchet up privacy, which Google has been slowly doing (yes to the benefit of their search engine, but first party traffic ought to have privileges over third party traffic). Standards work is hard as heck. There is not enough participation, there are not enough players funding standards work. But I don't see people being blocked, people being cut out from the work. I see Apple standing aside usually & silently refusing the calls to implement. I see not enough people participating. But chalking this up to conspiracy & the web being sold out? Please. These techies care. They want a better web, genuinely. They are trying, really hard. Everything happens in the open, in documented meetings. Trying to ascribe conspiracy & great machinations to this is sickening, is revolting disinformation. Do not market yourself on selling distrust & doubt in the world; do ally yourself with those who do foment & tear down & sow doubts (especially so out of hand, so very lacking a case).
- layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
  If this is such an important issue for you, then you shouldn’t buy an iPhone. Simple as.
remram 5y ago
As a Linux developer, I can test my site in Firefox and Chrome (including on my CI). I can't test it in Safari. The fact that it differs the most makes it a real pain. I don't really care whether an iOS developer considers this "invalid". My apps support platforms that I can afford to test on, and those that are compatible.
- yongjik 5y ago
  I don't know how faithful it is, but I recently discovered playwright and it contains a webkit build (even on Linux) which is (in theory) close enough to Safari for web UI testing.
  - bkallus 5y ago
    suckless.org's surf could work too.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  I understand why Apple is doing it, but what does it hurt if I develop for Safari on Windows? Oh no you have to compile the app and support on Windows? Gimme a break. $1 Trillion company and they can't make that work is nothing short of a joke. The OS wars are nothing like they were in the 90s. Apple really needs to wake the hell up. Steve Balmer said it best: "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!"
  - woah 5y ago
    And Steve Ballmer really backed that up by making it possible to compile and test Windows and Microsoft products on every Linux distribution
  - dTal 5y ago
    >I understand why Apple is doing it Do you? It sounds like you're implying that they can't do it, despite also pointing out that they easily could.
    - 5y ago
Permit 5y ago
> I personally think we should abolish JavaScript and not allow arbitrary remotely loaded code to execute on our computers. > "I want web sites to do everything a native app can do" is a suicidal mistake. If you think you're ceding a lot of power to Google and Apple when it comes to browsers, I fail to see how "That webapp you're building can't use Javascript so build it in Objective-C/Swift for iOS instead" would cede less power to Apple. At least I don't need Apple's approval to build my website...
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  I also fail to understand how "lets install native code to run on our OS" results in more security and privacy. The browser is inherently more locked down than native apps. A Facebook app on your computer can read anything on it without any pesky browser security and privacy features getting in the way.
  - fnordsensei 5y ago
    The Twitter thread isn’t discussing security or privacy. It’s discussing who (effectively) controls web standards right now, and who should do so in the future.
  - threeseed 5y ago
    > A Facebook app on your computer can read anything on it without any pesky browser security and privacy features getting in the way This is not true, at least on OSX. It will ask the user to confirm whether the app is allowed to read/write to key locations e.g. Documents, Photos as well as access key sources of data e.g. Contacts.
    - smorgusofborg 5y ago
      That just leads to decision exhausted users saying yes by accident. Traditional browser policy errs more on the side of not making things that are too often dangerous especially if they are rarely beneficial over safer flows. Trying to make progressive web apps do whatever an app can do is basically being bug for bug compatible with bad ideas that sound "convenient".
paxys 5y ago
These arguments are all backwards. Yes an independent small-time developer cannot create a browser engine from scratch today, but Apple does not fall into that category. Their choices with Safari are not born out of lack of resources or expertise but deliberate planning. Yes large companies have seized control over the web from W3C. Apple is one of those large companies. They refuse to follow standards that they themselves dictate for others. Yes pushing more features to the web is going to result in loss of privacy. But Apple doesn't want vanilla websites, they want developers to make iOS apps (gated behind their store) which are worse in every way. Plus it doesn't address the biggest argument, which is that even if you say Apple can do whatever it wants with Safari, what is their rationale for blocking other browsers on iOS? It sure isn't because Apple loves the open web.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  > Yes large companies have seized control over the web from W3C The W3C is a consortium, that's what the "C" stands for. Said consortium is comprised of "very large companies" and it always has been. That's the point: cooperative game-theory.
  - paxys 5y ago
    That is not how it has always been. For most of its history W3C was run by scientists, universities and government agencies. Google/Apple/Microsoft came much later.
    - austincheney 5y ago
      Follow the money. For most of its history you had to pay to participate. Yes, their work products and discussions were fully in the open, but you had to be invited to participate if you weren’t employed by a funding enterprise.
    - wil421 5y ago
      The internet (Arpanet) was invented by the US Government and Universities that worked with them. The www (Tim Bernes-Lee) was created at CERN (scientists) and won out things to other things like Gopher and BBSes. The telcos almost won the wires for voice instead of IP based systems. It’s been a mix of Government, Scientists, University Academics, and corporations since the late 80s/early 90s if not sooner. AOL got the masses on the web and things like Prodigy existed before them. AOL is more akin to Facebook nowadays.
felixfbecker 5y ago
I stopped reading at "I personally think we should abolish JavaScript"
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  ColdFusion developers getting testy I see
- coldtea 5y ago
  Lest you learn something you disagree with?
  - opheliate 5y ago
    When saying "Safari's behind Chrome in features" is not a valid criticism, the fact that the author is opposed to JavaScript is a massive caveat, since the feature disparity will likely come down to differences in the APIs available in JS. I'm personally extremely worried about the fact that Chromium's eating the world, but if you're dictating what is and is not a valid criticism of the browser space, and you're starting from the premise that browsers shouldn't have JS, it's not surprising that some people aren't interested in what you have to say.
Camillo 5y ago
"It becomes too hard for a small team to write a browser" can't be both the horrible dystopia you're trying to avert and the catastrophe from a few years ago that you're still mad about.
- rvz 5y ago
  > "It becomes too hard for a small team to write a browser" But a browser that is 'Written in Rust™' which that runs blazingly fast, prevents segfaults, and guarantees thread safety can save us right? That should also be a 'selling point' to challenge browsers written in unsafe languages right? /s
akerl_ 5y ago
I think I must be missing something. Is the case here that Mozilla (an entity whose primary active project is a browser) and Apple (one of the largest tech companies in the world) can’t be expected to compete with Google in terms of features for their browsers? I was already hesitant at the idea of somebody on Twitter telling me which criticisms are “valid”, but that premise threw me entirely.
- dTal 5y ago
  What you're missing is that Google implementing a "feature" doesn't automatically make it a desirable thing to have. Competing doesn't mean slavishly imitating the whims of the market leader, always a step behind.
  - akerl_ 5y ago
    I feel like this is whatever the opposite of tautological is? If Google implements a feature for Chrome and I find it desirable as a user, am I not allowed to say “I wish Safari had this feature”? Why would somebody ever criticize Safari for lacking a feature they don’t desire?
- masterof0 5y ago
  I feel you, I'm a macOS user, and I love using Safari, but for Linux users/developers , not being able to test their web apps in Safari, just because they don't have access to a Mac, is ridiculous. If I were in that position, I would not support Safari, until I can afford a Mac, or just throw a warning banner in my site for Safari users.
  - vagrantJin 5y ago
    > I feel you, I'm a macOS user, and I love using Safari, but for Linux users/developers , not being able to test their web apps in Safari, just because they don't have access to a Mac, is ridiculous I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but did you just feign empathy on linux developers and casually leave out the biggest developer group which happens to use Windows?
zarzavat 5y ago
Is there a name for this fallacy? To say that an argument you disagree with is not "valid criticism" and therefore can be safely ignored. Surely if I believe that browsers should have many features, then criticising Safari for being behind is valid criticism.
- viktorcode 5y ago
  it isn't a fallacy; it is a proposition, not a logical conclusion. One can agree or disagree with the proposition.
debaserab2 5y ago
Any time I look at the new features in Chrome, I ask myself, "whose actually using this stuff?". Even though Firefox usually keeps pace pretty well it's pretty common for implementations to differ, and thus you're on the hook for browser quirk issues in any new feature you adopt immediately. Not to mention I've always had the anchor that is IE to temper any hastiness to use a feature (even if you simply don't implement the feature for IE, that's still an extra error state to handle unless you're willing to drop IE support altogether). It can't even be 1% of websites out there embracing this stuff. I'm guessing the biggest consumer for most of the new features in Chrome is probably Google web developers. There's quite a lot of things that only end up half implemented, too. Although the RFC these days seems to just be a design spec doc for Google, I suspect you could carve it down to less than half of what it is and render 99.9% of websites out there just fine.
- layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
  >whose actually using this stuff? Some Google engineer’s promotion case.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  By IE you don't mean Edge I'm guessing. Do you still develop with support for IE? I haven't seen it as a requirement for some time. I hardly even look at sites in it these days. At most I add a Browser not supported banner and test that in IE.
- Griffinsauce 5y ago
  > It can't even be 1% of websites out there embracing this stuff. This is all good but it's also a chicken and egg problem. The lack of web push notifications for one of the two major mobile platforms will prevent that feature from being used + any adjacent features that would be used in more viable web apps. In my opinion, nearly all good-guy arguments for Apple in this debate are negated by them not implementing that single feature. It is not new, obviously useful, obviously not a privacy concern and obviously blocked because it might impact their app store revenue.
  - tommek4077 5y ago
emodendroket 5y ago
Our computers would be even safer if we airgapped all of them and never ran any new software.
- dTal 5y ago
  Our brains would be safer too. I think you're onto something!
Dotnaught 5y ago
The salient issue with Safari is where lack of feature parity coincides with Apple's business interest in maintaining control over its App Store and keeping native APIs ahead of web APIs. The situation is similar for Chrome with regard to APIs that dovetail with Google's business interests (e.g. Manifest v3 extension APIs and content blocking).
smoldesu 5y ago
> The web is not "open" if nobody new can write a web browser engine. It's the illusion of openness. Remind me, can I write a new browser engine for iOS if I wanted?
maxxxxxx 5y ago
I can’t believe we’re still in this postion. 20 years ago, a fresh new browser entered the market that blew the competition away: Internet Explorer 6. It’s hard to overemphasize what a crapfest the browser scene had been up to that point. Netscape was a buggy mess (remember Netscape Gold?) 5 years later, everyone hated IE 6. It was the new browser to hate. It was a buggy non-compliant mess, much as Safari is now. And again a new browser shook up the scene: Phoenix (which would later become Firefox). Later, Chrome entered the market. It’s the superior browser now. Browsers come and go.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > Browsers come and go. Here's what one of the main authors of KHTML has to say about this: https://twitter.com/LarsKnoll/status/1421121639845187585 https://twitter.com/LarsKnoll/status/1421121639845187585 20 years ago you needed a fraction of what is in a modern browser today. And it's getting worse. Chrome ships 40 to 70 new Web APIs every 40 days or so: https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence
  - mrweasel 5y ago
    It’s somewhat terrifying that a single person or a small team can develop an operating system, with a GUI, but won’t be able to create a modern web browser to run on the same OS.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      The Web seems to be in an unenviable position of needing both: - an insurmountable amount of work for backwards compatibility, and - an insurmountable amount of work to keep up with the torrent of new features added to it
code_duck 5y ago
The author’s conclusion is that due to the current situation being non-optimal, we should give up on browsers all together? I’m not sure what exactly he is proposing as it’s obviously too late to turn the clock back on the existence of interactive web sites. I don’t expect small developers to be able to make a top-notch browser engine any more than I expect them to make software equivalent to Photoshop or Final Fantasy XIV. Standards are there to guide compatibility between products of large players and content producers. Apple is not a small company compared to Google or anyone; they’re merely not trying very hard. Mozilla is somehow doing a decent job despite not having $300 billion in cash stashed away. I do believe that browsers doing what native apps can do is reasonable and useful. The arguments about security are not particularly persuasive. The biggest threats to mobile security currently seem to be apps in official app stores.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > I don’t expect small developers to be able to make a top-notch browser engine any more than I expect them to make software equivalent to Photoshop Procreate. Acorn. Pixelmator. Affinity. All small developers. All successful and eating a chunk of Photoshop's lunch. Sketch and Figma outright stole Adobe's lunch. > or Final Fantasy XIV. Not all games have to be FFXIV to be enjoyable or playable. And indie games are thriving. However, you require a fully-features browser to browse the modern web.
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    >However, you require a fully-features browser to browse the modern web. That isn't really true since if it were we wouldn't have had the problem of IE back in the day or Safari today.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      I don't understand your logic. Since 1999 we've added anything from flexbox and grids to CSS to web components to DOM to classes, sets, symbols, workers etc. to Javascript. Even things like standardizing HTML rendering didn't happen until mid 00s. Fire up a VM and run the modern web in IE 6. You'll fond a surprising number of browsers failing in subtle and not--so-subtle ways.
robbrown451 5y ago
"Imagine a small company trying to write their own web browser from scratch nowadays. It's just not possible! " Imagine the much more common case of a small company (or individual) trying to make a useful app that is available to everyone. If they can make it in a browser, it's possible, if they have to make it for every proprietary platform (iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux...).... often impossible. I'm happy that web browsers can do a lot. Many of the "security nightmare" arguments don't make sense. It wouldn't be a security nightmare if, for instance, Safari could allow a MIDI keyboard to talk to the web browser as it does in Chrome (ignoring Sysex support, which is the security excuse for holding it back.... there is very little need for that in a browser). God forbid I want to do a piano learning app. This is just one of many examples that may not affect you, but affects some subset of apps. (there are tons more, that one happens to affect my app) People are quick to say "I don't need that in a web browser", but you could say that about just about anything, for instance camera support. I do look forward to a day when most apps run in a browser rather than having to be platform specific, or require giant teams of developers to be cross platform.
- timw4mail 5y ago
  The more features in browser engines, the fewer platforms the browsers work on.
  - robbrown451 5y ago
    How so? That doesn't make sense. I mean, if a platform doesn't support something, I wouldn't expect the browser to support it. Even if they decide that it is too hard to support a particular feature on a particular platform, doesn't mean they have to simply abandon the platform. They just don't support the feature.
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    The most feature rich browser engine (Chromium) is the one with most adaptation across all the most used platforms so that doesn't make sense unless you count users from something like AmigaOS and TVs and in that way get Firefox out on top by purely counting platforms. Otherwise Chromium on Windows, Mac and Linux beats anyone else by a mile.
dang 5y ago
Recent and related: A critique of Safari's influence on the web - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27985783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27985783 - July 2021 (184 comments)
freediver 5y ago
> Imagine a small company trying to write their own web browser from scratch nowadays. Lets distinguish between browser frameworks (Chromium, Firefox) and web rendering engines (WebKit, Blink, Gecko). Three rendering engines is more than enough. It is the lack of diversity in browsers that is problematic. Most browsers use Chromium browser framework (which includes Blink rendering engine). Several use Firefox (Gecko). We are using WebKit and building our own browser from scratch. When I say from scratch that means literally every little feature, menu item, setting, interaction like a toolbar button etc.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  >Three rendering engines is more than enough. It is the lack of diversity in browsers that is problematic. No, it is the lack of diversity in rendering engine that is problematic. When one rendering engine can dictate the web then it makes no sense to point to the rest of the browser as the point of need for more diversity. Chromium and every browser that uses it is part of the problem here. Using Brave for example is just as bad for diversity and the free web as using Chrome itself, likely worse as most users have no idea they are part of a problem even if they are aware it exists.
  - freediver 5y ago
    I beg to differ. Google/Chrome dictates the Web, not Blink (Chrome/Chromium's rendering engine). The most popular browser and its parent company are in this position. For example Chrome may abandon Blink and switch to a new rendering engine in the future (it already did this once switching from/forking WebKit). Or if Microsoft Edge became the most popular browser in the world, then Microsoft would be in position to dictate the web. This is why we need a fast, capable, privacy-respecting, no BS, no ads or tracking browser with a sustainable business model, using whichever rendering engine (preferably one that is also well designed and fast) to come out.
    - Dah00n 5y ago
      Google dictates the direction no matter if you look at blink or chromium. If Google wants to dictate a future where Brave cannot possibly do the work on chromium to implement their features because Google turned the code in a direction demanding too many development hours then they can easily do so. I completely agree with your last paragraph but using something Google in the end is controlling is closer to a honeypot than a solution. What we need is "a fast, capable, privacy-respecting, no BS, no ads or tracking browser with a sustainable business model, using whichever rendering engine (preferably one that is also well designed and fast)" on the market that isn't controlled by a big corporation like Google, Microsoft or Apple. Sure it might be doable with blink but why on earth pick a fight where the opponent basically desides the rules? It's like pissing against the wind. I very much doubt it will succeed and if it does it will likely just swap Google out with another corporate entity (like Microsoft). We need a rendering engine made by someone like Mozilla (or better) to succeed if the open web is ever going to be a reality.
PetahNZ 5y ago
Safari is a bane of my life. Simple things just dont work. Like svg rendering just doesn't work unless you display none then block. It's been years since this was reported.
Griffinsauce 5y ago
> Imagine a small company trying to write their own web browser from scratch nowadays. It's just not possible! This is also because the web has a firing problem. APIs and features barely get deprecated, even when they are obviously superceded. When they do its years and years after the fact. We also just except whacky quirks instead of fixing them and moving on. A very clear example: we do not need CSS float anymore. It can be removed with zero impact on the development of new websites. There's a new proposal for date-time features that replace the Date class. Except it won't, they will coexist and you have to support the Date class and all its bullshit indefinitely. Do we really need anything other than template literals for strings? I'm not sure what the solution is to these but an ever-growing spec seems like a big part of the problem to me.
- cdirkx 5y ago
  A new implementation could choose to not add those older features, but there will always be some websites that still rely on them. Who is going to use a website that isn't able to display the sites they want?
  - Griffinsauce 5y ago
    Exactly, this problem is not acknowledged or codified so we have no choice but to indefinitely support everything. > Who is going to use a [browser] that isn't able to display the sites they want? Everybody who has more to gain than to lose from it. The perfect solution would of course avoid this problem somehow.
- graftak 5y ago
  We don’t need css float for layout hacks anymore, but it’s intended purpose to wrap text around an element is still a valid use case.
encryptluks2 5y ago
This further convinces me that Apple users are experiencing Stockholm Syndrome.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
so I stopped reading after I learned: Apple has too much control over the web, we should build native apps, and nobody can compete with Google Chrome - including Apple. I do agree that Safari is not actually lacking in features too much though, it has features the other browsers don't have. Features that Apple felt were important to develop for Safari.
nanis 5y ago
Note, the original tweet is no longer available[1]: > Why did someone post my tweet on Hacker News? > It's not news! It's not an announcement of anything. It doesn't contain any novel information. > If anyone on HN is reading this tweet, post a link telling people to stop discussing my other tweet please. :-) [1]: https://twitter.com/lapcatsoftware/status/1421251328144297987 https://twitter.com/lapcatsoftware/status/142125132814429798...
- jefftk 5y ago
  > > Why did someone post my tweet on Hacker News? HN discusses opinion posts regularly, including ones posted on Twitter, and this one is on a topic lots of people here are interested in.
  - nanis 5y ago
    Just so there is no doubt, I am NOT @lapcatsoftware. I just went to look for the tweet referenced here and I noticed this, so I am relaying it here. I have a feeling anyone reading the discussion here does understand the idea behind HN. If you did want to engage @lapcatsoftware, you may want to do it on Twitter.
    - jefftk 5y ago
      I know you're not ;) Hence the ">>" I don't do Twitter, so that won't be me
- jessaustin 5y ago
  I can't tell whether that's a joke. People on Twitter are often funny, so it could be a joke. However, people on Twitter are also often clueless, so there could be a genuine desire to publicly post a controversial opinion without that opinion inspiring public conversation.
  - wila 5y ago
    It's not a joke and he certainly isn't clueless.
jansan 5y ago
Safari should not be the only browser option on iOS. Microsoft was fined millions for integrating their Internet Explorer too deeply into Windows, why is Apple allowed to act like this? This would solve the problem very quickly either by users migrating to another browser or by Apple feeling enough pressure to actually care.
parksy 5y ago
As a developer who started noodling on 8 bit BASIC, the power of a web browser that is essentially a universal, network-capable application engine is beyond amazing. As a user, the constant misuse of dark patterns and the glut of careless unoptimized and insecure code and coders is nightmare fuel. Consider I grew up coding, trying to explain modern websites and web applications my folks is simply painful because quite often it just doesn't make sense. A lot of UX never actually asked a user how they want it to work, or disregarded their input. The best websites for me are still those which adhere to pre web 2.0 design patterns. I find them easier to navigate and use, ie old reddit vs new - the new design doesn't bring anything useful other than nagware to register and install the app - reading a thread and click outside the main area by mistake, it navigates you back in history and you wait 10 seconds for all the ajax to finish popping into place. My old online banking interface was a simple list of my accounts and balances with links to common functions. The "new" app-inspired interface hides everything under animated menus and ugly graphs I don't need to want, while constant monte-carlo simulations mean basic features always move; my wife and I often have completely different UX, it's just another annoying half-baked web app with ajax popping in and out all over the place. There's good stuff and well design applications of course. Shadertoy is amazing. For music there's fully-fledged DAW's in the browser - fantastic! Collaborative document editing in real time, brilliant! But I think I am down with the concept of a different engine or mode for "web surfing" vs "web application execution" - it's a completely arbitrary distinction I know, but as a user I've got a completely different set of wants and needs when I'm just surfing, vs when I need an "application."
kevincox 5y ago
It has been deleted: http://web.archive.org/web/20210731083006/https://twitter.com/lapcatsoftware/status/1421078387376918529 http://web.archive.org/web/20210731083006/https://twitter.co...
- cryptoquick 5y ago
  Not sure why. It's a very valid point.
amelius 5y ago
Google: "embrace, extend" Apple: "extinguish" Google strongly depends on the web. Apple wants everybody to move to native Apps instead. If you want to know which company to trust, look at their incentives.
sdze 5y ago
JavaScript use should be limited. HTML should be enhanced with the feature set provided by the library HTMX.
adam_arthur 5y ago
I don't understand the Apple fanboys that continually defend their clearly monopolistic position. Google and Apple are both anti-competitive in different ways. A distinction needs to be made in regards to the anti competitive nature of controlling a large walled garden, and network effect stickiness. Anti-trust laws will catch up and lead to regulation of big tech. Though, we may actually see something soon with Apple depending on how the Epic case resolves.
dewanto 5y ago
Google strategy is WebApps. Apple strategy is NativeApps with AppStore. Microsoft strategy is half-half. ... Google workers complain Safari bad. That's their job. So, business as usual
rado 5y ago
Yes! Thank you.
ksec 5y ago
Does anyone has a summary or back up of the tweet? I am late and It is now deleted.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mmis1000 5y ago
> Imagine a small company trying to write their own web browser from scratch nowadays. It's just not possible! Tencent do has one pretty much spec compliance browser engine (X5) for their own use. (Obviously not a small company either) It is also a mobile only browser used mostly in China (so you are unlikely to test it during dev) And I only got a few incompatibility reports from it (like 2 or 3?). Compares to the nightmare on safari (dozens of bugs), it actually works surprisingly good.
sam0x17 5y ago
IMO if it's buggy, you _are_ behind in features, because those features aren't really done yet -- they are buggy.

173 points by dmitriid 5y ago

> Imagine a small company trying to write their own web browser from scratch nowadays. It's just not possible! PrinceXML seems to be doing reasonably well. Yeah, they're never going to catch up to Chrome, but they've been adding one or two new browser features every day for the last several years. And they have less than a dozen developers.

Dah00n 5y ago
Doesn't that only convert to pdf? Most modern features are interactive features, like Ajax and add-on APIs. I doubt we'll ever see an interactive facebook.com in pdf, though I'm sure Adobe would love to make it happen.

dmitriid 5y ago

Lars Knoll is one of the main authors of KHTML, the foundation for both WebKit (powers Safari) and Blink (powers Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge). And he has this to say about this Twitter thread [1]: --- start quote --- He’s absolutely right. Implementing a browser engine from scratch was a lot of work in 1999/2000, it’s close to impossible today. --- end quote --- [1] https://twitter.com/LarsKnoll/status/1421121639845187585 https://twitter.com/LarsKnoll/status/1421121639845187585

shadowgovt 5y ago
I've never understood the thought process that browsers need to be implementable from scratch cheaply, in general. Browsers are the new OS. Most attempts at a feature-complete OS that is able to run software intended for other OSes would be incredibly expensive. Plan 9's been in development for over 29 years, and it's still niche.
- carlosrg 5y ago
  Right. Having the big three engines released as open source, where everyone can make a fork or use them like Microsoft is doing with Chromium, I don’t see the point.
  - mrweasel 5y ago
    My concern would be that Google decides that WebKit/Blink is a dead end and creates a new rendering engine, and not making it open source. Mozilla can just about keep up with new feature, but even Microsoft just gave up and uses Blink. Also what’s the point of standards if nobody can realisticly implement them? Yes, I can see that Apple perhaps isn’t giving WebKit sufficient attention, but Google and Chromiums dominans is the bigger problem.
    - asddubs 5y ago
      I think google is very happy with their current model of having everyone just ship blink. It means they control what the web can and can't do not just in their own browser, but many others. None of those browsers are running hard forks And sure, you could disable an API or this and that feature, but it means you're spending a lot of time to keep reintegrating upstream, because google changes a lot of things all the time, so you really have to pick and choose what diversions you afford yourself. you can poke around the brave repo a bit to see the devs bemoan that.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    Even Microsoft with their unlimited money and resources couldn't afford to develop their own engine. Even with the fork they can't keep up: https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence Mozilla survives by whatever money Google is giving them, laid off most of their staff and shut down development on engine improvements like Servo (whether you like it or not, Servo is dead). That leaves WebKit as almost the only meaningful opposition in the face of Chrome's onslaught. And it's going to get worse.
- tannhaeuser 5y ago
c7DJTLrn 5y ago
It's basically a VM with a monstrously complicated ISA.
- layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
  * and probably the most inefficient
snet0 5y ago
A small independent team would probably struggle to build an SUV, too. This is not an argument on its own, why is it important?
- Dah00n 5y ago
  Websites are either made to only be as good as what the worst browser can render or needs enough developer time to work around it. In other words as if speed limits were set to 10mph on highways because my crap SUV dictate the road for everyone around me. The argument gets turned on its head when using a car analogy though. If only Google-sized companies can build a modern rendering engine then they dictate the web (and they rarely agree with users on what's important). If Ford could dictate roads they would make them impossible to drive on in other cars - or if Google did they would mandate only cars with RoadAd™ turned on, if Apple did only cars with iTires™ and so on. It's the road that gets dictated by the big companies like Apple and Google, not the cars. Roads luckily work just fine in an old or low-production car, unlike the web.
  - snet0 5y ago
    The argument that Google basically decides what a browser looks like is interesting. The negatives are often theoretical, "what if they just built ads into the engine" or privacy-oriented "they slurp your data". I pretty strongly believe that Google (and perhaps Apple in some respects) pushed the web far beyond where it could've stagnated, probably for self-oriented purposes. If you want to see a browser without selfish advancements, compare IE11 to its contemporaries, on their release and then after a few years. Microsoft had no reason to force new technology into their browser experience, so they didn't, and their browser turned into a boring antique. You mention that "[Google] rarely agree with users on what's important", but I'm not sure that's true. I think the HN crowd, and those adjacent to it, often disagree with Google's practices, but my intuition is that Google's browser changes have been effectively silent improvements for the vast majority of users. If you installed a massively outdated version of Chrome on a random user's phone or PC, they'd probably be almost immediately upset at some missing feature or function. At some point, these selfish advancements either become obsolete via the "official" way of doing things being implemented, or become themselves part of the spec. Should Google, Apple et al. have this much control over the future of the browser spec? My instinct is "of course not", but when I think about the history of the web, and how important these selfish decisions have been, it becomes harder to decide. My original point you're replying to was moreso "why should a small independant team be able to build a browser", and I'm not sure you replied to that.

rektide 5y ago

Safari can do what it wants, but telling every iphone user they can only have a low-feature, web-lite, period, is batshit insanity. This is absolutely a colossal anti-trust violation, doing colossal harm to society at large, keeping the web from being viable again and again, with it taking years to support WebRTC, years to supoprt ServiceWorkers, years to support every single thing, and the gap seemingly growing. This is a huge abuse of colossal market position, restricting the internet itself from competing with a closed platform, purely because it benefits Apple not to allow the situation to be fixed. Their warchest is huge, they could participate in calls to implement, could ship features, but they dont. Even if they did, I would still prefer users not to be locked in to a monoculture, to have to use a specific browser. This rhetoric that the standards bodies have been usurped is insanity, is bedlam. Show some evidence, make a case. No one does. This age keeps being swept by cheap, lying, low-grade dismissive politicians & schucksters selling popularist rage, and this post is some low quality grade-A unsupported zeal-filled techie-politics rage. It's not true. Standards bodies are alive and well. TAG is still elected, of good healthy techie stock, who review each of the various efforts & emphasize the better critiques & raise their own. The only selling out that's happened is that the ad-industry keeps Google from doing good things, and sells to sow dissent that someone is trying to ratchet up privacy, which Google has been slowly doing (yes to the benefit of their search engine, but first party traffic ought to have privileges over third party traffic). Standards work is hard as heck. There is not enough participation, there are not enough players funding standards work. But I don't see people being blocked, people being cut out from the work. I see Apple standing aside usually & silently refusing the calls to implement. I see not enough people participating. But chalking this up to conspiracy & the web being sold out? Please. These techies care. They want a better web, genuinely. They are trying, really hard. Everything happens in the open, in documented meetings. Trying to ascribe conspiracy & great machinations to this is sickening, is revolting disinformation. Do not market yourself on selling distrust & doubt in the world; do ally yourself with those who do foment & tear down & sow doubts (especially so out of hand, so very lacking a case).

layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
If this is such an important issue for you, then you shouldn’t buy an iPhone. Simple as.

remram 5y ago

As a Linux developer, I can test my site in Firefox and Chrome (including on my CI). I can't test it in Safari. The fact that it differs the most makes it a real pain. I don't really care whether an iOS developer considers this "invalid". My apps support platforms that I can afford to test on, and those that are compatible.

yongjik 5y ago
I don't know how faithful it is, but I recently discovered playwright and it contains a webkit build (even on Linux) which is (in theory) close enough to Safari for web UI testing.
- bkallus 5y ago
  suckless.org's surf could work too.
MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
I understand why Apple is doing it, but what does it hurt if I develop for Safari on Windows? Oh no you have to compile the app and support on Windows? Gimme a break. $1 Trillion company and they can't make that work is nothing short of a joke. The OS wars are nothing like they were in the 90s. Apple really needs to wake the hell up. Steve Balmer said it best: "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!"
- woah 5y ago
  And Steve Ballmer really backed that up by making it possible to compile and test Windows and Microsoft products on every Linux distribution
- dTal 5y ago
  >I understand why Apple is doing it Do you? It sounds like you're implying that they can't do it, despite also pointing out that they easily could.
  - 5y ago

Permit 5y ago

> I personally think we should abolish JavaScript and not allow arbitrary remotely loaded code to execute on our computers. > "I want web sites to do everything a native app can do" is a suicidal mistake. If you think you're ceding a lot of power to Google and Apple when it comes to browsers, I fail to see how "That webapp you're building can't use Javascript so build it in Objective-C/Swift for iOS instead" would cede less power to Apple. At least I don't need Apple's approval to build my website...

madeofpalk 5y ago
I also fail to understand how "lets install native code to run on our OS" results in more security and privacy. The browser is inherently more locked down than native apps. A Facebook app on your computer can read anything on it without any pesky browser security and privacy features getting in the way.
- fnordsensei 5y ago
  The Twitter thread isn’t discussing security or privacy. It’s discussing who (effectively) controls web standards right now, and who should do so in the future.
- threeseed 5y ago
  > A Facebook app on your computer can read anything on it without any pesky browser security and privacy features getting in the way This is not true, at least on OSX. It will ask the user to confirm whether the app is allowed to read/write to key locations e.g. Documents, Photos as well as access key sources of data e.g. Contacts.
  - smorgusofborg 5y ago
    That just leads to decision exhausted users saying yes by accident. Traditional browser policy errs more on the side of not making things that are too often dangerous especially if they are rarely beneficial over safer flows. Trying to make progressive web apps do whatever an app can do is basically being bug for bug compatible with bad ideas that sound "convenient".

paxys 5y ago

These arguments are all backwards. Yes an independent small-time developer cannot create a browser engine from scratch today, but Apple does not fall into that category. Their choices with Safari are not born out of lack of resources or expertise but deliberate planning. Yes large companies have seized control over the web from W3C. Apple is one of those large companies. They refuse to follow standards that they themselves dictate for others. Yes pushing more features to the web is going to result in loss of privacy. But Apple doesn't want vanilla websites, they want developers to make iOS apps (gated behind their store) which are worse in every way. Plus it doesn't address the biggest argument, which is that even if you say Apple can do whatever it wants with Safari, what is their rationale for blocking other browsers on iOS? It sure isn't because Apple loves the open web.

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> Yes large companies have seized control over the web from W3C The W3C is a consortium, that's what the "C" stands for. Said consortium is comprised of "very large companies" and it always has been. That's the point: cooperative game-theory.
- paxys 5y ago
  That is not how it has always been. For most of its history W3C was run by scientists, universities and government agencies. Google/Apple/Microsoft came much later.
  - austincheney 5y ago
    Follow the money. For most of its history you had to pay to participate. Yes, their work products and discussions were fully in the open, but you had to be invited to participate if you weren’t employed by a funding enterprise.
  - wil421 5y ago
    The internet (Arpanet) was invented by the US Government and Universities that worked with them. The www (Tim Bernes-Lee) was created at CERN (scientists) and won out things to other things like Gopher and BBSes. The telcos almost won the wires for voice instead of IP based systems. It’s been a mix of Government, Scientists, University Academics, and corporations since the late 80s/early 90s if not sooner. AOL got the masses on the web and things like Prodigy existed before them. AOL is more akin to Facebook nowadays.

felixfbecker 5y ago

I stopped reading at "I personally think we should abolish JavaScript"

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
ColdFusion developers getting testy I see
coldtea 5y ago
Lest you learn something you disagree with?
- opheliate 5y ago
  When saying "Safari's behind Chrome in features" is not a valid criticism, the fact that the author is opposed to JavaScript is a massive caveat, since the feature disparity will likely come down to differences in the APIs available in JS. I'm personally extremely worried about the fact that Chromium's eating the world, but if you're dictating what is and is not a valid criticism of the browser space, and you're starting from the premise that browsers shouldn't have JS, it's not surprising that some people aren't interested in what you have to say.

Camillo 5y ago

"It becomes too hard for a small team to write a browser" can't be both the horrible dystopia you're trying to avert and the catastrophe from a few years ago that you're still mad about.

rvz 5y ago
> "It becomes too hard for a small team to write a browser" But a browser that is 'Written in Rust™' which that runs blazingly fast, prevents segfaults, and guarantees thread safety can save us right? That should also be a 'selling point' to challenge browsers written in unsafe languages right? /s

akerl_ 5y ago

I think I must be missing something. Is the case here that Mozilla (an entity whose primary active project is a browser) and Apple (one of the largest tech companies in the world) can’t be expected to compete with Google in terms of features for their browsers? I was already hesitant at the idea of somebody on Twitter telling me which criticisms are “valid”, but that premise threw me entirely.

dTal 5y ago
What you're missing is that Google implementing a "feature" doesn't automatically make it a desirable thing to have. Competing doesn't mean slavishly imitating the whims of the market leader, always a step behind.
- akerl_ 5y ago
  I feel like this is whatever the opposite of tautological is? If Google implements a feature for Chrome and I find it desirable as a user, am I not allowed to say “I wish Safari had this feature”? Why would somebody ever criticize Safari for lacking a feature they don’t desire?
masterof0 5y ago
I feel you, I'm a macOS user, and I love using Safari, but for Linux users/developers , not being able to test their web apps in Safari, just because they don't have access to a Mac, is ridiculous. If I were in that position, I would not support Safari, until I can afford a Mac, or just throw a warning banner in my site for Safari users.
- vagrantJin 5y ago
  > I feel you, I'm a macOS user, and I love using Safari, but for Linux users/developers , not being able to test their web apps in Safari, just because they don't have access to a Mac, is ridiculous I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but did you just feign empathy on linux developers and casually leave out the biggest developer group which happens to use Windows?

zarzavat 5y ago

Is there a name for this fallacy? To say that an argument you disagree with is not "valid criticism" and therefore can be safely ignored. Surely if I believe that browsers should have many features, then criticising Safari for being behind is valid criticism.

viktorcode 5y ago
it isn't a fallacy; it is a proposition, not a logical conclusion. One can agree or disagree with the proposition.

debaserab2 5y ago

Any time I look at the new features in Chrome, I ask myself, "whose actually using this stuff?". Even though Firefox usually keeps pace pretty well it's pretty common for implementations to differ, and thus you're on the hook for browser quirk issues in any new feature you adopt immediately. Not to mention I've always had the anchor that is IE to temper any hastiness to use a feature (even if you simply don't implement the feature for IE, that's still an extra error state to handle unless you're willing to drop IE support altogether). It can't even be 1% of websites out there embracing this stuff. I'm guessing the biggest consumer for most of the new features in Chrome is probably Google web developers. There's quite a lot of things that only end up half implemented, too. Although the RFC these days seems to just be a design spec doc for Google, I suspect you could carve it down to less than half of what it is and render 99.9% of websites out there just fine.

layoutIfNeeded 5y ago
>whose actually using this stuff? Some Google engineer’s promotion case.
Dah00n 5y ago
By IE you don't mean Edge I'm guessing. Do you still develop with support for IE? I haven't seen it as a requirement for some time. I hardly even look at sites in it these days. At most I add a Browser not supported banner and test that in IE.
Griffinsauce 5y ago
> It can't even be 1% of websites out there embracing this stuff. This is all good but it's also a chicken and egg problem. The lack of web push notifications for one of the two major mobile platforms will prevent that feature from being used + any adjacent features that would be used in more viable web apps. In my opinion, nearly all good-guy arguments for Apple in this debate are negated by them not implementing that single feature. It is not new, obviously useful, obviously not a privacy concern and obviously blocked because it might impact their app store revenue.
- tommek4077 5y ago

emodendroket 5y ago

Our computers would be even safer if we airgapped all of them and never ran any new software.

dTal 5y ago
Our brains would be safer too. I think you're onto something!

Dotnaught 5y ago

The salient issue with Safari is where lack of feature parity coincides with Apple's business interest in maintaining control over its App Store and keeping native APIs ahead of web APIs. The situation is similar for Chrome with regard to APIs that dovetail with Google's business interests (e.g. Manifest v3 extension APIs and content blocking).

smoldesu 5y ago

> The web is not "open" if nobody new can write a web browser engine. It's the illusion of openness. Remind me, can I write a new browser engine for iOS if I wanted?

maxxxxxx 5y ago

I can’t believe we’re still in this postion. 20 years ago, a fresh new browser entered the market that blew the competition away: Internet Explorer 6. It’s hard to overemphasize what a crapfest the browser scene had been up to that point. Netscape was a buggy mess (remember Netscape Gold?) 5 years later, everyone hated IE 6. It was the new browser to hate. It was a buggy non-compliant mess, much as Safari is now. And again a new browser shook up the scene: Phoenix (which would later become Firefox). Later, Chrome entered the market. It’s the superior browser now. Browsers come and go.

dmitriid 5y ago
> Browsers come and go. Here's what one of the main authors of KHTML has to say about this: https://twitter.com/LarsKnoll/status/1421121639845187585 https://twitter.com/LarsKnoll/status/1421121639845187585 20 years ago you needed a fraction of what is in a modern browser today. And it's getting worse. Chrome ships 40 to 70 new Web APIs every 40 days or so: https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence https://web-confluence.appspot.com/#!/confluence
- mrweasel 5y ago
  It’s somewhat terrifying that a single person or a small team can develop an operating system, with a GUI, but won’t be able to create a modern web browser to run on the same OS.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    The Web seems to be in an unenviable position of needing both: - an insurmountable amount of work for backwards compatibility, and - an insurmountable amount of work to keep up with the torrent of new features added to it

code_duck 5y ago

The author’s conclusion is that due to the current situation being non-optimal, we should give up on browsers all together? I’m not sure what exactly he is proposing as it’s obviously too late to turn the clock back on the existence of interactive web sites. I don’t expect small developers to be able to make a top-notch browser engine any more than I expect them to make software equivalent to Photoshop or Final Fantasy XIV. Standards are there to guide compatibility between products of large players and content producers. Apple is not a small company compared to Google or anyone; they’re merely not trying very hard. Mozilla is somehow doing a decent job despite not having $300 billion in cash stashed away. I do believe that browsers doing what native apps can do is reasonable and useful. The arguments about security are not particularly persuasive. The biggest threats to mobile security currently seem to be apps in official app stores.

dmitriid 5y ago
> I don’t expect small developers to be able to make a top-notch browser engine any more than I expect them to make software equivalent to Photoshop Procreate. Acorn. Pixelmator. Affinity. All small developers. All successful and eating a chunk of Photoshop's lunch. Sketch and Figma outright stole Adobe's lunch. > or Final Fantasy XIV. Not all games have to be FFXIV to be enjoyable or playable. And indie games are thriving. However, you require a fully-features browser to browse the modern web.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  >However, you require a fully-features browser to browse the modern web. That isn't really true since if it were we wouldn't have had the problem of IE back in the day or Safari today.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    I don't understand your logic. Since 1999 we've added anything from flexbox and grids to CSS to web components to DOM to classes, sets, symbols, workers etc. to Javascript. Even things like standardizing HTML rendering didn't happen until mid 00s. Fire up a VM and run the modern web in IE 6. You'll fond a surprising number of browsers failing in subtle and not--so-subtle ways.

robbrown451 5y ago

"Imagine a small company trying to write their own web browser from scratch nowadays. It's just not possible! " Imagine the much more common case of a small company (or individual) trying to make a useful app that is available to everyone. If they can make it in a browser, it's possible, if they have to make it for every proprietary platform (iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux...).... often impossible. I'm happy that web browsers can do a lot. Many of the "security nightmare" arguments don't make sense. It wouldn't be a security nightmare if, for instance, Safari could allow a MIDI keyboard to talk to the web browser as it does in Chrome (ignoring Sysex support, which is the security excuse for holding it back.... there is very little need for that in a browser). God forbid I want to do a piano learning app. This is just one of many examples that may not affect you, but affects some subset of apps. (there are tons more, that one happens to affect my app) People are quick to say "I don't need that in a web browser", but you could say that about just about anything, for instance camera support. I do look forward to a day when most apps run in a browser rather than having to be platform specific, or require giant teams of developers to be cross platform.

timw4mail 5y ago
The more features in browser engines, the fewer platforms the browsers work on.
- robbrown451 5y ago
  How so? That doesn't make sense. I mean, if a platform doesn't support something, I wouldn't expect the browser to support it. Even if they decide that it is too hard to support a particular feature on a particular platform, doesn't mean they have to simply abandon the platform. They just don't support the feature.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  The most feature rich browser engine (Chromium) is the one with most adaptation across all the most used platforms so that doesn't make sense unless you count users from something like AmigaOS and TVs and in that way get Firefox out on top by purely counting platforms. Otherwise Chromium on Windows, Mac and Linux beats anyone else by a mile.

dang 5y ago

Recent and related: A critique of Safari's influence on the web - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27985783 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27985783 - July 2021 (184 comments)

freediver 5y ago

> Imagine a small company trying to write their own web browser from scratch nowadays. Lets distinguish between browser frameworks (Chromium, Firefox) and web rendering engines (WebKit, Blink, Gecko). Three rendering engines is more than enough. It is the lack of diversity in browsers that is problematic. Most browsers use Chromium browser framework (which includes Blink rendering engine). Several use Firefox (Gecko). We are using WebKit and building our own browser from scratch. When I say from scratch that means literally every little feature, menu item, setting, interaction like a toolbar button etc.

Dah00n 5y ago
>Three rendering engines is more than enough. It is the lack of diversity in browsers that is problematic. No, it is the lack of diversity in rendering engine that is problematic. When one rendering engine can dictate the web then it makes no sense to point to the rest of the browser as the point of need for more diversity. Chromium and every browser that uses it is part of the problem here. Using Brave for example is just as bad for diversity and the free web as using Chrome itself, likely worse as most users have no idea they are part of a problem even if they are aware it exists.
- freediver 5y ago
  I beg to differ. Google/Chrome dictates the Web, not Blink (Chrome/Chromium's rendering engine). The most popular browser and its parent company are in this position. For example Chrome may abandon Blink and switch to a new rendering engine in the future (it already did this once switching from/forking WebKit). Or if Microsoft Edge became the most popular browser in the world, then Microsoft would be in position to dictate the web. This is why we need a fast, capable, privacy-respecting, no BS, no ads or tracking browser with a sustainable business model, using whichever rendering engine (preferably one that is also well designed and fast) to come out.
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    Google dictates the direction no matter if you look at blink or chromium. If Google wants to dictate a future where Brave cannot possibly do the work on chromium to implement their features because Google turned the code in a direction demanding too many development hours then they can easily do so. I completely agree with your last paragraph but using something Google in the end is controlling is closer to a honeypot than a solution. What we need is "a fast, capable, privacy-respecting, no BS, no ads or tracking browser with a sustainable business model, using whichever rendering engine (preferably one that is also well designed and fast)" on the market that isn't controlled by a big corporation like Google, Microsoft or Apple. Sure it might be doable with blink but why on earth pick a fight where the opponent basically desides the rules? It's like pissing against the wind. I very much doubt it will succeed and if it does it will likely just swap Google out with another corporate entity (like Microsoft). We need a rendering engine made by someone like Mozilla (or better) to succeed if the open web is ever going to be a reality.

PetahNZ 5y ago

Safari is a bane of my life. Simple things just dont work. Like svg rendering just doesn't work unless you display none then block. It's been years since this was reported.

Griffinsauce 5y ago

> Imagine a small company trying to write their own web browser from scratch nowadays. It's just not possible! This is also because the web has a firing problem. APIs and features barely get deprecated, even when they are obviously superceded. When they do its years and years after the fact. We also just except whacky quirks instead of fixing them and moving on. A very clear example: we do not need CSS float anymore. It can be removed with zero impact on the development of new websites. There's a new proposal for date-time features that replace the Date class. Except it won't, they will coexist and you have to support the Date class and all its bullshit indefinitely. Do we really need anything other than template literals for strings? I'm not sure what the solution is to these but an ever-growing spec seems like a big part of the problem to me.

cdirkx 5y ago
A new implementation could choose to not add those older features, but there will always be some websites that still rely on them. Who is going to use a website that isn't able to display the sites they want?
- Griffinsauce 5y ago
  Exactly, this problem is not acknowledged or codified so we have no choice but to indefinitely support everything. > Who is going to use a [browser] that isn't able to display the sites they want? Everybody who has more to gain than to lose from it. The perfect solution would of course avoid this problem somehow.
graftak 5y ago
We don’t need css float for layout hacks anymore, but it’s intended purpose to wrap text around an element is still a valid use case.

encryptluks2 5y ago

This further convinces me that Apple users are experiencing Stockholm Syndrome.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

so I stopped reading after I learned: Apple has too much control over the web, we should build native apps, and nobody can compete with Google Chrome - including Apple. I do agree that Safari is not actually lacking in features too much though, it has features the other browsers don't have. Features that Apple felt were important to develop for Safari.

nanis 5y ago

Note, the original tweet is no longer available[1]: > Why did someone post my tweet on Hacker News? > It's not news! It's not an announcement of anything. It doesn't contain any novel information. > If anyone on HN is reading this tweet, post a link telling people to stop discussing my other tweet please. :-) [1]: https://twitter.com/lapcatsoftware/status/1421251328144297987 https://twitter.com/lapcatsoftware/status/142125132814429798...

jefftk 5y ago
> > Why did someone post my tweet on Hacker News? HN discusses opinion posts regularly, including ones posted on Twitter, and this one is on a topic lots of people here are interested in.
- nanis 5y ago
  Just so there is no doubt, I am NOT @lapcatsoftware. I just went to look for the tweet referenced here and I noticed this, so I am relaying it here. I have a feeling anyone reading the discussion here does understand the idea behind HN. If you did want to engage @lapcatsoftware, you may want to do it on Twitter.
  - jefftk 5y ago
    I know you're not ;) Hence the ">>" I don't do Twitter, so that won't be me
jessaustin 5y ago
I can't tell whether that's a joke. People on Twitter are often funny, so it could be a joke. However, people on Twitter are also often clueless, so there could be a genuine desire to publicly post a controversial opinion without that opinion inspiring public conversation.
- wila 5y ago
  It's not a joke and he certainly isn't clueless.

jansan 5y ago

Safari should not be the only browser option on iOS. Microsoft was fined millions for integrating their Internet Explorer too deeply into Windows, why is Apple allowed to act like this? This would solve the problem very quickly either by users migrating to another browser or by Apple feeling enough pressure to actually care.

parksy 5y ago

As a developer who started noodling on 8 bit BASIC, the power of a web browser that is essentially a universal, network-capable application engine is beyond amazing. As a user, the constant misuse of dark patterns and the glut of careless unoptimized and insecure code and coders is nightmare fuel. Consider I grew up coding, trying to explain modern websites and web applications my folks is simply painful because quite often it just doesn't make sense. A lot of UX never actually asked a user how they want it to work, or disregarded their input. The best websites for me are still those which adhere to pre web 2.0 design patterns. I find them easier to navigate and use, ie old reddit vs new - the new design doesn't bring anything useful other than nagware to register and install the app - reading a thread and click outside the main area by mistake, it navigates you back in history and you wait 10 seconds for all the ajax to finish popping into place. My old online banking interface was a simple list of my accounts and balances with links to common functions. The "new" app-inspired interface hides everything under animated menus and ugly graphs I don't need to want, while constant monte-carlo simulations mean basic features always move; my wife and I often have completely different UX, it's just another annoying half-baked web app with ajax popping in and out all over the place. There's good stuff and well design applications of course. Shadertoy is amazing. For music there's fully-fledged DAW's in the browser - fantastic! Collaborative document editing in real time, brilliant! But I think I am down with the concept of a different engine or mode for "web surfing" vs "web application execution" - it's a completely arbitrary distinction I know, but as a user I've got a completely different set of wants and needs when I'm just surfing, vs when I need an "application."

kevincox 5y ago

It has been deleted: http://web.archive.org/web/20210731083006/https://twitter.com/lapcatsoftware/status/1421078387376918529 http://web.archive.org/web/20210731083006/https://twitter.co...

cryptoquick 5y ago
Not sure why. It's a very valid point.

amelius 5y ago

Google: "embrace, extend" Apple: "extinguish" Google strongly depends on the web. Apple wants everybody to move to native Apps instead. If you want to know which company to trust, look at their incentives.

sdze 5y ago

JavaScript use should be limited. HTML should be enhanced with the feature set provided by the library HTMX.

adam_arthur 5y ago

I don't understand the Apple fanboys that continually defend their clearly monopolistic position. Google and Apple are both anti-competitive in different ways. A distinction needs to be made in regards to the anti competitive nature of controlling a large walled garden, and network effect stickiness. Anti-trust laws will catch up and lead to regulation of big tech. Though, we may actually see something soon with Apple depending on how the Epic case resolves.

dewanto 5y ago

Google strategy is WebApps. Apple strategy is NativeApps with AppStore. Microsoft strategy is half-half. ... Google workers complain Safari bad. That's their job. So, business as usual

rado 5y ago

Yes! Thank you.

ksec 5y ago

Does anyone has a summary or back up of the tweet? I am late and It is now deleted.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

mmis1000 5y ago

> Imagine a small company trying to write their own web browser from scratch nowadays. It's just not possible! Tencent do has one pretty much spec compliance browser engine (X5) for their own use. (Obviously not a small company either) It is also a mobile only browser used mostly in China (so you are unlikely to test it during dev) And I only got a few incompatibility reports from it (like 2 or 3?). Compares to the nightmare on safari (dozens of bugs), it actually works surprisingly good.

sam0x17 5y ago

IMO if it's buggy, you _are_ behind in features, because those features aren't really done yet -- they are buggy.