5 ms·
Well.. now Safari still is the hated browser to support, instead of IE, because of Apples backwardness
by skeletal88 4y ago
Well.. now Safari still is the hated browser to support, instead of IE, because of Apples backwardness
- rektide 4y agoIE maybe have been a default choice, but at least it was a choice.
- freediver 4y agoThere are over 100 browsers to choose from on iOS as well as on macOS?
- rektide 4y agoApple famously & longstandingly requires all "browsers" on iOS to use the builtin web views. There are Chrome and Firefox (and others), but they lack many many web platform capabilities & don't boast the far more more featureful render engine that either browser ships with on any other platform. It's all reskinned Safari, forever & ever. For a while the web view they were making apps use was lagging way way behind Safari itself- was just dog slow & utterly unaccelerated[1], but they finally at least ship moderately capable webviews in iOS now. That was a solid half decade of brutal tyranny- anything trying to use the web platform at all had a terrible time, & alternative browsers were a sick laggy disgusting joke. This is one of the biggest sorest points about Apple's complete dominion over iOS & their rule by app store (for many): this titan don't even allow healthy competition on the web. They hold the whole web back. Safari would feel like far less of a villianous poison if Apple didn't rule iOS with a bloody iron fist. [1] http://9to5mac.com/2014/06/03/ios-8-webkit-changes-finally-allow-all-apps-to-have-the-same-performance-as-safari/ http://9to5mac.com/2014/06/03/ios-8-webkit-changes-finally-a... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7843943 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7843943 (12 points, 8 years ago, 1 comments)
- freediver 4y agoI understand the argument of being locked to a single rendering engine (WebKit), but there is just so much to a browser than a rendering engine. Chrome and Firefox on iOS both have the opportunity for their own sync, their own bookmarks/history/settings implementation, their own telemetry, choice to use native controls or not, to decide whether to block ads, trackers and respect user privacy - that is all at discretion of the actual browser app. The role of WebKit is just to render a web page - a modern browser is so much more than that. Now, would allowing other rendering engines be better for iOS? I ultimately think it would, but also can understand Apple's stance of wanting to enforce the most performant, secure and energy efficient rendering engine on something as sensitive to these parameters as a mobile phone.
- rektide 4y ago> The role of WebKit is just to render a web page - a modern browser is so much more than that. The roll of the webview is more than webkit rendering. It encompasses the javascript engine, all it's capabilities, it includes many many many of the platform APIs. I'd be interested to hear if Chrome or Firefox or any other iOS browsers implement any web apis on iOS that aren't present in Safari, but I doubt it, and I'm not sure whether that's a hard web view limitation. I think we're trying a little too actively to promote a sense of significant diversity here, where there is in fact a harsh & brutal monoculture. Yes, the user chrome is different. Bookmarks, history, settings & sync sound like the main differences. But fundamentally users are still trapped with a a browser that makes extremely fantastically conservative decisions that they cannot possibly escape from. > wanting to enforce the most performant, secure and energy efficient rendering engine Energy efficiency is indeed pretty good on Safari desktop, but there's also plenty of tests that will show Chrome winning. It's impossible to compare on mobile, because Google can't develop for iOS. I'd be hard pressed to accept accepting Safari as more secure or more performant[1]. Especially as we continue to advance, Safari just doesn't have modern web features. Web bundles? Nope. Early-hints? Modern web optimizations just aren't possible. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/7/22965756/google-chrome-apple-safari-speedometer-benchmark-web-scripts-300-score https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/7/22965756/google-chrome-app...
- 4y ago
- cogman10 4y agoIt's just incredible to me that Apple saw how much people hated IE and decided "You know what, let's do them one better". Really doesn't help that they've pull so far back from open standards. They used to champion OpenGL, OpenCL, and open web standards, now they are working like Balmer's Microsoft. Everything internal and they sabotage open standards. Either by not implementing them, or obstructing all evolution at the standards committees.
- threeseed 4y ago> or obstructing all evolution at the standards committees Evidence ? Pretty extraordinary claim to make.
- robertoandred 4y agoThe idea that Safari is anywhere near what IE was is ludicrous. If anything, Chrome is the new IE because Google forces through its own features and expects the rest of the internet to make them standards.
- postalrat 4y agoI think you mean chrome is way ahead and supporting standards.
- robertoandred 4y agoFeatures Google wants are not standards.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]