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Safari still has around 60% on MacoS and all the normal users believe that there is browser competition now. At best it's speculation, but we can compare that t

Safari still has around 60% on MacoS and all the normal users believe that there is browser competition now. At best it's speculation, but we can compare that to the very real harms of Apple's browser ban. We've written about the harms in detail here: https://open-web-advocacy.org/files/OWA%20-%20Bringing%20Competition%20to%20Walled%20Gardens%20-%20v1.2.pdf https://open-web-advocacy.org/files/OWA%20-%20Bringing%20Com...

MBCook 4y ago
It may be 60% on MacOS but that’s a very tiny market. Overall Chrome is quite dominant. Numbers I found say on desktop Chrome is at 70%. Include the 7.75% for Edge (because it’s basically Chrome) and that’s almost 80%. FF at least exists and is similar to Safari. On mobile it’s at 65%. Safari is the only other browser above 5%. Chrome is dangerously close to total monopoly.
- mtomweb 4y ago
  MacOS is the only market Safari actually competes in and has the same advantage by being the default. I would actually expect the most likely outcome is Apple would fight hard to build a better browser to stem any losses to other browsers. They'll have at least 2 years to do it, so they can catch up in that time with enough investment.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    They definitely have the capital to make it happen. Every time I boot up Safari after a MacOS update, I'm consistently wowed by how little of their revenue actually goes in to making a comfortable, feature-complete browser. It's almost like you're using a different, nerfed internet with Safari, but maybe that's just me being angry that uBlock Origin doesn't work anymore.
    - robertoandred 4y ago
      There are plenty of ad blockers for Safari, not sure what nerfed experience you're referring to.
      - danShumway 4y ago
        This has been debated to death, but there are no ad blockers on Safari that will work as well as uBlock Origin, because Safari doesn't have all of the APIs/hooks exposed that would be necessary to implement uBlock Origin's more advanced features. It's the same problem that developers were talking about with Chrome's Manifest V3 -- to the point where popular adblockers for Safari like Adguard actually run outside of the browser so that they're not quite as limited as they otherwise would be by Safari's apis.
      - noisem4ker 4y ago
        The nerfed experience of addons only specifying a significantly limited list of blocking rules, giving up being able to autonomously allow or deny each request with arbitrary parameters, surrogate scripts (replacing the original, tracking ones with privacy-friendly reimplementations) and cosmetically alter the webpage (e.g. fixing the layout with missing ads). Partial source: https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158 https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        And which of those ad blockers are Open Source?
        robertoandred 4y ago
        AdGuard
      - raydev 4y ago
        > There are plenty of ad blockers for Safari And none of them work as well as uBlock Origin on Chrome. Trust me, I tried. I even paid money to try a few extensions out on Safari in the hopes I would get a better experience, but even that doesn't work.
  - spideymans 4y ago
    Recall how Google gimped Windows Phone support on the web, presumably to advantage their own platform and web services. My fear is that they'd do the same to Safari on iOS. They could break support on iOS, to force users to Chrome, where they can better track and monetize their users.
- cma 4y ago
  Maybe Safari mobile would have to make a better UI with more competition, and could then keep more users.
- agust 4y ago
  The size of macOS market is not relevant for the point being made here. What matters is that macOS is very similar to iOS in that it is owned by Apple, Safari is available on it, and comes pre-installed. The only difference is that on macOS browser competition is not banned by Apple. Yet, Safari still has around 60% market share on macOS. So there is a good chance that even if competition where allowed on iOS, Safari, which currently has more than 90% market share, would at the very least not fall down below 60%, preventing Chrome from becoming dominant. It is even more likely because most users on iOS actually believe they can install the real Chrome, so nothing will change in their eyes.
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    > The size of macOS market is not relevant for the point being made here. I disagree. There are already plenty of sites that are broken on macOS Safari because it's a niche platform. The only saving grace is that websites still have to support iOS Safari. If vendors were able to say "we only support Chrome" on iOS as well, I think that 60% macOS Safari marketshare would drop rapidly due to necessity.
    - innocenat 4y ago
      If you want website to not be broken on Safari, the solution is to give developer without a Mac the ability to test on Safari. I wouldn't be able to fix my site if it's broken on Mac Safari if I don't have a Mac.
      - AlexandrB 4y ago
        That's a good point and probably a major strategic error on Apple's part. However in the IE era, even though Netscape/Firefox was free for everyone to test on, many large companies made their sites for "IE Only" because it's easier and cheaper. What I worry about is that, even if Safari kept up with web standards and was mostly compatible in terms of the basics, sites would start requiring APIs that only Chrome wants to support (e.g. FLoC). This would give Google a lot of leverage to push its own technologies on users (Amp also comes to mind).
- JamesSwift 4y ago
  Using that logic of Edge being counted as Chrome, why dont we consider 100% of the iOS browser market to be Safari?
  - MBCook 4y ago
    Chrome was forked from WebKit but had been it’s own engine for a very long time at this point. They share ancestry but are pretty different. Edge is literally built off a relatively recent version of Chromium. It’s not a separate engine.
    - JamesSwift 4y ago
      Every iOS browser today runs on Apple Webkit. No exceptions. Thats an apple rule.
      - MBCook 4y ago
        Sorry. I didn’t notice you were talking about iOS only. I would hope mobile browser share numbers already take this into account, though I don’t know.
        JamesSwift 4y ago
        I think they pretty clearly dont since iOS is definitely more than 5% of the mobile market.
thewileyone 4y ago
> Safari still has around 60% on MacoS It's preinstalled on MacOS and you can't uninstall it, just choose not to use it.

MBCook 4y ago

It may be 60% on MacOS but that’s a very tiny market. Overall Chrome is quite dominant. Numbers I found say on desktop Chrome is at 70%. Include the 7.75% for Edge (because it’s basically Chrome) and that’s almost 80%. FF at least exists and is similar to Safari. On mobile it’s at 65%. Safari is the only other browser above 5%. Chrome is dangerously close to total monopoly.

mtomweb 4y ago
MacOS is the only market Safari actually competes in and has the same advantage by being the default. I would actually expect the most likely outcome is Apple would fight hard to build a better browser to stem any losses to other browsers. They'll have at least 2 years to do it, so they can catch up in that time with enough investment.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  They definitely have the capital to make it happen. Every time I boot up Safari after a MacOS update, I'm consistently wowed by how little of their revenue actually goes in to making a comfortable, feature-complete browser. It's almost like you're using a different, nerfed internet with Safari, but maybe that's just me being angry that uBlock Origin doesn't work anymore.
  - robertoandred 4y ago
    There are plenty of ad blockers for Safari, not sure what nerfed experience you're referring to.
    - danShumway 4y ago
      This has been debated to death, but there are no ad blockers on Safari that will work as well as uBlock Origin, because Safari doesn't have all of the APIs/hooks exposed that would be necessary to implement uBlock Origin's more advanced features. It's the same problem that developers were talking about with Chrome's Manifest V3 -- to the point where popular adblockers for Safari like Adguard actually run outside of the browser so that they're not quite as limited as they otherwise would be by Safari's apis.
    - noisem4ker 4y ago
      The nerfed experience of addons only specifying a significantly limited list of blocking rules, giving up being able to autonomously allow or deny each request with arbitrary parameters, surrogate scripts (replacing the original, tracking ones with privacy-friendly reimplementations) and cosmetically alter the webpage (e.g. fixing the layout with missing ads). Partial source: https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158 https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      And which of those ad blockers are Open Source?
      - robertoandred 4y ago
        AdGuard
    - raydev 4y ago
      > There are plenty of ad blockers for Safari And none of them work as well as uBlock Origin on Chrome. Trust me, I tried. I even paid money to try a few extensions out on Safari in the hopes I would get a better experience, but even that doesn't work.
- spideymans 4y ago
  Recall how Google gimped Windows Phone support on the web, presumably to advantage their own platform and web services. My fear is that they'd do the same to Safari on iOS. They could break support on iOS, to force users to Chrome, where they can better track and monetize their users.
cma 4y ago
Maybe Safari mobile would have to make a better UI with more competition, and could then keep more users.
agust 4y ago
The size of macOS market is not relevant for the point being made here. What matters is that macOS is very similar to iOS in that it is owned by Apple, Safari is available on it, and comes pre-installed. The only difference is that on macOS browser competition is not banned by Apple. Yet, Safari still has around 60% market share on macOS. So there is a good chance that even if competition where allowed on iOS, Safari, which currently has more than 90% market share, would at the very least not fall down below 60%, preventing Chrome from becoming dominant. It is even more likely because most users on iOS actually believe they can install the real Chrome, so nothing will change in their eyes.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  > The size of macOS market is not relevant for the point being made here. I disagree. There are already plenty of sites that are broken on macOS Safari because it's a niche platform. The only saving grace is that websites still have to support iOS Safari. If vendors were able to say "we only support Chrome" on iOS as well, I think that 60% macOS Safari marketshare would drop rapidly due to necessity.
  - innocenat 4y ago
    If you want website to not be broken on Safari, the solution is to give developer without a Mac the ability to test on Safari. I wouldn't be able to fix my site if it's broken on Mac Safari if I don't have a Mac.
    - AlexandrB 4y ago
      That's a good point and probably a major strategic error on Apple's part. However in the IE era, even though Netscape/Firefox was free for everyone to test on, many large companies made their sites for "IE Only" because it's easier and cheaper. What I worry about is that, even if Safari kept up with web standards and was mostly compatible in terms of the basics, sites would start requiring APIs that only Chrome wants to support (e.g. FLoC). This would give Google a lot of leverage to push its own technologies on users (Amp also comes to mind).
JamesSwift 4y ago
Using that logic of Edge being counted as Chrome, why dont we consider 100% of the iOS browser market to be Safari?
- MBCook 4y ago
  Chrome was forked from WebKit but had been it’s own engine for a very long time at this point. They share ancestry but are pretty different. Edge is literally built off a relatively recent version of Chromium. It’s not a separate engine.
  - JamesSwift 4y ago
    Every iOS browser today runs on Apple Webkit. No exceptions. Thats an apple rule.
    - MBCook 4y ago
      Sorry. I didn’t notice you were talking about iOS only. I would hope mobile browser share numbers already take this into account, though I don’t know.
      - JamesSwift 4y ago
        I think they pretty clearly dont since iOS is definitely more than 5% of the mobile market.

thewileyone 4y ago

> Safari still has around 60% on MacoS It's preinstalled on MacOS and you can't uninstall it, just choose not to use it.