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Safari doesn't help the web be diverse, it just cripples the webs ability to compete with apps. When is the last time you said "I will choose to use safari" or
by bioemerl 4y ago
Safari doesn't help the web be diverse, it just cripples the webs ability to compete with apps.
When is the last time you said "I will choose to use safari" or seen apple pushing the bounds of what the web can do?
- dopidopHN 4y agoAt some point the battery usage on laptop was considerably better using safari. That’s a plus.
- threeseed 4y agoMany Mac users choose to use Safari because it is by far the most efficient browser.
- apaprocki 4y agoYes. I have used every way to consume the web since text-only was preferred in early lynx days and finding gopher resources was the norm. NSCA Mosaic, Netscape Navigator, all IE versions, Firefox, Chrome when it first appeared. I want nothing more to only use Safari / OS WebKit on all my devices. If this winds up going through, I will actively delete all applications that switch off WebKit. To each their own...
- bioemerl 4y agoI'm very skeptical this is due to safari and not Microsoft style monopolistic behavior by baking the browser into the OS so it's always loaded.
- threeseed 4y agoNo it's simply due to priorities. Apple has always placed privacy and efficiency over new features.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- smoldesu 4y ago...but part of it is also that WebKit is baked-in to MacOS, and gets it's always-on processes reused by the browser when you launch it.
- threeseed 4y agoWhich processes ? It's not like there is a webkitd and everything is done via RPC.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- smoldesu 4y agoOn iOS, Cocoa uses WebKit to render text, and everything UIKit-based on MacOS gets rendered with dynamically-linked WebKit as well. It's safe to say that if your Mac is on, WebKit is probably running.
- threeseed 4y agoThere is a big difference between a dynamically-linked library and a constantly running process. I am on a Mac right now. There are no running webkit, webkitd etc processes despite me writing this in Safari.
- smoldesu 4y agoRun this: `lsof | grep webkit` You'll need to run that as the user handling WebKit processes, so sudo might be required.
- ubercow13 4y agoHow does this prove that Safari gets an inherent performance advantage over Chrome? I guess on startup there could be a slight difference if the library is already loaded in memory.
- ezfe 4y agomacOS does very little to favor Safari. It provides identical resistance to changing defaults to Safari as it does changing defaults from Safari.
- mgkimsal 4y agoI choose it every single day. I have chrome, Firefox, edge and safari at my disposal. Safari is my day to day for most regular usage. For tech/dev work, Firefox and Chrome are usually in flight at the same time. EDIT: "Safari doesn't help the web be diverse" Not sure what you mean by that. Safari existing is diversity, but like FF/mozilla was an antidote to the IE years on Windows.
- meowtimemania 4y agoWhy do you chose safari?
- NegativeLatency 4y agoIt's fast, good with memory, and does everything I need from it.
- yamtaddle 4y agoDoesn't seriously harm performance of the rest of my system the way a many-tabs Chrome or Firefox tends to.
- n8cpdx 4y agoFast, best battery life, better UI, the tab groups implementation is great. I like the approach to the extension store better.
- apaprocki 4y agoBattery life, keychain, PIN numbers from iMessage, integration between desktop/mobile, it's not supported by ads/Google...
- sodality2 4y ago> PIN numbers from iMessage This isn't actually a Safari feature but an iOS feature AFAIK.
- arcticbull 4y agoI choose safari every day. It uses less power and it's an overall smoother and better integrated experience. It's also not constantly hounding me to sign into Google accounts. "Pushing the bounds of the web" specifically isn't a huge goal for me, I want to see the bounds of computing pushed. That doesn't have to be on the web. The web is Rube Golberg-esque enough as is. [edit] To be clear I'm not opposed to it, I'm neutral to it.
- micromacrofoot 4y agoBattery life on my Macbook is better using Safari, so I choose to use it all the time. They've also been pulling ahead of Firefox on several occasions when implementing new CSS features.
- msoad 4y agoI literally don't have Chrome on my Mac. Safari is faster and has less Google shoving their random product initiatives to me. I never have to log into Safari to do anything.
- sefrost 4y agoThe "peeking" you can do with the trackpad on a Mac when navigating backwards and forwards between pages is a must have for me in a browser. It's so nice in Safari, I use it hundreds of times a day. It's painful for me when I use other browsers that don't have this feature.
- smoldesu 4y agoI do this with my Magic Trackpad on Linux as well, it's very nice.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y agoWait, how are you getting that on Linux?
- smoldesu 4y agoIf you're running Firefox with native Wayland support, multitouch trackpad gestures are working now. Edit: I also found a Chrome extension that adds it: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/swipe-back/mkkcgajcpakpfjgikmekgnihlbhliodo https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/swipe-back/mkkcgaj...
- ask_b123 4y agoSimilarly, the "peeking" you can do with Look Up on URLs.
- marvindanig 4y agoprecisely. and we see a lot of similar behavior from Chrome now as it helps them replace the good old search form with a url bar as the main driver of their ad dollars. this unsolvable battle is exactly why I opted for the Brave [1] browser. all the better if they’re able to use alternate engine under the hood next. [1] https://brave.com/ https://brave.com/
- jdminhbg 4y ago> When is the last time you said "I will choose to use safari" The last time I opened a Mac with a battery (i.e., today).
- MBCook 4y agoEvery day since it was first released. I left FF for it and never looked back. FF has massively improved since then, but Safari is my habit and I’m very happy with it.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoI exclusively use Safari for better battery life and I trust their security more and anticipate I will be using Keychain for a long time.
- mhoad 4y agoYou should probably read the security section of any iOS release notes sometime. Great at security isn’t the first thing that comes to mind for me. Here’s the latest one for example: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT213530 https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT213530
- theshrike79 4y agoSo fixing security issues is ... bad?
- mhoad 4y agoFFS… nobody said that. Nobody even implied that.
- lern_too_spel 4y agoIf Chrome can update itself in the App Store without a reboot like it does on Android, and Safari continues to require an OS update, Safari security will continue to be worse.
- Aaron2222 4y agoRapid Security Response should fix that.
- acdha 4y agoiOS release notes combine the OS, apps, and dependent libraries. If you compare to Chrome or Firefox on Windows or Android it's pretty hard to say that anyone has this solved other than to the extent that they're migrating to memory-safe languages. I think Chrome is a ahead on proactive mitigations but from a user's perspective it's basically a never-ending race to install updates since they all have high CVEs on a regular basis.
- brundolf 4y agoI choose Safari as my primary browser on my personal MacBook, it's great
- rPlayer6554 4y agoLifetime windows user, just got a MacBook. I heard safari was better for battery life (haven't tested so can't confirm) so I thought I'd try it. It works fine for all my needs so why change? Side note, last pass on Mac is a pile of hot garbage. I wish I had never gotten my family onto it because switching is going to be a hassle.
- acdha 4y agoMultiple implementations help the web be diverse, and there is a long history of features becoming easier to use, more capable, or secure based on feedback from one of the browser teams other than the first to propose something. It’s also not the case that any current browser is so bad that the web is better off without it. Anyone with web development experience has run into problems or limitations with every browser and depending on what you do you will have different assessments of which one is best at a given time. For example, on the Interop 2022 effort all three browser teams have been coordinating currently Safari is in the lead and that will continue to shift over time. https://wpt.fyi/interop-2022 https://wpt.fyi/interop-2022 > When is the last time you said "I will choose to use safari" or seen apple pushing the bounds of what the web can do? Firefox and Safari are both noticeably faster and use less memory. If you care about that, or work on battery that’s enough right there. Firefox and Safari don’t have conflicts of interest preventing privacy improvements or ad blocking. I haven’t used Chrome as my default browser since Firefox took the performance crown ~5 years ago but I’ve used all of them plenty as a web developer. The idea that Chrome is so far ahead that we should give up on the web having multiple implementations and just let Google run it is completely the opposite of my experience.
- bioemerl 4y ago> It’s also not the case that any current browser is so bad that the web is better off without it. But it is. Safari on IOS is either missing or badly implements every system that lets web apps compete with system apps. It's totally impossible to use something other than safari on IOS as well, which basically means apple is able to force a very significant amount of web traffic into their browser and basically lock out any feature the choose. That is bad for the web. Additionally, I think you're mistaken on the performance crown. Firefox made big gains years ago but chrome has always managed to perform better at most tasks despite those gains. Maybe if you were running really low on ram Firefox is the faster option? That's not your typical use case though. I use Firefox regardless. I way value their not crippling AdBlock over chrome and would encourage everyone to use it despite speed issues.
- acdha 4y ago
- kitsunesoba 4y agoI use Safari and another WebKit-based browser (Orion) on macOS and iOS/iPadOS all the time, because neither Chrome or Firefox compares when it comes to battery consumption or feeling like a proper citizen of the OS it's running on. It's seriously frustrating how little regard is given to efficiency in both Blink and Gecko. It don't care if the engine supports WebBanana 2.0 if it's destroying battery life.
- GekkePrutser 4y agoBut you are running WebKit in all four on iOS :) Because right now Apple doesn't allow other engines. So whatever it is that consumes batter, it's not blink or gecko.
- kitsunesoba 4y agoMy points of comparison are the macOS versions, where the difference is staggering. Architecturally macOS and iOS are very similar and it’s traditionally been quite rare for either engine’s team to focus squarely on improving efficiency (it’s always speed or features instead, with efficiency as a trailing afterthought), so there’s no reason to think that Blink and Gecko for iOS will be any more efficient than their macOS counterparts.
- vehemenz 4y agoIs "pushing the bounds of what the web can do" something we should value? Given the current direction of the web, a preference for Safari's relatively slow feature rollouts seems reasonable.
- bioemerl 4y ago> Is "pushing the bounds of what the web can do" something we should value? Given that the alternative are app stores controlled by the device vendor, yes. Either we free our devices so that custom software is acceptable and common again or we make sure the web is the go to platform for everything.
- vehemenz 4y agoOkay, so why should we value the web as the "go to" platform instead of applications? We can do this until the cows go home. You are making claims about values here, and not everyone shares your values.
- bioemerl 4y agoYou can "do this until the cows go home", but that's about as valuable as repeating "why" every time someone answers a question. People generally value being able to do more stuff. Putting control into the hands of large central parties generally does not go well.
- halostatue 4y agoBecause you’re not answering the questions. You’re providing tautological responses. You’ve been asked specific things about what features are missing from Safari / WebKit. You’ve replied with vague generalizations that don’t hold to be true outside of the echo chamber of the Chrome Reality Distortion Field.
- vehemenz 4y ago> Putting control into the hands of large central parties generally does not go well. Then why are you are in favor of a Chrome monopoly (the obvious externality here)?
- mvanbaak 4y ago> When is the last time you said "I will choose to use safari" Every single time I need a browser. On iPhone, iPad and MacBook. All reasons have been mentioned already, so will not repeat them here.
- alwillis 4y ago> or seen apple pushing the bounds of what the web can do? I get that it's easy to attack Apple these days but anyone paying attention can objectively see that Safari has been kicking ass this year. It's easy to do the "whataboutism" thing and they're late on a few things… but if this is a sign of things to come for Safari (style queries and masonry grids are in the works, for example), this is a Good Thing for the web and should be treated as such. * first to implement (March) the most anticipated CSS feature that was thought to be impossible to implement for most of the past 20 years, the :has() parent selector [1]. It took Chrome until the end of August and it's still not enabled by default in Firefox because bugs * first to implement wide-gamut color support [1a](2020) * first to implement oklch and oklab (and a bunch more) color spaces [2] * first to implement the open Webauthn standard Passkeys a few months ago; Chrome 108 just announced support * support for all of the "hot" CSS features like Container Queries, Subgrid, new viewport units, AVIF image format and (as they say) "more" [3] * Mozilla, Google, Apple and Microsoft agreed to focus on the interoperability of 15 web features; WebKit currently passes 98.5% of the tests the companies have agreed to, leading the other companies [4]. [1]: https://webkit.org/blog/13096/css-has-pseudo-class/ https://webkit.org/blog/13096/css-has-pseudo-class/ [1a]: https://webkit.org/blog/10042/wide-gamut-color-in-css-with-display-p3/ https://webkit.org/blog/10042/wide-gamut-color-in-css-with-d... [2]: https://evilmartians.com/chronicles/oklch-in-css-why-quit-rgb-hsl https://evilmartians.com/chronicles/oklch-in-css-why-quit-rg... [3]: https://webkit.org/blog/13152/webkit-features-in-safari-16-0/ https://webkit.org/blog/13152/webkit-features-in-safari-16-0... [4]: https://webkit.org/blog/13591/webkit-features-in-safari-16-2/ https://webkit.org/blog/13591/webkit-features-in-safari-16-2...