4 ms·

When you pay close attention to things like web standards, one would have noticed how during the last 2 years the Webkit team seems to have woken up from a deca

by fleddr 4y ago

When you pay close attention to things like web standards, one would have noticed how during the last 2 years the Webkit team seems to have woken up from a decade-long hibernation. They're actually releasing things, and in a pretty decent pace. As the article implies, very likely due to regulatory pressure building up. And that tells you everything you need to know about Apple's stance on the web: they hate it, as they hate anything that is interoperable and uncontrollable. They'll starve the web to the maximum they can get away with and now that maximum is reducing, hopefully.

micromacrofoot 4y ago
safari has been implementing new spec faster than firefox in some cases! they’ve really gotten their act together
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Gigachad 4y ago
  A lot of the specs firefox hasn't added are of questionable value like WebUSB which exists to make chromebooks less useless.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  It's a different thing. Apple doesn't care about implementing them whereas Mozilla wants to strangle Google with their bare hands and would rather die before they implement them out of principle.
- fleddr 4y ago
  That's what I said, Webkit has recently sped up their development, for all the wrong reasons. As for Firefox, as much as I sentimentally align with it and still use it, it's a dead browser. I have access to some analytics of websites with a billion+ views/year and it doesn't even show up. It has like 0.5% market share on mobile. They're irrelevant in this iteration of the browser wars.
  - psxuaw 4y ago
    Maybe Firefox usage statistics could be distorted, because of its various mechanisms of blocking trackers.
    - rerdavies 4y ago
      It would surprise me greatly if Firefox were sending invalid User-Agent headers. User-Agent headers are mandatory; and it would be counterproductive for everybody, including Mozilla, if Firefox were sending invalid User-Agent headers.
      - paulryanrogers 4y ago
        For years I sent a blank UA string. It worked surprisingly well until about 2010. Only real issue was some Tomcat servers would just barf out stack traces. UA switcher is a pretty popular addon in the Mozilla ecosystem. So it may well be more popular than UA stats alone can surmise. (Though probably not enough to matter to businesses too lazy to test anything besides the top two.)
        moffkalast 4y ago
        According to Mozilla only like a third of all Firefox users have installed any add-on at all. So multiply the number by 150% and you have the highest possible Firefox usage rate.
        rerdavies 4y ago
        Similar experience. :-P It didn't seem to be mandatory until suddenly it was.
    - nordsieck 4y ago
      > Maybe Firefox usage statistics could be distorted, because of its various mechanisms of blocking trackers. I didn't think that that blocked the user-agent header. But I guess I could be wrong.
klabb3 4y ago
If the web was developed today, it would be rejected from the App Store. And while I agree that Apple was first, others followed suit and the spirit of something like the web is terrifying to established tech monopolists. Just read the Gates emails about the web from the 90s.
- fleddr 4y ago
  Yep, the web sets one free, there's no lock-in, no permission. We can't have that.
- srcreigh 4y ago
  It is rejected currently and any dynamic app browser is banned too. No idea how this wasn’t immediately quashed by regulation. It’s a 15 year long version of the M$ antitrust lawsuit. The reason it’s not blocked is probably because Apple browser seems close enough to “the web” as we know it. The web should be a lot more advanced today than it is, and Apple is to blame for that. Blocking progress for over a decade.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
The most interesting thing for me is that iOS Safari has said they will support push notifications this year. And I get it, most of us don't like push notifications, and on the web even more so. But lack of push notification support is the one thing that was forcing a lot of developers from just doing a decent progressive web app and instead forcing them into the App Store. I'm interested to see the growth in PWAs once iOS finally supports web push. And just to try to head off the "but native apps are better" arguments in advance: yes, they can be, but I hate having to download apps from a company that I'll have a very short-term relationship with (or sometimes even a longer relationship). E.g. I recall.going to a charity event and having to download a (pretty poor) app for their silent auction. Only reason it needed to be an app instead of a website was to send pushes about being outbid, the auction ending, etc

by fleddr 4y ago

micromacrofoot 4y ago

safari has been implementing new spec faster than firefox in some cases! they’ve really gotten their act together

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Gigachad 4y ago
A lot of the specs firefox hasn't added are of questionable value like WebUSB which exists to make chromebooks less useless.
moffkalast 4y ago
It's a different thing. Apple doesn't care about implementing them whereas Mozilla wants to strangle Google with their bare hands and would rather die before they implement them out of principle.
fleddr 4y ago
That's what I said, Webkit has recently sped up their development, for all the wrong reasons. As for Firefox, as much as I sentimentally align with it and still use it, it's a dead browser. I have access to some analytics of websites with a billion+ views/year and it doesn't even show up. It has like 0.5% market share on mobile. They're irrelevant in this iteration of the browser wars.
- psxuaw 4y ago
  Maybe Firefox usage statistics could be distorted, because of its various mechanisms of blocking trackers.
  - rerdavies 4y ago
    It would surprise me greatly if Firefox were sending invalid User-Agent headers. User-Agent headers are mandatory; and it would be counterproductive for everybody, including Mozilla, if Firefox were sending invalid User-Agent headers.
    - paulryanrogers 4y ago
      For years I sent a blank UA string. It worked surprisingly well until about 2010. Only real issue was some Tomcat servers would just barf out stack traces. UA switcher is a pretty popular addon in the Mozilla ecosystem. So it may well be more popular than UA stats alone can surmise. (Though probably not enough to matter to businesses too lazy to test anything besides the top two.)
      - moffkalast 4y ago
        According to Mozilla only like a third of all Firefox users have installed any add-on at all. So multiply the number by 150% and you have the highest possible Firefox usage rate.
      - rerdavies 4y ago
        Similar experience. :-P It didn't seem to be mandatory until suddenly it was.
  - nordsieck 4y ago
    > Maybe Firefox usage statistics could be distorted, because of its various mechanisms of blocking trackers. I didn't think that that blocked the user-agent header. But I guess I could be wrong.

klabb3 4y ago

If the web was developed today, it would be rejected from the App Store. And while I agree that Apple was first, others followed suit and the spirit of something like the web is terrifying to established tech monopolists. Just read the Gates emails about the web from the 90s.

fleddr 4y ago
Yep, the web sets one free, there's no lock-in, no permission. We can't have that.
srcreigh 4y ago
It is rejected currently and any dynamic app browser is banned too. No idea how this wasn’t immediately quashed by regulation. It’s a 15 year long version of the M$ antitrust lawsuit. The reason it’s not blocked is probably because Apple browser seems close enough to “the web” as we know it. The web should be a lot more advanced today than it is, and Apple is to blame for that. Blocking progress for over a decade.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

The most interesting thing for me is that iOS Safari has said they will support push notifications this year. And I get it, most of us don't like push notifications, and on the web even more so. But lack of push notification support is the one thing that was forcing a lot of developers from just doing a decent progressive web app and instead forcing them into the App Store. I'm interested to see the growth in PWAs once iOS finally supports web push. And just to try to head off the "but native apps are better" arguments in advance: yes, they can be, but I hate having to download apps from a company that I'll have a very short-term relationship with (or sometimes even a longer relationship). E.g. I recall.going to a charity event and having to download a (pretty poor) app for their silent auction. Only reason it needed to be an app instead of a website was to send pushes about being outbid, the auction ending, etc