4 ms·

For years Google been stamping "standards" one after another even though other browser vendors were against many of them and they end up being Chrome-only. No

by SXX 4y ago

For years Google been stamping "standards" one after another even though other browser vendors were against many of them and they end up being Chrome-only. No matter what Apple itself does Safari being major non-Chromium browser helps Firefox a lot just by existing and having huge marketshare.

heavyset_go 4y ago
How does Apple dragging their feet on implementing the Web Push notification standard, that is necessary for PWAs, in anyway help in that situation? Literally every browser except Safari implemented the the standard, and not out of some noble anti-Google crusade. PWAs threaten the App Store monopoly's moneyhose. How does Apple releasing proprietary web standards just for Safari, like Safari Push Notifications, help in anyway with the purported problem of companies stamping out web standards without consensus? It seems like it's only a problem when Google does it, but when Apple does it, it's Safari "helping Firefox just exist".
- threeseed 4y ago
  Push notifications are now available in iOS. And so I will be looking forward to the magical era of PWAs replacing all mobile applications because clearly push notifications was what was holding them back all these years. Even though a tiny fraction of mobile apps use them but I guess we will ignore that.
  - lxgr 4y ago
    Every single airline app on my phone is there only because of push notifications (which work more reliably than texts when traveling internationally with different SIMs). The same goes for most food delivery apps.
    - ryanianian 4y ago
      Food delivery apps seem to immediately abuse any form of push notifications in order to send spam. Lyft uses the same push stream for both driver ETA and 10% off coupons. They are indeed more reliable than SMS, yet I turn them off almost as fast as apps start to use them.
      - lxgr 4y ago
        > Food delivery apps seem to immediately abuse any form of push notifications in order to send spam. Oh, definitely. But if they do (and don't at least give me a way to immediately opt out of that) the app is gone from my phone – and they have no other way of reaching me. Beats the absolute nightmare that is SMS notifications and spam, in my view.
      - lern_too_spel 4y ago
        Android provides hooks to filter notifications from apps, while iOS does not, making the notification experience far worse. Allowing web push lets you filter notifications in a browser extension instead.
        dwaite 4y ago
        How do you mean? I can silence or block notifications completely from apps on iOS, and they cannot even send notifications before I approve them to do so. Are you saying that Android has third party filters that surveil all your notifications in the name of blocking ones you might not want to see?
        frameset 4y ago
        I'm an android only user, and I think what GP is referring to is that apps can categorise their notifications. In your food example, an app might have categories for "delivery updates" versus "special offers", and you can go into the notification settings for any app and turn on or off categories.
        lern_too_spel 4y ago
        Yes, Android has a notifications API that lets you process all notifications. (This is in addition to the channels mentioned in the sibling comment.) This is not possible on iOS, except maybe for web notifications with a browser extension. I find that situation untenable for any power user of productivity apps, akin to using email without filter rules.
- fzeindl 4y ago
  Actually the iphone was planned to use PWAs in the start, but Steve Jobs switched to native apps after realizing that performance and usability was going to be poor. He was right and still is. Not that it's impossible to implement a good PWA, all you have to do is manage your state and interface in a way that no interaction takes longer than 50ms to compute. But most developers are not able to deliver than, most don't even think about UIs in this sort of way. And V8 GC behaviour is still terrible and an unbelievable battery hog.
rektide 4y ago
It's a three player world now, and Google wants a better web, Apple doesn't want a better web, and Mozilla is somewhere in-between, but increasingly playing the "privacy above all else" card too. In June 2020, Apple declared a bunch of APIs they will not implement (https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-declined-to-implement-16-web-apis-in-safari-due-to-privacy-concerns/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-declined-to-implement-16...), in a big press blitz trying to make it look like they were some noble hero. Web MIDI (incredible fun), Web USB (very useful for Arduino using folk for example, who have excellent web-based tools), Magnetometer/Ambient Light/Battery/Proximity sensors, WebHID, Device Memory, and that's just the half. A week latter Mozilla put out a similar PR using the exact same Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) to try to make themselves look good, to declare themselves virtuous non-implementors. Sure, I agree, not every site should have access to these sensors/capabilities. There are privacy risks of turning them on. But they're also excellent capabilities, that really help users do interesting things. Making users use less-secure less-sandboxed native apps is a downgrade. There should be some security regimes where these web techs can be permitted. For a while Mozilla wasn't even reviewing a sizable chunk of web standards (tracked via the excellent https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/), just declaring them unsafe & leaving the convo. They've at least started going back to old Request for Positions & reviewing a good number of them, even if they don't intend to implement. And there's a good number of standards they have about-faced on, have accepted as real asks. In general, I'm encouraged in seeing a much more interested & engaged & progressive Mozilla emerge quite recently, within the past year or so. I don't know what to do about web standards. Google takes a lot of flak, but who is there to work with? Edge, a Chromium fork, has some pro-web attitude, and indeed drives some new features for Chromium & participates. But there's largely no one but Google+Edge to deal with left in the web standards implementer world. The other browser vendors are broadly against a lot of features, for reasons of malicious-self-interest. Meanwhile Chrome continues to have one of the most open, progressive, interactive, review-seeking, concensus-desiring, most mature & responsible feature-lifecycle processes the world has ever seen. There is nothing else on the planet that gets shipped with such a high bar, such a socially pro-active, such a well planned & democratic process for how the feature gets developed. It's the gold standard of standards. https://www.chromium.org/blink/launching-features/#launch-process https://www.chromium.org/blink/launching-features/#launch-pr...
commoner 4y ago
> No matter what Apple itself does Safari being major non-Chromium browser helps Firefox a lot just by existing and having huge marketshare. That is incorrect because Apple has prevented and still prevents Firefox from properly implementing Gecko on iOS. Apple also restricts Firefox and browsers other than Safari from implementing full WebExtensions. Even though Firefox and browsers other than Safari are required to use WebKit on iOS, they are not allowed to access many of WebKit's iOS-integrated features including content blockers and Safari extensions. All of these Apple-imposed handicaps make Firefox a much less competitive browser on iOS than it could be, and in no way helps Firefox because users generally prefer to use the same browser across their devices. The EU's upcoming browser choice legislation will prohibit Apple's anticompetitive restrictions to put Firefox on a more level playing field with Safari on iOS.

by SXX 4y ago

heavyset_go 4y ago

How does Apple dragging their feet on implementing the Web Push notification standard, that is necessary for PWAs, in anyway help in that situation? Literally every browser except Safari implemented the the standard, and not out of some noble anti-Google crusade. PWAs threaten the App Store monopoly's moneyhose. How does Apple releasing proprietary web standards just for Safari, like Safari Push Notifications, help in anyway with the purported problem of companies stamping out web standards without consensus? It seems like it's only a problem when Google does it, but when Apple does it, it's Safari "helping Firefox just exist".

threeseed 4y ago
Push notifications are now available in iOS. And so I will be looking forward to the magical era of PWAs replacing all mobile applications because clearly push notifications was what was holding them back all these years. Even though a tiny fraction of mobile apps use them but I guess we will ignore that.
- lxgr 4y ago
  Every single airline app on my phone is there only because of push notifications (which work more reliably than texts when traveling internationally with different SIMs). The same goes for most food delivery apps.
  - ryanianian 4y ago
    Food delivery apps seem to immediately abuse any form of push notifications in order to send spam. Lyft uses the same push stream for both driver ETA and 10% off coupons. They are indeed more reliable than SMS, yet I turn them off almost as fast as apps start to use them.
    - lxgr 4y ago
      > Food delivery apps seem to immediately abuse any form of push notifications in order to send spam. Oh, definitely. But if they do (and don't at least give me a way to immediately opt out of that) the app is gone from my phone – and they have no other way of reaching me. Beats the absolute nightmare that is SMS notifications and spam, in my view.
    - lern_too_spel 4y ago
      Android provides hooks to filter notifications from apps, while iOS does not, making the notification experience far worse. Allowing web push lets you filter notifications in a browser extension instead.
      - dwaite 4y ago
        How do you mean? I can silence or block notifications completely from apps on iOS, and they cannot even send notifications before I approve them to do so. Are you saying that Android has third party filters that surveil all your notifications in the name of blocking ones you might not want to see?
        frameset 4y ago
        I'm an android only user, and I think what GP is referring to is that apps can categorise their notifications. In your food example, an app might have categories for "delivery updates" versus "special offers", and you can go into the notification settings for any app and turn on or off categories.
        lern_too_spel 4y ago
        Yes, Android has a notifications API that lets you process all notifications. (This is in addition to the channels mentioned in the sibling comment.) This is not possible on iOS, except maybe for web notifications with a browser extension. I find that situation untenable for any power user of productivity apps, akin to using email without filter rules.
fzeindl 4y ago
Actually the iphone was planned to use PWAs in the start, but Steve Jobs switched to native apps after realizing that performance and usability was going to be poor. He was right and still is. Not that it's impossible to implement a good PWA, all you have to do is manage your state and interface in a way that no interaction takes longer than 50ms to compute. But most developers are not able to deliver than, most don't even think about UIs in this sort of way. And V8 GC behaviour is still terrible and an unbelievable battery hog.

rektide 4y ago

It's a three player world now, and Google wants a better web, Apple doesn't want a better web, and Mozilla is somewhere in-between, but increasingly playing the "privacy above all else" card too. In June 2020, Apple declared a bunch of APIs they will not implement (https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-declined-to-implement-16-web-apis-in-safari-due-to-privacy-concerns/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-declined-to-implement-16...), in a big press blitz trying to make it look like they were some noble hero. Web MIDI (incredible fun), Web USB (very useful for Arduino using folk for example, who have excellent web-based tools), Magnetometer/Ambient Light/Battery/Proximity sensors, WebHID, Device Memory, and that's just the half. A week latter Mozilla put out a similar PR using the exact same Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) to try to make themselves look good, to declare themselves virtuous non-implementors. Sure, I agree, not every site should have access to these sensors/capabilities. There are privacy risks of turning them on. But they're also excellent capabilities, that really help users do interesting things. Making users use less-secure less-sandboxed native apps is a downgrade. There should be some security regimes where these web techs can be permitted. For a while Mozilla wasn't even reviewing a sizable chunk of web standards (tracked via the excellent https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/), just declaring them unsafe & leaving the convo. They've at least started going back to old Request for Positions & reviewing a good number of them, even if they don't intend to implement. And there's a good number of standards they have about-faced on, have accepted as real asks. In general, I'm encouraged in seeing a much more interested & engaged & progressive Mozilla emerge quite recently, within the past year or so. I don't know what to do about web standards. Google takes a lot of flak, but who is there to work with? Edge, a Chromium fork, has some pro-web attitude, and indeed drives some new features for Chromium & participates. But there's largely no one but Google+Edge to deal with left in the web standards implementer world. The other browser vendors are broadly against a lot of features, for reasons of malicious-self-interest. Meanwhile Chrome continues to have one of the most open, progressive, interactive, review-seeking, concensus-desiring, most mature & responsible feature-lifecycle processes the world has ever seen. There is nothing else on the planet that gets shipped with such a high bar, such a socially pro-active, such a well planned & democratic process for how the feature gets developed. It's the gold standard of standards. https://www.chromium.org/blink/launching-features/#launch-process https://www.chromium.org/blink/launching-features/#launch-pr...

commoner 4y ago

> No matter what Apple itself does Safari being major non-Chromium browser helps Firefox a lot just by existing and having huge marketshare. That is incorrect because Apple has prevented and still prevents Firefox from properly implementing Gecko on iOS. Apple also restricts Firefox and browsers other than Safari from implementing full WebExtensions. Even though Firefox and browsers other than Safari are required to use WebKit on iOS, they are not allowed to access many of WebKit's iOS-integrated features including content blockers and Safari extensions. All of these Apple-imposed handicaps make Firefox a much less competitive browser on iOS than it could be, and in no way helps Firefox because users generally prefer to use the same browser across their devices. The EU's upcoming browser choice legislation will prohibit Apple's anticompetitive restrictions to put Firefox on a more level playing field with Safari on iOS.