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Except in every thread about iOS or Safari are a ton of people crying for real Chrome on iOS because Safari is the new IE 6 holding the web back by not implemen

by MBCook 3y ago

Except in every thread about iOS or Safari are a ton of people crying for real Chrome on iOS because Safari is the new IE 6 holding the web back by not implementing the new WebDogCam4 “standard” Google pushed out 2 days ago.

freedomben 3y ago
Honest question: do you think Apple is holding back the web?
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Apple is holding ChromeOS back, which is what the Web will turn into if Google has free reign.
- michaelt 3y ago
  The mention of “the new WebDogCam4 “standard” Google pushed out 2 days ago.” didn’t register as sarcasm with you, huh?
- AmenBreak 3y ago
  Chrome is not "the web."
  - MBCook 3y ago
    To a ton of people (including developers), it is. Therefore anything that’s not Chrome or 100% compatible is “breaking the web”. No one is forcing a Chrome hegemony on us. Developers are choosing it.
    - AmenBreak 3y ago
      Those developers will always, ALWAYS cater it iOS - where the money is.
      - dwaite 3y ago
        ... and they'll do this by having their mobile team create an app, and making their website refuse to work on iOS by user-agent string.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      This is something that lots of people complain about but somehow I never experience. Not to doubt it—I’ve seen the complaint enough that I believe it—mostly I’m just confused as to how I’ve managed to dodge the problem. Firefox and mobile Safari, so I guess I should experience it…
      - dwaite 3y ago
        Hmm, many google web features not-so-subtly nudge you to install Chrome. Some outright block usage of anything other than Chrome. This has been going on for well more than a decade. I regularly see small/medium websites which state they only work with Chrome, but I feel they do so at their peril. I see some of those sites push people to install a "desktop app" if you do not use Chrome, which is of course an Electron-based app. I also regularly see services that just fail for long runs of time on non-Chrome browsers due to complete lack of regression testing, or (slightly more generously) because they aren't testing their services against current releases of Firefox/Safari. Safari is more sensitive to this, both because of a much more active development tick compared to Firefox, and because it is leveraging system frameworks rather than a relatively static compatibility layer 'buffer'.
- MBCook 3y ago
  Nope. Not at all. I think they’re doing great. Most of the stuff I see complain about here on HN are features I’m not sure should exist (web push notifications, hardware access), uBlock (there are other options), and some PWA stuff they’re doing but I do t think there is anywhere near the call for from users some developers think. If Safari was as bad as so many claim it would have next to no desktop market share. But despite Google pushing Chrome at every opportunity tons of people like my self prefer Safari. Apple has different priorities for Safari than Google does for Chrome. That’s fine. My priorities match Safari far better, I’m perfectly happy with how they’re doing things.
pjmlp 3y ago
Actually Chrome is the new IE. Many forget that Microsoft was introducing many incompatible standards, and only let IE stagnate after they won over Mozzilla. Safari isn't the one turning the Web into ChromeOS.
- nwienert 3y ago
  ^ This, 100%. Chrome is by far the bad actor, and not only that, Safari is arguably the better browser even if strictly looking at "support for web standards" (but in many other ways as well). The vitriolic hate it gets in many threads are completely misguided and likely the result of years-old opinions on it. In the last 3 years Safari dramatically accelerated development, leapfrogged Chrome in performance to a staggering degree, and basically became close to an ideal browser. And nearly every so-called standard people point to to "prove" Safari is lagging behind is almost always just something Chrome pushed out without any consensus. It's funny because I think the hate comes from Webkit being forced on iOS, but it often comes out as "Safari sucks it's the new IE" which is pretty much the opposite of true and undermines the point.
  - seba_dos1 3y ago
    Safari used to be "the new late-IE" a few years ago. It lagged significantly behind other browsers and it kept intentionally holding back support for open standards and codecs, forcing websites to make Safari-specific workarounds whenever you wanted to do basic things (I had to write scripts to transcode Vorbis to MP3 when deploying a web game just so it could have sounds on Safari, for example). These days Safari gets better indeed (through it's still a PITA in some areas), while Chrome is clearly "the new golden-days-IE" - which long-term is probably much worse than Safari could ever be.
    - atonse 3y ago
      As someone who grew up with mp3s, your example seems interesting because it seems like an example where you had to encode from something obscure (ogg) to the closest thing to a “universal” sound format as wav could be: MP3. In that case doesn’t it seem like Google took an ideological stance by choosing a non-patent-encumbered codec instead of supporting mp3? And they could do it because of their dominance? Or is that not accurate?

by MBCook 3y ago

freedomben 3y ago

Honest question: do you think Apple is holding back the web?

pjmlp 3y ago
Apple is holding ChromeOS back, which is what the Web will turn into if Google has free reign.
michaelt 3y ago
The mention of “the new WebDogCam4 “standard” Google pushed out 2 days ago.” didn’t register as sarcasm with you, huh?
AmenBreak 3y ago
Chrome is not "the web."
- MBCook 3y ago
  To a ton of people (including developers), it is. Therefore anything that’s not Chrome or 100% compatible is “breaking the web”. No one is forcing a Chrome hegemony on us. Developers are choosing it.
  - AmenBreak 3y ago
    Those developers will always, ALWAYS cater it iOS - where the money is.
    - dwaite 3y ago
      ... and they'll do this by having their mobile team create an app, and making their website refuse to work on iOS by user-agent string.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    This is something that lots of people complain about but somehow I never experience. Not to doubt it—I’ve seen the complaint enough that I believe it—mostly I’m just confused as to how I’ve managed to dodge the problem. Firefox and mobile Safari, so I guess I should experience it…
    - dwaite 3y ago
      Hmm, many google web features not-so-subtly nudge you to install Chrome. Some outright block usage of anything other than Chrome. This has been going on for well more than a decade. I regularly see small/medium websites which state they only work with Chrome, but I feel they do so at their peril. I see some of those sites push people to install a "desktop app" if you do not use Chrome, which is of course an Electron-based app. I also regularly see services that just fail for long runs of time on non-Chrome browsers due to complete lack of regression testing, or (slightly more generously) because they aren't testing their services against current releases of Firefox/Safari. Safari is more sensitive to this, both because of a much more active development tick compared to Firefox, and because it is leveraging system frameworks rather than a relatively static compatibility layer 'buffer'.
MBCook 3y ago
Nope. Not at all. I think they’re doing great. Most of the stuff I see complain about here on HN are features I’m not sure should exist (web push notifications, hardware access), uBlock (there are other options), and some PWA stuff they’re doing but I do t think there is anywhere near the call for from users some developers think. If Safari was as bad as so many claim it would have next to no desktop market share. But despite Google pushing Chrome at every opportunity tons of people like my self prefer Safari. Apple has different priorities for Safari than Google does for Chrome. That’s fine. My priorities match Safari far better, I’m perfectly happy with how they’re doing things.

pjmlp 3y ago

Actually Chrome is the new IE. Many forget that Microsoft was introducing many incompatible standards, and only let IE stagnate after they won over Mozzilla. Safari isn't the one turning the Web into ChromeOS.

nwienert 3y ago
^ This, 100%. Chrome is by far the bad actor, and not only that, Safari is arguably the better browser even if strictly looking at "support for web standards" (but in many other ways as well). The vitriolic hate it gets in many threads are completely misguided and likely the result of years-old opinions on it. In the last 3 years Safari dramatically accelerated development, leapfrogged Chrome in performance to a staggering degree, and basically became close to an ideal browser. And nearly every so-called standard people point to to "prove" Safari is lagging behind is almost always just something Chrome pushed out without any consensus. It's funny because I think the hate comes from Webkit being forced on iOS, but it often comes out as "Safari sucks it's the new IE" which is pretty much the opposite of true and undermines the point.
- seba_dos1 3y ago
  Safari used to be "the new late-IE" a few years ago. It lagged significantly behind other browsers and it kept intentionally holding back support for open standards and codecs, forcing websites to make Safari-specific workarounds whenever you wanted to do basic things (I had to write scripts to transcode Vorbis to MP3 when deploying a web game just so it could have sounds on Safari, for example). These days Safari gets better indeed (through it's still a PITA in some areas), while Chrome is clearly "the new golden-days-IE" - which long-term is probably much worse than Safari could ever be.
  - atonse 3y ago
    As someone who grew up with mp3s, your example seems interesting because it seems like an example where you had to encode from something obscure (ogg) to the closest thing to a “universal” sound format as wav could be: MP3. In that case doesn’t it seem like Google took an ideological stance by choosing a non-patent-encumbered codec instead of supporting mp3? And they could do it because of their dominance? Or is that not accurate?