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I and every single other webdev I've known from the early aughts would immediately offer to buy this person a beer upon hearing this story in person. Those clai

I and every single other webdev I've known from the early aughts would immediately offer to buy this person a beer upon hearing this story in person. Those claiming that safari is the new chrome just don't understand how bad IE was at the time.

chupchap 3y ago
As a student I would struggle to put out a page that would render the same way in all browsers. It takes so little effort now and I'm so glad for that
duskwuff 3y ago
Especially IE6, which was eight years old at the time, two major releases behind, and extremely buggy.
politelemon 3y ago
> Those claiming that safari is the new chrome just don't understand how bad IE was at the time. I suffered in the IE6 times, understood how bad it is, but still claim otherwise; when we're saying that Safari is the new IE/the new Chrome, it's with good reason. We've recognized that a piece of history is repeating itself, and it's pretty sad that it gets handwaved away or dismissed, just because people happen to have bought into its ecosystem.
- lolinder 3y ago
  What exactly does it mean for Safari to be both the new IE and the new Chrome?
- Octoth0rpe 3y ago
  > just because people happen to have bought into its ecosystem. I don't think that's a fair take. Plenty of us are developing webapps for safari/chrome/firefox, are barely ever consider browser differences. I think a lot of credit for this also goes to a wealth of high quality css/js frameworks that abstract what minor differences exist these days, rather than apple. It's worth also considering what specifically was bad about the IE dominance era in order to understand how it maps to our current situation. IMO it wasn't just that IE was bad (of course it was), but that its usage share was _dominant_. That doesn't come close to reflecting the current state of mobile browser usage: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/world... Worldwide Safari is a minority player. In the US (probably the best case), safari holds a slight majority at 55%, and the other 45% are likely almost entirely blink. At one point (early NS6/pre-phoenix), IE had something like 95% usage, and closer to 99% for corporate usage.
ssl-3 3y ago
It's still bad. The awful continues for end-users. Just this afternoon, I witnessed one elder tech teaching another elder tech how to enable IE mode on Windows 11 because that is the only way to get a particular hardware-based NVR to be viewable. The NVR has 2023 firmware.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tracker1 3y ago
It was as recently as 5 years ago I was able to do supporting legacy IE versions. Was so happy for it. Various CSS and JS shims to get anything close to modern. Ugh. Not as bad as the v4 browser days, but close.
- duskwuff 3y ago
  > Not as bad as the v4 browser days, but close. Oh my goodness, yes. Netscape 4 was especially bad. Trying to do anything interesting with CSS was playing with fire -- sometimes it'd work, sometimes it'd break, sometimes it'd crash the browser entirely, and there was no way to tell which one you'd get.
jimmaswell 3y ago
Safari is the one and only browser I continue to need to write special extra CSS for.
- tannerellen 3y ago
  This is a red flag that you are trying to use non standard CSS or you are trying to use things that are so bleeding edge that you are requiring even evergreen browsers to have been restarted and updated very recently. Set your target to any CSS that has been around for about a year or so and is based on standards and you shouldn't need to be writing anything different for specific browsers. I haven't had to target a specific browser for any CSS in years. I honestly don't know what people are trying to do that would require this now days. Grids, flexbox, animations, transitions no issues and don't even need browser prefixes. The only thing that I can think of that still requires a browser prefix in safari is -webkit-backdrop-filter. Maybe I'm just not doing super out there stuff I guess.
  - jimmaswell 3y ago
    Here's one example, nothing bleeding edge or weird at all. https://dev.to/snowleo208/how-to-fix-popups-scrolling-on-safari-3og6 https://dev.to/snowleo208/how-to-fix-popups-scrolling-on-saf...
    - Octoth0rpe 3y ago
      tbf, that is 5 years old.
      - jimmaswell 3y ago
        The behavior is still the same last I checked recently.
  - realusername 3y ago
    That's not a red flag, that's the state of Safari in the real world. I've experienced bugs in forms, SVG support, border-radius, z-index and indexDB, none of those are cutting edge. The compatibility table tells you only half of the story with Safari.

chupchap 3y ago

As a student I would struggle to put out a page that would render the same way in all browsers. It takes so little effort now and I'm so glad for that

duskwuff 3y ago

Especially IE6, which was eight years old at the time, two major releases behind, and extremely buggy.

politelemon 3y ago

> Those claiming that safari is the new chrome just don't understand how bad IE was at the time. I suffered in the IE6 times, understood how bad it is, but still claim otherwise; when we're saying that Safari is the new IE/the new Chrome, it's with good reason. We've recognized that a piece of history is repeating itself, and it's pretty sad that it gets handwaved away or dismissed, just because people happen to have bought into its ecosystem.

lolinder 3y ago
What exactly does it mean for Safari to be both the new IE and the new Chrome?
Octoth0rpe 3y ago
> just because people happen to have bought into its ecosystem. I don't think that's a fair take. Plenty of us are developing webapps for safari/chrome/firefox, are barely ever consider browser differences. I think a lot of credit for this also goes to a wealth of high quality css/js frameworks that abstract what minor differences exist these days, rather than apple. It's worth also considering what specifically was bad about the IE dominance era in order to understand how it maps to our current situation. IMO it wasn't just that IE was bad (of course it was), but that its usage share was _dominant_. That doesn't come close to reflecting the current state of mobile browser usage: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/world... Worldwide Safari is a minority player. In the US (probably the best case), safari holds a slight majority at 55%, and the other 45% are likely almost entirely blink. At one point (early NS6/pre-phoenix), IE had something like 95% usage, and closer to 99% for corporate usage.

ssl-3 3y ago

It's still bad. The awful continues for end-users. Just this afternoon, I witnessed one elder tech teaching another elder tech how to enable IE mode on Windows 11 because that is the only way to get a particular hardware-based NVR to be viewable. The NVR has 2023 firmware.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

tracker1 3y ago

It was as recently as 5 years ago I was able to do supporting legacy IE versions. Was so happy for it. Various CSS and JS shims to get anything close to modern. Ugh. Not as bad as the v4 browser days, but close.

duskwuff 3y ago
> Not as bad as the v4 browser days, but close. Oh my goodness, yes. Netscape 4 was especially bad. Trying to do anything interesting with CSS was playing with fire -- sometimes it'd work, sometimes it'd break, sometimes it'd crash the browser entirely, and there was no way to tell which one you'd get.

jimmaswell 3y ago

Safari is the one and only browser I continue to need to write special extra CSS for.

tannerellen 3y ago
This is a red flag that you are trying to use non standard CSS or you are trying to use things that are so bleeding edge that you are requiring even evergreen browsers to have been restarted and updated very recently. Set your target to any CSS that has been around for about a year or so and is based on standards and you shouldn't need to be writing anything different for specific browsers. I haven't had to target a specific browser for any CSS in years. I honestly don't know what people are trying to do that would require this now days. Grids, flexbox, animations, transitions no issues and don't even need browser prefixes. The only thing that I can think of that still requires a browser prefix in safari is -webkit-backdrop-filter. Maybe I'm just not doing super out there stuff I guess.
- jimmaswell 3y ago
  Here's one example, nothing bleeding edge or weird at all. https://dev.to/snowleo208/how-to-fix-popups-scrolling-on-safari-3og6 https://dev.to/snowleo208/how-to-fix-popups-scrolling-on-saf...
  - Octoth0rpe 3y ago
    tbf, that is 5 years old.
    - jimmaswell 3y ago
      The behavior is still the same last I checked recently.
- realusername 3y ago
  That's not a red flag, that's the state of Safari in the real world. I've experienced bugs in forms, SVG support, border-radius, z-index and indexDB, none of those are cutting edge. The compatibility table tells you only half of the story with Safari.