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My iOS/Safari is so bad, I have both Firefox and Chrome installed as a backup in case it doesn't work. They should start fixing Safari for real instead of addin

My iOS/Safari is so bad, I have both Firefox and Chrome installed as a backup in case it doesn't work. They should start fixing Safari for real instead of adding Quirks.

hhh 2y ago
what’s wrong with ios/safari? i don’t really ever have issues
- flessner 2y ago
  Safari on MacOS is really nice, fast and offers everything I need... but every 3 months or so I stumble on a website that refuses to work at all - rendering looks off, buttons don't work etc... Switching to Chrome usually fixes it - but I always question my sanity for about 10 minutes until I try it in Chrome.
  - SassyBird 2y ago
    It’s the opposite for me. I keep finding dumb bugs in Chromium, when it comes to correct website rendering and event handling (always regressions). Safari and Firefox on the other hand never have those issues. The only problem is: Safari has piss-poor ad blockers. Firefox blocks custom system-wide keyboard shortcuts (on Mac).
jraph 2y ago
I have bad news for you. On iOS, Firefox and Chrome use the same WebKit as Safari (because Apple doesn't allow third party browser engines on its App store).
- dizhn 2y ago
  Didn't they allow alternative engines recently? They even have emulators now. Undoubtedly a change forced on them by the EU.
  - jraph 2y ago
    Apparently you are right, they do since around February on iOS 17.4. In the EU only. https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engines/ https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi...
    - tjoff 2y ago
      Neat, question is if any of the browsers actually have had time to make use of it though?
      - galad87 2y ago
        No.
      - input_sh 2y ago
        It's not as simple as that, you're basically asking browsers to target a completely different platform, just for the EU users, where iPhones are nowhere near as popular to begin with. Google might at some point maintain two completely different Chromes targeting iOS, but I doubt anyone else will (including Firefox). Even with Chrome, I wouldn't bet on it. It's a very difficult technical problem with no clear, easily-marketable benefit to most people. Apple knew what they were doing, they've "complied", but in a way where nobody would bother.
        Y_Y 2y ago
        The EU is pretty big. For a population of about 450 million people with decent spending power maybe it is worthwhile.
        YmiYugy 2y ago
        As far as I know a native Chromium port to iOS is well under way. Whether Google will release Chrome is a different question, but I think it's likely. I think Google would love to bring Blink Chrome on iOS everywhere and there is a decent amount of momentum with developers and regulators to pressure Apple into allowing third party browser engines even outside the EU, but that completely goes away, if no actual engine get's ported to iOS. Blink Chrome on iOS probably gets a lot of enterprise web apps to drop WebKit support. That would probably that Chrome gets way more market share on iOS and with it lot's of telemetry for Google and also less money to Apple for default search engine placement. It's not great for the web as a standardized platform, but it will probably happen anyways.
- fallingknife 2y ago
  So Microsoft got dragged through anti-trust hell for just bundling IE with Windows and letting you install whatever browser you wanted after that, but Apple gets away with literally banning you from installing the browser you want on your own device, but that's ok? Make it make sense.
  - nozzlegear 2y ago
    > Make it make sense. Microsoft’s anti-trust lawsuit with the DOJ was 23 years ago. There are people working at Microsoft and Apple who weren’t even alive when that happened. Times change.
  - revscat 2y ago
    The market shifted, and two decades passed. Most importantly the courts have been packed with jurists from the Federalist society, who are libertarian. As a result there are far more judges willing and able to throw out consumer protection cases such as what happened in the 90’s with Microsoft and IE.
  - dspillett 2y ago
    MS went through anti-trust investigation for more than just bundling IE, and at the time commanded a much larger market share¹ of desktop computing than Apple do of the mobile market now. But while your comparison is flawed, I agree with the assertion² that Apple should not be locking user choice like this. The EU agree too, hence Apple's immature little hissy fit nearly breaking their (already "not quite there") offline-first app support for EU users when they were told so. -- [1] Avoiding the word "monopoly" to pre-counter the sort of "well actually" responses I got about dictionary definitions last time I said something like this. [2] Unless I'm reading you backwards and you are saying MS should have been able to like Apple currently do!
    - fallingknife 2y ago
      You are not reading me backwards. And MSFT is worse today. I had to make changes at the BIOS level in a new Windows laptop to make it let me install Firefox without creating a Microsoft account. Was an ordeal just to get it to let me log in in the first place with a local only account.

My iOS/Safari is so bad, I have both Firefox and Chrome installed as a backup in case it doesn't work. They should start fixing Safari for real instead of adding Quirks.

hhh 2y ago

what’s wrong with ios/safari? i don’t really ever have issues

flessner 2y ago
Safari on MacOS is really nice, fast and offers everything I need... but every 3 months or so I stumble on a website that refuses to work at all - rendering looks off, buttons don't work etc... Switching to Chrome usually fixes it - but I always question my sanity for about 10 minutes until I try it in Chrome.
- SassyBird 2y ago
  It’s the opposite for me. I keep finding dumb bugs in Chromium, when it comes to correct website rendering and event handling (always regressions). Safari and Firefox on the other hand never have those issues. The only problem is: Safari has piss-poor ad blockers. Firefox blocks custom system-wide keyboard shortcuts (on Mac).

jraph 2y ago

I have bad news for you. On iOS, Firefox and Chrome use the same WebKit as Safari (because Apple doesn't allow third party browser engines on its App store).

dizhn 2y ago
Didn't they allow alternative engines recently? They even have emulators now. Undoubtedly a change forced on them by the EU.
- jraph 2y ago
  Apparently you are right, they do since around February on iOS 17.4. In the EU only. https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engines/ https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi...
  - tjoff 2y ago
    Neat, question is if any of the browsers actually have had time to make use of it though?
    - galad87 2y ago
      No.
    - input_sh 2y ago
      It's not as simple as that, you're basically asking browsers to target a completely different platform, just for the EU users, where iPhones are nowhere near as popular to begin with. Google might at some point maintain two completely different Chromes targeting iOS, but I doubt anyone else will (including Firefox). Even with Chrome, I wouldn't bet on it. It's a very difficult technical problem with no clear, easily-marketable benefit to most people. Apple knew what they were doing, they've "complied", but in a way where nobody would bother.
      - Y_Y 2y ago
        The EU is pretty big. For a population of about 450 million people with decent spending power maybe it is worthwhile.
      - YmiYugy 2y ago
        As far as I know a native Chromium port to iOS is well under way. Whether Google will release Chrome is a different question, but I think it's likely. I think Google would love to bring Blink Chrome on iOS everywhere and there is a decent amount of momentum with developers and regulators to pressure Apple into allowing third party browser engines even outside the EU, but that completely goes away, if no actual engine get's ported to iOS. Blink Chrome on iOS probably gets a lot of enterprise web apps to drop WebKit support. That would probably that Chrome gets way more market share on iOS and with it lot's of telemetry for Google and also less money to Apple for default search engine placement. It's not great for the web as a standardized platform, but it will probably happen anyways.
fallingknife 2y ago
So Microsoft got dragged through anti-trust hell for just bundling IE with Windows and letting you install whatever browser you wanted after that, but Apple gets away with literally banning you from installing the browser you want on your own device, but that's ok? Make it make sense.
- nozzlegear 2y ago
  > Make it make sense. Microsoft’s anti-trust lawsuit with the DOJ was 23 years ago. There are people working at Microsoft and Apple who weren’t even alive when that happened. Times change.
- revscat 2y ago
  The market shifted, and two decades passed. Most importantly the courts have been packed with jurists from the Federalist society, who are libertarian. As a result there are far more judges willing and able to throw out consumer protection cases such as what happened in the 90’s with Microsoft and IE.
- dspillett 2y ago
  MS went through anti-trust investigation for more than just bundling IE, and at the time commanded a much larger market share¹ of desktop computing than Apple do of the mobile market now. But while your comparison is flawed, I agree with the assertion² that Apple should not be locking user choice like this. The EU agree too, hence Apple's immature little hissy fit nearly breaking their (already "not quite there") offline-first app support for EU users when they were told so. -- [1] Avoiding the word "monopoly" to pre-counter the sort of "well actually" responses I got about dictionary definitions last time I said something like this. [2] Unless I'm reading you backwards and you are saying MS should have been able to like Apple currently do!
  - fallingknife 2y ago
    You are not reading me backwards. And MSFT is worse today. I had to make changes at the BIOS level in a new Windows laptop to make it let me install Firefox without creating a Microsoft account. Was an ordeal just to get it to let me log in in the first place with a local only account.