6 ms·

If Safari can only survive because Apple has a monopoly on browsers on iOS then it's a shit browser.

ezfe 1y ago
Even if Safari was perfect, people would still switch to Chrome because that's what they think they need.
fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
Firefox is overall a fine browser. Still has 2% marketshare. There's also the fact that websites themselves need to be mindful of multiple browser engines existing because of Safari. Once users are able to install Chrome on iPhones, developers will just abandon every other engine wholesale.
- dylan604 1y ago
  Being mindful of alternate browsers means nothing. If that were true, more people would not be using Chrome on Android or on desktop.
  - fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
    I have no idea what you're trying to say
- overfeed 1y ago
  > Firefox is overall a fine browser. Still has 2% marketshare Firefox used to have a 25-30% share before Mozilla shat the bed by neglecting it while treating Firefox like a money-piñata to fund a series of dead-end, copy-cat projects in their big-tech cosplay era. Blaming Chrome for Firefox and Safari being shit (as reflected by the percentage of users who voluntarily use the respective browsers) removes their culpability. Chrome had to grow their share from 0%.
  - radiofreeeuropa 1y ago
    Chrome did that three ways: 1) performing better and crashing less than mainstream alternatives (just IE and Firefox, then) on non-Mac platforms (so, most desktop computers) for a good long while; 2) aggressive advertising to trick people who don't actually give a shit what browser they're running (or even know) into downloading it because "google said it would make my gmail work better" or "I dunno, google just told me to download this so I did"; and, later in the race, by 3) being the default on most Android installations. One of three major factors involved actually being good, and I'd bet the other two factors overwhelm that one.
    - overfeed 1y ago
      I forgot how often individual webpages could take down your entire browser! On Chrome, it'd just crash the perpetrator tab. Chrome was also fast - really, really fast. Even if one was "tricked" into using it, you wouldn't want to go back to using other browsers - they put in the work. > One of three major factors involved actually being good, and I'd bet the other two factors overwhelm that one Counterpoint: Microsoft Edge on Windows has the same 2 factors going for it, but failing to replicate Chrome's ascendancy. Edge and Windows pleading with you to not install Chrome is kinda sad.
      - fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
        Edge (and basically every other browser besides Safari and Firefox) is a chromium fork though, so even though it only has like a 5% market share, it's still bumping up the engine's overall market share.
        overfeed 1y ago
        My point was that Chrome didn't win on marketing alone (as disproved by Edge dismal numbers). That said: browser marketshare metrics breakout the "brand" and not just the engine: for a long time, Chrome's rendering engine was downstream of Safari's WebKit before being forked outright as Blink. That Microsoft abandoned Trident for a Chromium fork speaks volumes on the amount of innovation and engineering effort Google poured into Chrome/Chromium - I don't understand how it can be controversial to suggest that Chromium wins on its merits. The gaggle of browsers opted to fork Chromium rather than WebKit or Gecko because Chromium is best-in-class.
- JimDabell 1y ago
  > Once users are able to install Chrome on iPhones, developers will just abandon every other engine wholesale. This is the thing that is most concerning. We’ve seen this happen before. We ended up with an Internet Explorer monoculture that paralysed front-end development for over a decade. Huge numbers of developers were happily writing Internet Explorer-only websites and didn’t care about any other browser at all. There’s a real danger that this ends the open web and turns it into a Chrome platform controlled by Google.
  - sunaookami 1y ago
    IE was bad because development stopped for years and nobody could use modern web standards without supporting IE.
- pornel 1y ago
  Google has been bombarding Firefox users with "Upgrade to Chrome" notices on their properties. Google kept having "oopses" that blocked browsers based on User-Agent strings, rather than capabilities. Google also plays "fire and motion" with Web standards. They have a tendency to use non-standard(-yet) features on their websites. This gives them a perfect excuse to make other browsers look technically inferior (when the features are missing or the browser is blocked) or slow (when the features are implemented using inefficient polyfills). The unfairness is the one-sided choice of using whatever cutting-edge or Google-specific feature Chrome has, while they'd never do this in other direction. If Firefox implemented a new feature first, Google would never tell Chrome users that Chrome sucks and they need to upgrade to Firefox.
simondotau 1y ago
The only reason why Safari is "shit" is because web developers are too lazy to develop for the web and instead develop for Chrome. The point of the web is that it's an open standard. Expecting everyone to use the bleeding edge version of the most aggressively feature-laden browser isn't just unreasonable, it's counter to the spirit of the platform. Microsoft got into trouble for pushing Netscape users over to Internet Explorer, but what they did isn't half as evil as the dark patterns Google is using to get Chrome and other Google apps onto the few devices left which don't have them. It's IE6 all over again. But worse.
- spartanatreyu 1y ago
  > The only reason why Safari is "shit" is because web developers are too lazy to develop for the web and instead develop for Chrome. Safari is only available on Apple devices, Chrome is available everywhere. Let's not pretend that laziness is the only reason why Chrome has the largest marketshare. > The point of the web is that it's an open standard. Expecting everyone to use the bleeding edge version of the most aggressively feature-laden browser isn't just unreasonable, it's counter to the spirit of the platform. I don't expect Safari to be the bleeding edge. I just expect the features to work. Lets take for example: IndexedDB - IndexedDB was first brought up in two propsals in 2009/2010 - IndexedDB was available for pubilc testing in early 2012 by Firefox and Chrome and was released for both browsers unprefixed in late 2012. - IndexedDB was "released" for Safari in late 2014. However: 1. The released version was so bad and buggy that it basically didn't work at all. 2. It essentially broke all the websites/web-apps that were using it, and there was no easy alternative to use. The affected websites/webapps had to essentially be rearchitected and remade or just plain shut down. 3. Apple had no interest in fixing it which essentially poisoned the feature for all developers. It was so egregious it was actually used in the lawsuits against Apple their monopolistic app store practices, which eventually led to the EU to create their new sweeping anti-trust regulation changes for app stores and browsers. - IndexedDB didn't have a working release on Safari until mid-2016 and didn't have the industry standard "last two major version" support until late 2017. That means we had developers affected by IndexedDB's poisoning for about 5 years. --- So by my earlier request of "I don't expect Safari to be the bleeding edge. I just expect the features to work.", Safari completely and utterly shit the bed. They shit the bed so bad it helped lead the EU to create new anti-trust regulations. And that was just Apple trying to meet a standard feature. And if you thought the IndexedDB debacle was over, they broke it again. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27509206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27509206 --- Let's not even get into Safari breaking other features. I'd rather not type all this out: https://webventures.rejh.nl/blog/2024/history-of-safari-show-stoppers/ https://webventures.rejh.nl/blog/2024/history-of-safari-show...

ezfe 1y ago

Even if Safari was perfect, people would still switch to Chrome because that's what they think they need.

Firefox is overall a fine browser. Still has 2% marketshare. There's also the fact that websites themselves need to be mindful of multiple browser engines existing because of Safari. Once users are able to install Chrome on iPhones, developers will just abandon every other engine wholesale.

dylan604 1y ago
Being mindful of alternate browsers means nothing. If that were true, more people would not be using Chrome on Android or on desktop.
- fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
  I have no idea what you're trying to say
overfeed 1y ago
> Firefox is overall a fine browser. Still has 2% marketshare Firefox used to have a 25-30% share before Mozilla shat the bed by neglecting it while treating Firefox like a money-piñata to fund a series of dead-end, copy-cat projects in their big-tech cosplay era. Blaming Chrome for Firefox and Safari being shit (as reflected by the percentage of users who voluntarily use the respective browsers) removes their culpability. Chrome had to grow their share from 0%.
- radiofreeeuropa 1y ago
  Chrome did that three ways: 1) performing better and crashing less than mainstream alternatives (just IE and Firefox, then) on non-Mac platforms (so, most desktop computers) for a good long while; 2) aggressive advertising to trick people who don't actually give a shit what browser they're running (or even know) into downloading it because "google said it would make my gmail work better" or "I dunno, google just told me to download this so I did"; and, later in the race, by 3) being the default on most Android installations. One of three major factors involved actually being good, and I'd bet the other two factors overwhelm that one.
  - overfeed 1y ago
    I forgot how often individual webpages could take down your entire browser! On Chrome, it'd just crash the perpetrator tab. Chrome was also fast - really, really fast. Even if one was "tricked" into using it, you wouldn't want to go back to using other browsers - they put in the work. > One of three major factors involved actually being good, and I'd bet the other two factors overwhelm that one Counterpoint: Microsoft Edge on Windows has the same 2 factors going for it, but failing to replicate Chrome's ascendancy. Edge and Windows pleading with you to not install Chrome is kinda sad.
    - fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
      Edge (and basically every other browser besides Safari and Firefox) is a chromium fork though, so even though it only has like a 5% market share, it's still bumping up the engine's overall market share.
      - overfeed 1y ago
        My point was that Chrome didn't win on marketing alone (as disproved by Edge dismal numbers). That said: browser marketshare metrics breakout the "brand" and not just the engine: for a long time, Chrome's rendering engine was downstream of Safari's WebKit before being forked outright as Blink. That Microsoft abandoned Trident for a Chromium fork speaks volumes on the amount of innovation and engineering effort Google poured into Chrome/Chromium - I don't understand how it can be controversial to suggest that Chromium wins on its merits. The gaggle of browsers opted to fork Chromium rather than WebKit or Gecko because Chromium is best-in-class.
JimDabell 1y ago
> Once users are able to install Chrome on iPhones, developers will just abandon every other engine wholesale. This is the thing that is most concerning. We’ve seen this happen before. We ended up with an Internet Explorer monoculture that paralysed front-end development for over a decade. Huge numbers of developers were happily writing Internet Explorer-only websites and didn’t care about any other browser at all. There’s a real danger that this ends the open web and turns it into a Chrome platform controlled by Google.
- sunaookami 1y ago
  IE was bad because development stopped for years and nobody could use modern web standards without supporting IE.
pornel 1y ago
Google has been bombarding Firefox users with "Upgrade to Chrome" notices on their properties. Google kept having "oopses" that blocked browsers based on User-Agent strings, rather than capabilities. Google also plays "fire and motion" with Web standards. They have a tendency to use non-standard(-yet) features on their websites. This gives them a perfect excuse to make other browsers look technically inferior (when the features are missing or the browser is blocked) or slow (when the features are implemented using inefficient polyfills). The unfairness is the one-sided choice of using whatever cutting-edge or Google-specific feature Chrome has, while they'd never do this in other direction. If Firefox implemented a new feature first, Google would never tell Chrome users that Chrome sucks and they need to upgrade to Firefox.

simondotau 1y ago

The only reason why Safari is "shit" is because web developers are too lazy to develop for the web and instead develop for Chrome. The point of the web is that it's an open standard. Expecting everyone to use the bleeding edge version of the most aggressively feature-laden browser isn't just unreasonable, it's counter to the spirit of the platform. Microsoft got into trouble for pushing Netscape users over to Internet Explorer, but what they did isn't half as evil as the dark patterns Google is using to get Chrome and other Google apps onto the few devices left which don't have them. It's IE6 all over again. But worse.

spartanatreyu 1y ago
> The only reason why Safari is "shit" is because web developers are too lazy to develop for the web and instead develop for Chrome. Safari is only available on Apple devices, Chrome is available everywhere. Let's not pretend that laziness is the only reason why Chrome has the largest marketshare. > The point of the web is that it's an open standard. Expecting everyone to use the bleeding edge version of the most aggressively feature-laden browser isn't just unreasonable, it's counter to the spirit of the platform. I don't expect Safari to be the bleeding edge. I just expect the features to work. Lets take for example: IndexedDB - IndexedDB was first brought up in two propsals in 2009/2010 - IndexedDB was available for pubilc testing in early 2012 by Firefox and Chrome and was released for both browsers unprefixed in late 2012. - IndexedDB was "released" for Safari in late 2014. However: 1. The released version was so bad and buggy that it basically didn't work at all. 2. It essentially broke all the websites/web-apps that were using it, and there was no easy alternative to use. The affected websites/webapps had to essentially be rearchitected and remade or just plain shut down. 3. Apple had no interest in fixing it which essentially poisoned the feature for all developers. It was so egregious it was actually used in the lawsuits against Apple their monopolistic app store practices, which eventually led to the EU to create their new sweeping anti-trust regulation changes for app stores and browsers. - IndexedDB didn't have a working release on Safari until mid-2016 and didn't have the industry standard "last two major version" support until late 2017. That means we had developers affected by IndexedDB's poisoning for about 5 years. --- So by my earlier request of "I don't expect Safari to be the bleeding edge. I just expect the features to work.", Safari completely and utterly shit the bed. They shit the bed so bad it helped lead the EU to create new anti-trust regulations. And that was just Apple trying to meet a standard feature. And if you thought the IndexedDB debacle was over, they broke it again. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27509206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27509206 --- Let's not even get into Safari breaking other features. I'd rather not type all this out: https://webventures.rejh.nl/blog/2024/history-of-safari-show-stoppers/ https://webventures.rejh.nl/blog/2024/history-of-safari-show...