Apple's Safari Browser Runs the Risk of Becoming the New Internet Explorer -- Ho...

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• Re:

  Yeah, probably a more accurate analogy would be to say that Safari is the new Netscape Navigator

• Re:

  Mod parent up on the basis of Aieee! alone.

  • Re: Not without ActiveX/COM it doesn't

    Yeah. I did not even know Ozzy Osborne is a slashdotter.

• Re:

  MS used IE to leverage its monopoly on the desktop to a monopoly on the internet. Recall that HTML was only a language used to identify pieces of text with certain attributes that could be used to give the text meaning, such as a header or link to a picture. The user could then choose a browser that would allow them to display the content in the best format for them, on any device in any language.

  MS made the browser a front end terminal for applications. This meant that additional features were added to e

  • A feature, not a bug

    "...Today developers who want to use "cutting-edge" web APIs..."

    I hate the bells and whistles and glitz for the sake of glitz in web pages. I'd consider the fact that Safari doesn't support them to be a feature, not a bug.

• Re:

  >"In order to be the new IE, Safari would have to be all of these things."

  "IE-only" wasn't just about updates and security, it was about not having real browser choice because sites coded against a browser, not open/approved/actual standards.

  You can also achieve "IE-only" on most platforms, where the IE = Chrom*. When it pushes out the ONLY remaining non-Chom* browser on MS-Windows, Linux, and Android, it will be the new IE. Code to whatever Google dictates, whether it is a "real" standard or not, or yo

  • Re:

    This is why we use FireFox.

• Connecting web to desktop apps

  There is a legitimate need to hook browsers to desktop apps in some cases. Maybe MS "did it wrong", but the need for a reliable standard way to hook still exists.

  • 2 hidden comments

• Re:

  It doesn't matter whose fault it is or even who users blame. They're still going to keep using apple both because of lock-in and because of basic educational inertia (they're used to it and don't want to learn anything new) and if your site or webapp doesn't work right it doesn't matter who they blame, they will seek an alternative.

  • Re:

    That's why developers need to understand and do the right thing.

    If just a handful do, and all the rest just bend over and take the forced 2x design cost, then Apple users, and Apple itself, never learn.

    If the industry instead takes a principled stand, that we will not bend over for bullies nor for anyone else, and we will write code that complies to standards, then eventually the bullies learn, and also their victims, presuming that Apple users can be considered victims and not accessories to the bullying t

    • If the industry instead takes a principled stand

      The lame filter will literally not let me accurately express just how ridiculous I find this idea.

      • Re:

        Unrealistic maybe. But if you think the idea of banding together to stand up to bullies (whether Apple, or Google, or anyone else) is "ridiculous," then please feel free to give us a better option.

      • Re:

        Commenting to undo moderation... (F'in mouse)....

    • Re:

      Except upper management can't tell Apple to step up their standards compatibility, but they can tell the developers to make an iOS app.
      Also if something gracefully degrades, which I agree it should, then the iOS users don't know what they are missing so have no reason to complain to Apple.

    • Re:

      That is not how corporate works. The upper management has no clue about anything and just sees that the website doesn't work right on Safari, so either you as a website developer fix it/hack it or you get fired/replaced. This is the only way this works.

• by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22, 2021 @10:26AM (#61917417)

  IMO: code to Internet standards

  The problem with that is that google has hijacked those very "internet standards" by force-feeding the WHATWG bullshit down W3C's throat (who rolled over and submitted, spineless bastards).

  This gave us HTML5 that got declared a "living standard", ie it is what google says it is and every week there's something new to implement. That means that unless you have a very latest browser you are guaranteed not fully capable of everything that "living standard" has to offer.

  So this is the complaint: Safari isn't keeping up with google's HTML5 demands. This gets spun as "holding back the web for everyone", but s/everyone/google/ is the more accurate description. For everyone else it's a blessing in disguise, for it forces webdevs to stay compatible with the boring old last week's browsers used by the laggards. As abhorrent as that is for typical webdevs.

  That's how we got IE to stop holding the Web back, and if Safari has inherited that unfortunate role, then we need to do the same thing. Lather, rinse, repeat, until the stink of vendor-specific HTML is a distant memory.

  The thing is that it's the vendor (google) that's trying to force the web forward regardless of utility to end-users. So it's really vendor against vendor, not laggard vendor (apple) against users. If anything, and in this specific case, them being a laggard is a boon for everyone except google.

  • Re:

    Yes exactly. Safari is doing a good thing here, being a counter-balance to Google's approach.

    I'm not saying new browser features are bad, I'm saying that Google often pushes half-baked changes into the browser without coming up with a solid design. To do a proper design, you need people to criticize and act as a counter-weight, giving their own viewpoints. It takes time, but that's not a bad thing.

  • Re: Why does this matter?

    This is absolutely right.

    But it is also worse than this. Google has been pushing web standards to allow direct access to hardware, which is mainly for ChromeOS. Naturally, Apple balks at the idea of implementing Google-specific âoestandardsâ because they donâ(TM)t think a website should have unfettered hardware access. This in turn causes entitled Google engineers to publicly whine that Apple doesnâ(TM)t do what Google wants, framing it as holding back the web.

    Make no mistake, with Googl

  • Re:

    I think that is right too.

    Do I want my primary interface with the Internet and the place where I shop/bank etc. to be pushed to me on a move-fast-and-break-things basis? No, not really.

    Yes, Apple may not have the cadence that Google has in introducing the next great idea, but they do tend to support them for much longer once they have been incorporated. On the security side, Apple have a reasonable record of patching things when serious issues are found and not waiting for the next general release, so I am

  • Re:

    Agreed. I haven't run a systematic survey, but looking at the test dashboard: https://wpt.fyi/results/accele... [wpt.fyi]

    many of Safari's failures are in areas such as 'file system access' 'accelerometer' 'gyroscope' etc.; other articles I've read indicated that Safari was lagging on browser access to bluetooth, WebGL (i.e. GPU access from the browser, a potentially major security hole).

    To a first approximation, I don't believe any of those areas belong in a web browser.

    Apple probably has some vested interests

  • Re:

    You make very good points here. I was thinking similar since I know Google tosses into Chrome all sorts of things that are most beneficial to their websites and services. I mean that's why they made Chrome. Chrome was a Trojan horse to give Google control over the evolution of web standards so they could;d bend that in a direction most beneficial to themselves.

• Re:

  They don't know, nor do they care to know.

  They won't do that either, they'll just go somewhere else, and "somewhere else" is usually a proprietary iOS app.

• Re:

  Let me stop you there. Go out into the street and approach a random Apple user and ask them what they think about Safari being the only available browser.

  You'll likely be met with a confused look, the user pointing to Chrome in the app store, and then them calling you a name and asking you to leave them the hell alone.

  The average user does *not* know about the technical block on browsers.

  • Re:

    You'll actually more likely be met with confusion about the question in general. Most wouldn't even know there are choices, such as they are, or care there are choices. Safari is there, and they have no need to care. That said, your general point is correct. However, I would go further and point out that even people that are knowledgeable about these types of things aren't always aware that this is the case.

• Re:

  iOS has an enormous app ecosystem. And the reason we like it is because Android is the wild west (especially different GUI's), which is difficult to standardize upon for a company.

• Re:

  I've got news for you: web developers already exclusively target Chrome. Firefox may as well not exist, but both it and Safari are already compatible enough with Chrome that arguably any time they behave differently is a bug in them, not Chrome.

  The simple fact is that Chrome has the better developer tools. No one tests in Safari, since only Mobile Safari matters, and since Mobile Safari has absolutely no developer tools, no one tests in it. (This isn't entirely true, it is possible to get to a developer con

  • Re:

    > since Mobile Safari has absolutely no developer tools, no one tests in it.
    
    That simply is not true. As much as I hate doing it, I have connected an iPhone to a mac, and then loaded up Safari on the mac, opened the developer tools, and connected to the mobile device's Safari and debugged it using the desktop Safari's dev tools. It works as well as Apple can make it work, which still sucks, but you certainly can use developer tools on IOS Safari. Just not on IOS Chrome even though that also technically

  • Totally wrong

    The simple fact is that Chrome has the better developer tools. No one tests in Safari, since only Mobile Safari matters, and since Mobile Safari has absolutely no developer tools, no one tests in it.

    Maybe you don't but every large company I've worked with sure does. Mobile Safari especially is a link to a lot of EXTREMELY valuable customers and if you do not make sure it works as well as it possibly can then you are going to be just throwing revenue out the window.

    Also there are development tools for mobil [help.remo.co]

  • Re: Apple keeps Google in check.

    Developers targeting a single browser was the problem when IE was the browser causing all the issues.

    Good developers will look at the metrics and target the top 3 or 4, with a balance of mobile, tablet and desktop. Sometimes theyâ(TM)ll initially prioritise mobile or desktop, depending on their target demographic, but targeting a single browser is just asking for problems. Iâ(TM)d argue lazy developers and managers is what allowed IE to fester in the way it did.

    Iâ(TM)ll admit some browsers wo

• Re:

  Chrome is already the "dominant browser by far". It has ~65% of the browser market and Safari only has ~18%. The rest of the browsers are all in the low single digit percentages. If you add all the browsers that Blink the percentage "Chrome" would account for ~80% of the browser engines used.

• Re:

  >"Web developers have to make sure their sites work on both Safari and Chrome. If it were only one or the other, we'd be in trouble."

  And by notably leaving out the only other non-Chrom* multi-platform browser in your statement, which is Firefox, your point is even more apparent.

• Re:

  NO. That's precisely the kind of shit IE fostered. Web developers have to make sure their sites follow web standards. If it doesn't work in Safari, tough shit, just like IE.

  The best case here is to adhere to the agreed spec not the lowest common denominator.

  • Re:

    That's all fun and games until money is on the table. Then a client complains their site doesn't work in IOS, and most of their customers are using IOS. If you haven't taken a look at the browser statistics for sites you work on, then you aren't doing part of your job. If you cut out 20% of your user base because you stick to some onerous notion that sticking to the standards > making money for you and your clients, then you've lost the plot.

    • Re:

      Wow. What 2001 era support MS / IE style thinking. Your UID is low enough that you should know better. We beat IE, why do you support its successor?

• Re:

  >but what would all those iOS users switch to if they could? Probably Chrome.
  
  Many of them have switched to Chrome, but guess what - they're still using Safari and they don't even know it.

• Re:

  Hey, not everyone is using Chrome. I'm still using Firefox! Who's with me?...

  Hello?...

  Anyone?

  • Re:

    I use Firefox, complete with a few extensions designed to break a lot of the garbage that's on the web now. Ads? What ads? Javascript? Only if I allow it. Web wants to talk to my hardware? Web wants to go fuck itself.

• Chrome already is the new IE.

  It's already holding us back. I can't tell you how many times I've reported broken websites to their owners, including at work, just to have them come back "But did you try it in Chrome?", because I use Firefox and no one even pretends to give a fuck about anything but Chrome.

• Re:

  OMG. This applies to so many things. I am so sick of having to spend hours every month updating stupid software so that my computer will do something that should take 2 minutes.

  Unlock my PC/Mac in the morning... Oh look... windows/MacOS rebooted and installed updates overnight
  Open Photoshop... oh... photoshop must be updated to read this file.
  Open Final Cut... oh... all of your libraries need to be updated for this version of final cut
  Open Chrome... oh... chrome needs to restart

• The problem now is that safari isn't updating with new features nobody needs except those looking to march everyone into a bright future of their own design. The proper fix is to stop trying to do that.

  If you bother to read the article (I know, I know) the features they're looking at are basic layout features that Safari doesn't implement. Granted they're new basic layout features, designed to essentially fix the mistakes of the original CSS layout system, but they're still basic layout features. (Specifically aspect-ratio, css-flexbox, css-grid, css-transformations, and position-sticky.)

  But they're not talking about the various random API Google loves to experiment with in Chrome, they're talking about what are essentially quality of life improvements to CSS to make various simple layouts easier to do.

  • 1 hidden comment

  • Re:

    I actually read random swathes of it, and it gets interesting near the end. The summary doesn't begin to do it justice. As expected.

    How old is css now, how long have those mistakes been in there? Assume at least twice that time before you can reasonably expect most people to have upgraded. And that is in reasonably well-contained communities. With something like this, it's harder. That is the one point where the IE6 comparison makes any sense: Fuck it up and it takes so much time to try to fix it again. S

    • 1 hidden comment

• Re:

  "So this story describes a non-problem. The real problem is the people saying this is a problem."

• Re:

  Exactly, on all counts! (And as others have pointed out, each new package comes with its own set of potential security holes...)

  Most of what passes for 'modern web design' is a combination of annoying and offensive. Is there anyone out there who thinks 'pop-ups that ask you to subscribe to their mailing list' while you're trying to read something is a good idea? Those funky sites that decide to feed you information in the chunks they define, rather than smooth scrolling so you can read and understand a

• Re:

  The problem with IE6 was that it wasn't standards compliant. Your website could pass all the compliance tests and not work in IE6.

  In that respect Safari isn't quite like IE6, because Safari is at least reasonably standards compliant. In areas where it ignores standards it's generally for the benefit of the user, e.g. cookie handling, not because the developers just don't care.

• Re:

  Agreed. I think any thinking person can agree the web is approaching unusable for actually learning anything. Between the insane commercialization and the complete failure of modern search engines, it's a slog to get to any actual textual content that explains/reviews something (concept).

  Youtube, while terrible in many ways, is at least still full of useful content, but 90% of the time, I'd rather read a short two paragraph text than slog through a 5 minute video.

  The new web browsers seem to have little f

• Re:

  >The problem now is that safari isn't updating with new features nobody needs except those looking to march everyone into a bright future of their own design.
  
  If only that were the only problem with Safari. Safari often has its own way of working with mouse/touch gestures, it often does nanny-ish things like replacing code that displays telephone numbers, and doing all sorts of stupid shit Apple thinks will make their users lives better, but often just screws up the website you wrote instead.
  
  I *WISH*

• Re:

  But won't you think of the advertisers? It seems the modern "free" web is powered by the ability to track and profile, and how dare you propose any limits on the ability to do that?

  I've thought for a while that it would be a fairly easy thing to do, to have a browser offer a toggle switch: Do not play any videos, ever, under any circumstances. In fact don't even load the codecs unless I tell you to. But no, we have these half-assed "block audio" / "block audio and video" things that work half the time an

• Re:

  There is. Web standards are massively backwards compatible. If you need to change your site every year to keep up then you are the problem.

  • Re:

    That is a huge win for everyone.

• Re: What would be nice...

  Just because you're making a web page doesn't mean you need to use every single feature of the browser. You are free to completely ignore new standards. Just refresh your knowledge every couple years or so or on whatever schedule you find useful.

• Re: USB devices

  When I read your comment, I just had to go look it up:

  https://developer.mozilla.org/... [mozilla.org]

  There is absolutely no rational reason to EVER do that and directly violates the browser/hardware security wall. Limited access to hardware like webcams is tricky enough but browser makers still can't seem to get that right.

• Re:

  There's a difference between doing your own thing and following a standard. Standards don't suit everyone, but tough, they exist for a reason. You can either follow them or get left behind.

  Providing web developers follow standards and they work in Chrome, then it is absolutely NOHTING AT ALL like IE.

  This isn't elementary school. We don't have a no baby browser left behind policy. Implement standards or expect stuff to break. Don't like the standard, get on the damn standards committee and make your voice he

• Re:

  Apple is purposely leaving out features for Safari that make web applications more powerful in order to force developers to create apps and pay the 30% App Store fees on purchases. That is the platform goal they are aligning with.

• Re:

  > I think Safari has only has a one or two per year?

  https://www.cvedetails.com/pro... [cvedetails.com]

  166 in 2019, 76 last year, only 17 this year. Definitely better than Chrome, but it isn't "one or two per year".

• Re:

  How about dialog [whatwg.org], or lazyloading [whatwg.org]?

• 1 hidden comment

• Snoopware

  The only "cutting edge" API that Chrome/Webkit is pushing that Apple isn't implementing is tracking stuff,

  That's the thing, Google wants more snoopity features for their ad biz, and so is bashing Safari to get them to add them. Tim should tell Google to shove their snoopware where nobody wants to snoop.

• 1 hidden comment

• Re:

  There's plenty of actual standard stuff that Safari doesn't support:
  CSS contain, CSS:focus-visible, AVIF images, AV1 video, I could keep going.
  • 1 hidden comment

• firefox has that

  firefox has that

• Re:

  Partially wrong. Firefox has containers, where you can have as many containers you like and each one of them is completely isolated (cache, cookies, storage, etc.)

  You need to install an extension to expose an UI for this base Firefox feature https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]

• Re:

  Take a look at the test suite mentioned in the article. A lot of the stuff Safari doesn't seem to support looks exactly as you suggest.

  I'm pretty happy with my browser not being able to access Bluetooth and my battery status, thanks. I must make a point of using Safari more.

• Re:

  Hi, developer here, I mentioned a few things throughout the comments here. IDK why there is this bizzare notion of "if Apple doesn't support {thing} then {thing} is useless...until Apple does support it, then suddenly it has purpose".
  
  Also if we were in charge of what went on the site, we wouldn't be "bombard[ing] you with worthess[sic], useless crap"