First stop blocking iOS pwas from simply installing to the home screen, and don't clear out data in 7 days. Then we'll talk about your browser being better.
People are just not aware that this is a thing, and when they learn it's a thing, they don't want to do it.
Really well argued, congrats.
And safari still behaves differently than my other browsers.
I usually try to give safari a chance whenever I’m working on Macs. I’m always forced to install chrome for some reason or another.
Until the random compatibility quirks stop I don’t see myself returning to safari.
No thanks.. I'd rather switch to Firefox, or even any other shitty browser, but not the one from any other gatekeeping monopoly.
Safari has the most obscene monopoly of any browser ever. IE 6 came pre-installed on windows machines, but you could always install Mosaic or such.
Google Chromebooks come with Chrome as the only default browser, but you can still run Firefox on Chromebooks just fine (even in two different ways, the supported android app version, and the semi-supported linux terminal + launching firefox that way).
Heck, iOS's monopolistic behavior is so bad that multiple regions (the EU + Japan) have already ruled against their behavior, though in reality Apple has complied in a way that makes it impossible to actually make a second browser engine for iOS still (going against the spirit of the law, but the courts haven't caught up to them yet).
Safari is also an awful browser in that it requires someone to buy an expensive machine to see if their site works on it.
I can run a windows trial copy in a VM to see if my site works in IE, I can run Chrome or Firefox on linux to verify if my site works in them. I can install a free android emulator on any common OS to see that my site renders right in those.
But Apple doesn't give me a legal way to freely run an iOS simulator nor even a macOS VM on my linux machine, I have to pay money, to buy their hardware to see if my site will work on Safari.
And even worse, Safari is the browser with the largest number of rendering bugs and quirks currently, while also having a huge number of users (since iOS users can't install another browser), so any web developers are basically forced to shell out for apple hardware.
I feel like most people who make MV3 complaints didn’t bother actually trying it, they just repeat the default anti-MV3 talking points.
AdGuard just blocks much less.
This has caused many issues because Apple controls what can run in a web browser and that web browser (safari) is in no way up to date, or worse, selectively implements standards. I'm writing this in the hopes that it will publicly improve.
Since Safari is forced at an OS level on all Apple's iOS and iPadOS users, that's a place to start when it comes to choice.
On MacOS, Safari is actually pretty interesting - it can be much more efficient with battery usage than other browsers and unsurprisingly well integrated. It's nice to use on MacOS because there is choice.
I understand there maybe concerns about security, but also will come out is likely that safari enjoys some OS level integrations that other browsers probably won't be welcome to, similar to the Internet Explorer/Edge days.
The switch to safari is likely tied to something else, given Apple's growing advertising revenue. Meaning, move away from one advertisement engine (Chrome), and move to another (Safari).
The UX of Pages and Keynote are, IMO, far superior to Word/Powerpoint and Google Docs/Slides, but they lag adoption from... ecosystem inertia? I mention this as evidence of my objectivity in reflecting on UX.
For everything else, I use some chromium derivative that can traverse pirate streaming sites and ChatGPT without disintegrating under their weird JS workloads.
But Safari is not the solution until they make it fully (FULLY) open-source, because all Apple trying to do is replace the king of enshitification hill by their own.
firefox ftw
This is about as wrong as you can possibly get.
This would be true in a stateless world (assuming you can remember the site you want to visit).
Which the web hasn't been since a very long time.
Yes, absolutely. But then they wouldn't be able to lock the flock in the barn, which is so contrary to Apple's DNA that you can't event talk about it in a 1 mile radius of 1, Infinite loop.
How is the iOS engine requirement considered a monopoly?
Safari's original extension API, introduced in 2010, which supported blocking webRequest and indeed uBlock Origin, was deprecated way back in Safari version 12, replaced by the Safari-specific app extension and content blocker APIs. Years later, Safari introduced the web extension API, which had broad compatibility with Chrome and Firefox extensions. However, Safari web extensions never supported blocking webRequest. Nonetheless, Safari web extensions continue to support Manifest V2 to this day.
The 3 major web browsers have 3 different approaches to blocking webRequest:
1. Chrome eliminated support for blocking webRequest with Manifest V3.
2. Safari never had support for blocking webRequest with Manifest V2 or V3.
3. Firefox (I believe) supports blocking webRequest with both Manifest V2 and V3.
Manifest V3 has a lot of restrictions on JavaScript code injection that are problematic for extension developers but not well understood by the public.
ivell•1h ago