I got tired of Firefox as a second-class citizen on iPhone. Speaking as someone who has grown to love Safari and it’s interface I am ready to toss it out the window when the real Firefox arrives.
I got tired of Firefox as a second-class citizen on iPhone. Speaking as someone who has grown to love Safari and it’s interface I am ready to toss it out the window when the real Firefox arrives.
Ditto! Very excited to try an actual Firefox browser on iOS. It's not always the fastest, or slickest, or most feature-rich browser on the market, but I read a "your favorite browser" discussion...
Ditto! Very excited to try an actual Firefox browser on iOS. It's not always the fastest, or slickest, or most feature-rich browser on the market, but I read a "your favorite browser" discussion (here? can't remember) where someone said using Firefox in this day and age is "a moral imperative." I hate that it's come to that, but I agree.
This is a tough one. Apple's iOS lock ins frustrate me in principle and in practice, but mobile Safari's 20% of the market is the only thing preventing a 95%+ Chromium monopoly. I don't think I...
This is a tough one. Apple's iOS lock ins frustrate me in principle and in practice, but mobile Safari's 20% of the market is the only thing preventing a 95%+ Chromium monopoly. I don't think I can say in good conscience that they shouldn't be forced to open up to other engines, it's just a shame that it may mean the end of the one browser that forced developers to consider anything other than Blink.
ehhh I'm with you in spirit, but in practice it's more like we had to begrudgingly support a browser that saw infrequent updates and didn't adhere to standards as well as FF/Chrome did. While...
it's just a shame that it may mean the end of the one browser that forced developers to consider anything other than Blink.
ehhh I'm with you in spirit, but in practice it's more like we had to begrudgingly support a browser that saw infrequent updates and didn't adhere to standards as well as FF/Chrome did. While nowhere near as god-awful , Safari on mobile has become the new IE6 in a lot of ways for us frontend developers.
Which kind of proves GP's point, unfortunately for front-end developers. Instead of throwing up something that says, "We only developed against the newest nonstandardized gee-whiz APIs in Chrome,...
Which kind of proves GP's point, unfortunately for front-end developers.
Instead of throwing up something that says, "We only developed against the newest nonstandardized gee-whiz APIs in Chrome, you need to download that instead," Front-end devs are forced to support WebKit's idiosyncrasies because (in Canada and the US, at least), iOS users are a significant market that cannot be ignored. It effectively serves as a brake that holds back the broader state of the webdev community.
I'll defer to your experience having worked in this field, but I find that Safari is usually the one slacking on implementing otherwise-accepted standards. It took them way too long to implement...
I'll defer to your experience having worked in this field, but I find that Safari is usually the one slacking on implementing otherwise-accepted standards. It took them way too long to implement basic features like a date picker, which meant devs were forced to fallback to jQueryUI when we really ought to have moved on from that already.
I understand the value in some bureaucracy to prevent things from moving too fast, resulting in bad APIs that would need to be maintained forever. However Apple moves at a glacial pace compared to the others, and it seems likely their interests were more towards propping up their app store than acting as a moderator for the web. Particularly as they've pushed for new APIs themselves like WebGPU, prefers-color-scheme, and the new color APIs when it suits them.
Safari has finally started to catch up to everybody else with recent releases, but it's definitely earned that "new ie6" reputation over the last decade.
edit: Oh, just to be clear I'm not the person you originally replied to.
I'm not sure that'll change too awful much in the end. A big part of IE's stickiness came from it being the default. And while Edge sure has ambitions of being mandatory, IE never was. Safari...
I'm not sure that'll change too awful much in the end. A big part of IE's stickiness came from it being the default. And while Edge sure has ambitions of being mandatory, IE never was. Safari still holds onto a large chunk of the macOS userbase, and I have to imagine the same will hold for iOS.
I don't know about that. IE was so coupled with the system that it couldn't be removed without breaking the file explorer. This was very much intentional on Microsoft's part, and pertainted to...
And while Edge sure has ambitions of being mandatory, IE never was.
I don't know about that. IE was so coupled with the system that it couldn't be removed without breaking the file explorer. This was very much intentional on Microsoft's part, and pertainted to their antitrust lawsuit with Netscape.
In a March 6, 1998, letter to Joel I. Klein, the department's antitrust chief, Netscape wrote that "we are totally unable to provide examples of files that can or cannot be deleted from Windows 98 since . . . it is our understanding that it simply is not possible to delete any portion of [Internet Explorer], or of browsing functionality, from Windows 98 as presently configured without severely interfering with the operating system."
Mandatory to have, sure, not mandatory to use. It was never like iOS is today where you can effectively only use Safari. You could always install something else that wasn't the default. My data's...
Mandatory to have, sure, not mandatory to use. It was never like iOS is today where you can effectively only use Safari. You could always install something else that wasn't the default. My data's a bit out of date (surprisingly hard to find stats on browser by OS), but Safari still has a decent ~50% market share on macOS, which is in the same situation now that IE was in (not relevant, but Safari's also impossible to uninstall), and iOS will soon be in.
Originally Apple's excuse for not allowing third-party browser engines was that they didn't want to allow just in time compilation (which you kind of need for decent JavaScript performance) for...
Originally Apple's excuse for not allowing third-party browser engines was that they didn't want to allow just in time compilation (which you kind of need for decent JavaScript performance) for any non Safari browsers because it posed a security risk. Because of that, Safari is the only browser that supports JIT and has substantially better performance versus other browsers.
But 15 years into the life of the iPhone, they really do need to let other engines onto the platform (and allow them the same affordances their own browser gets like finding a way to let them do JIT safely). They are one of the largest companies in the world. If they wanted to solve a problem like this, they could.
I think it would even be fine for Apple to make it a category of app that needs to be specially applied for and approved, much like they did with CarPlay apps originally. They could scrutinize submissions more closely than normal apps and have them given to App Store reviewers who have a lot of experience and know what to look for, rather than just any regular old reviewer.
I am curious how you propose to do that. Formally verified JIT is a neat idea, but it is research right now. More JITs running untrusted code is strictly more attack surface.
finding a way to let them do JIT safely
I am curious how you propose to do that. Formally verified JIT is a neat idea, but it is research right now. More JITs running untrusted code is strictly more attack surface.
I genuinely don't know..but I'm not an engineer. As I said, Apple is one of the largest software companies in the world and has done amazing things with software. If they wanted to invest the time...
I genuinely don't know..but I'm not an engineer. As I said, Apple is one of the largest software companies in the world and has done amazing things with software. If they wanted to invest the time and money to find a way to do it, I think they could.
I don't see the upside for users. I use Chrome on an iPad, it uses WebKit, and this seems fine. I don't care which HTML engine it runs since they're all quite good these days.
I don't see the upside for users. I use Chrome on an iPad, it uses WebKit, and this seems fine. I don't care which HTML engine it runs since they're all quite good these days.
Alternate engines allow for capabilities that just cannot be achieved using the iOS WebKit. eg Firefox using Gecko could bring WebExtensions and containers to iOS.
Alternate engines allow for capabilities that just cannot be achieved using the iOS WebKit.
eg Firefox using Gecko could bring WebExtensions and containers to iOS.
That's a good point, but are you sure those are WebKit limitations? I'm not familiar with containers, but Chrome on iPad does have an "incognito tab" feature, and Firefox has "private mode," which...
That's a good point, but are you sure those are WebKit limitations?
I'm not familiar with containers, but Chrome on iPad does have an "incognito tab" feature, and Firefox has "private mode," which suggest you can do some privacy stuff with WebKit.
It is rather annoying that browsers on Android and iOS don't support multiple profiles. On Android you can make separate profiles at the OS level. Looks like like for iPad this is only supported for organizations. There are people sort of hacking it with "focus modes."
One workaround might be to use a different browser for each purpose, so between Safari, Chrome, and Firefox you get three "profiles." Assuming they're sufficiently separate, which I'm not sure about.
Yes. For example, the Onion Browser (which is officially recommended for iOS by the tor project) has had many issues over the years due to being forced to rely on webkit, chief among them being an...
Yes. For example, the Onion Browser (which is officially recommended for iOS by the tor project) has had many issues over the years due to being forced to rely on webkit, chief among them being an unavoidable IP leak.
Multi-account containers are not the same thing as private/incognito browsing instances. That's what I currently do, but it's annoying having so many browsers installed just for that... which is...
One workaround might be to use a different browser for each purpose, so between Safari, Chrome, and Firefox you get three "profiles."
That's what I currently do, but it's annoying having so many browsers installed just for that... which is why I'm desperately hoping for proper containers on Firefox iOS/iPadOS if/when the WebKit restriction gets dropped!
There are tons of sites that just don't work properly on Safari. It would be good to be able to switch to a different engine for them. There's also quite a few sites that are Chrome specific, much...
There are tons of sites that just don't work properly on Safari. It would be good to be able to switch to a different engine for them.
There's also quite a few sites that are Chrome specific, much like the dreaded IE only sites of the early 2000s.
I got tired of Firefox as a second-class citizen on iPhone. Speaking as someone who has grown to love Safari and it’s interface I am ready to toss it out the window when the real Firefox arrives.
Ditto! Very excited to try an actual Firefox browser on iOS. It's not always the fastest, or slickest, or most feature-rich browser on the market, but I read a "your favorite browser" discussion (here? can't remember) where someone said using Firefox in this day and age is "a moral imperative." I hate that it's come to that, but I agree.
You probably read it here on tildes: https://tildes.net/~tech/147p/which_web_browser_do_you_use#comment-7p6i
Excellent, exactly that. Thanks for the citation I was too lazy to dig up myself!
This is a tough one. Apple's iOS lock ins frustrate me in principle and in practice, but mobile Safari's 20% of the market is the only thing preventing a 95%+ Chromium monopoly. I don't think I can say in good conscience that they shouldn't be forced to open up to other engines, it's just a shame that it may mean the end of the one browser that forced developers to consider anything other than Blink.
I feel the same way, even though I used to work on Firefox for Android!
ehhh I'm with you in spirit, but in practice it's more like we had to begrudgingly support a browser that saw infrequent updates and didn't adhere to standards as well as FF/Chrome did. While nowhere near as god-awful , Safari on mobile has become the new IE6 in a lot of ways for us frontend developers.
Which kind of proves GP's point, unfortunately for front-end developers.
Instead of throwing up something that says, "We only developed against the newest nonstandardized gee-whiz APIs in Chrome, you need to download that instead," Front-end devs are forced to support WebKit's idiosyncrasies because (in Canada and the US, at least), iOS users are a significant market that cannot be ignored. It effectively serves as a brake that holds back the broader state of the webdev community.
I'll defer to your experience having worked in this field, but I find that Safari is usually the one slacking on implementing otherwise-accepted standards. It took them way too long to implement basic features like a date picker, which meant devs were forced to fallback to jQueryUI when we really ought to have moved on from that already.
I understand the value in some bureaucracy to prevent things from moving too fast, resulting in bad APIs that would need to be maintained forever. However Apple moves at a glacial pace compared to the others, and it seems likely their interests were more towards propping up their app store than acting as a moderator for the web. Particularly as they've pushed for new APIs themselves like WebGPU, prefers-color-scheme, and the new color APIs when it suits them.
Safari has finally started to catch up to everybody else with recent releases, but it's definitely earned that "new ie6" reputation over the last decade.
edit: Oh, just to be clear I'm not the person you originally replied to.
I'm not sure that'll change too awful much in the end. A big part of IE's stickiness came from it being the default. And while Edge sure has ambitions of being mandatory, IE never was. Safari still holds onto a large chunk of the macOS userbase, and I have to imagine the same will hold for iOS.
I don't know about that. IE was so coupled with the system that it couldn't be removed without breaking the file explorer. This was very much intentional on Microsoft's part, and pertainted to their antitrust lawsuit with Netscape.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/microsoft/stories/1998/mudslinging090998.htm
Mandatory to have, sure, not mandatory to use. It was never like iOS is today where you can effectively only use Safari. You could always install something else that wasn't the default. My data's a bit out of date (surprisingly hard to find stats on browser by OS), but Safari still has a decent ~50% market share on macOS, which is in the same situation now that IE was in (not relevant, but Safari's also impossible to uninstall), and iOS will soon be in.
Originally Apple's excuse for not allowing third-party browser engines was that they didn't want to allow just in time compilation (which you kind of need for decent JavaScript performance) for any non Safari browsers because it posed a security risk. Because of that, Safari is the only browser that supports JIT and has substantially better performance versus other browsers.
But 15 years into the life of the iPhone, they really do need to let other engines onto the platform (and allow them the same affordances their own browser gets like finding a way to let them do JIT safely). They are one of the largest companies in the world. If they wanted to solve a problem like this, they could.
I think it would even be fine for Apple to make it a category of app that needs to be specially applied for and approved, much like they did with CarPlay apps originally. They could scrutinize submissions more closely than normal apps and have them given to App Store reviewers who have a lot of experience and know what to look for, rather than just any regular old reviewer.
I am curious how you propose to do that. Formally verified JIT is a neat idea, but it is research right now. More JITs running untrusted code is strictly more attack surface.
I genuinely don't know..but I'm not an engineer. As I said, Apple is one of the largest software companies in the world and has done amazing things with software. If they wanted to invest the time and money to find a way to do it, I think they could.
I don't see the upside for users. I use Chrome on an iPad, it uses WebKit, and this seems fine. I don't care which HTML engine it runs since they're all quite good these days.
Alternate engines allow for capabilities that just cannot be achieved using the iOS WebKit.
eg Firefox using Gecko could bring WebExtensions and containers to iOS.
That's a good point, but are you sure those are WebKit limitations?
I'm not familiar with containers, but Chrome on iPad does have an "incognito tab" feature, and Firefox has "private mode," which suggest you can do some privacy stuff with WebKit.
It is rather annoying that browsers on Android and iOS don't support multiple profiles. On Android you can make separate profiles at the OS level. Looks like like for iPad this is only supported for organizations. There are people sort of hacking it with "focus modes."
One workaround might be to use a different browser for each purpose, so between Safari, Chrome, and Firefox you get three "profiles." Assuming they're sufficiently separate, which I'm not sure about.
Absolutely. Containers are plumbed through Gecko in its entirety. That is an implementation detail in the Gecko engine that is unique to Gecko.
Yes. For example, the Onion Browser (which is officially recommended for iOS by the tor project) has had many issues over the years due to being forced to rely on webkit, chief among them being an unavoidable IP leak.
Multi-account containers are not the same thing as private/incognito browsing instances.
That's what I currently do, but it's annoying having so many browsers installed just for that... which is why I'm desperately hoping for proper containers on Firefox iOS/iPadOS if/when the WebKit restriction gets dropped!
There are tons of sites that just don't work properly on Safari. It would be good to be able to switch to a different engine for them.
There's also quite a few sites that are Chrome specific, much like the dreaded IE only sites of the early 2000s.