HN

Comments (258)

• Menu

  TheDong
  First let us install other browser engines on iOS, and then we can talk.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.
• microflash
  Talk to me when I can set custom search engines, when developer tools become sane enough and when ‘localhost’ starts resolving.
• Menu

  jillesvangurp
  Chrome is the new internet explorer. Lots of people coming up with all sorts of arguments why they have to use it and can't switch. Internet Explorer used to be like that. MS really abused users and they still wouldn't switch. It's a form of Stockholm syndrome.The history of Chrome is that it first displaced Firefox as a reasonable alternative (while funding that via a nice ad deal). And then they just steam rolled Internet Explorer to the point where MS gave up and rebuilt their browser around Chromium. It was that good. Fifteen years ago.But these days you have to put up with a lot of crap from Google. Ad blocking works better on other browsers. Even some Chromium browsers (like Brave). But the thing with Chromium is that all Chromium derived browsers outsource most of the browser internals to Google. Google decides what features to implement, what PRs to merge, what features not to implement, etc. They set the standards. Safari, Firefox, and hopefully soon Ladybird are the only alternative browser engines keeping them somewhat honest on that front.
• azuanrb
  Kinda bugs me when people who are against Safari/Apple are also the same people pushing Chrome/Google. Sometimes it feels like web developers these days are basically Chrome developers.I do get it. Chrome has the majority of users, so it’s easier to just develop and test on Chrome and know you’ve covered most of your users.But isn’t that just pushing us towards a Chrome monopoly? Safari holding back some web features is annoying, sure, but having Chrome decide what the web should support and everyone else having to follow doesn’t sound much better to me.
• tailrecursion
  I've always liked and preferred Safari. The only reason I moved away was that as a Mac gets older, there comes a point where you can't update the OS, and that means Safari falls behind. Even that's not a problem for me, but web standards were always changing and after a while certain things won't work.
• Menu

  jacquesm
  You should ditch Chrome. And switch to FireFox.
• freetime2
  Maybe a bit of an edge use case, but I use the translate page feature a lot in browsers. In Chrome you can switch back and forth between languages seamlessly, but in Safari translating a page requires reloading the page - which can cause issues on forms that use POST. Even worse, I've found that switching back to the original language often just doesn't work on pages loaded with POST - the page gets stuck on the translated version (which can sometimes cause issues with some poorly designed javascript components like calendar widgets) even after reloading the page. This causes issues frequently enough to prevent me from switching to Safari.On the plus side, though, Safari will also translate text in images.
• Menu

  curt15
  Safari has the same manifest v3 limitations that preclude the full-blooded ublock origin you get with Firefox.
• Menu

  t1234s
  How many people in this thread would dump their Android for an iPhone if they: - allowed real 3rd party browser engines - let you uninstall all the apple bloatware apps
• Menu

  tkdb
  The UX of Safari is just... not as good as chrome. On my phone, on my desktop, I just feel too much friction in the daily cycle of opening a thousand tabs.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.
• Menu

  jonhohle
  I’ve been using Safari since 2003. I was previously using Konqueror, so the transition was pretty easy. It’s always been fast and reliable and Mac-like. It’s nice to have a browser that is a browser and not something that’s attempting to be another operating system.
• Menu

  glimshe
  If Safari worked in all major OSs like Chrome, Brave and Firefox, I could consider that. I own a Mac but didn't switch to Safari because I use multiple OSs for my work.
• Menu

  freakynit
  No thanks. We have seen multiple times now how it all starts with "good" stuff, then it gets more and more and more locked-down... to the point where you cannot even install apps on your own device, from wherever you want to.No thanks.. I'd rather switch to Firefox, or even any other shitty browser, but not the one from any other gatekeeping monopoly.
• Menu

  jedberg
  I use all three browsers on a daily basis. Chrome for accessing google owned properties and things I click on from Google search, Safari for reddit and hacker news, and Firefox for everything else.Safari is always the best on my Mac, but my complaint has always been the lack of plugins.But just now I ported one of my favorite plugins from Chrome to Safari using ChatGPT. I told it I already have it installed in Chrome so it can get the source code there, and then told it to port it and install it.After 20 minutes and few bucks in tokens (estimated, I actually used my 6% of my $20/mo plan), I have Session Buddy in Safari.So maybe the plugins aren't a problem anymore...
• Menu

  PrimalPower
  I was building an pdf export feature for one of my projects the other day.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.
• reenorap
  If you work at Apple/Safari then my free suggestion is to have a "Chrome mode" where all the buttons and doohickeys that Chrome has are all in the same location for Safari. If I'm far to used to where the buttons are for things like "reload" so trying to switch to Safari is enough friction to make me stay with Chrome.Maybe have an Edge mode as well to convince the Edge users to come over.
• Menu

  parasti
  Last I looked at it Safari on iOS couldn't even do element.requestFullscreen(), so no, thanks.
• Menu

  wereHamster
  If they fix the devtools. Because Safari devtools are worse than junk.
• waynecochran
  I had to quit using desktop Safari because it essentially quit working. The problem had something to do with icloud. Apple assumes everyone is using icloud I imagine and does not handle corner cases for folks with full icloud disks or improper setups. I have an paid icloud subscription now, but I haven't looked back.
• Menu

  amelius
  Fight back, e.g.:Add a 1000ms delay to your website when the user agent is Safari.Show popup to install Firefox.Etc.
• bobmarleybiceps
  at least IME, chrome was unusable on Mac because it would regularly use an absurd amount of memory and freeze everything up.
• jakequist
  I was hoping for a “I’m a Mac. I’m a PC”-level ad.
• bob1029
  Safari is the ultimate way to browse HN.For everything else, I use some chromium derivative that can traverse pirate streaming sites and ChatGPT without disintegrating under their weird JS workloads.
• Menu

  SirMaster
  Could they please make Safari for Windows again?
• kurtoid
  Interesting timing, considering https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49973221 (Apple may soon track when Google promotes Chrome inside Safari), 7 days ago
• maidaman
  I’m not going to use different browsers on different devices. I can’t use Safari on my gaming windows desktop.
• hollowonepl
  I ditched both to favor Firefox many many years ago.
• Menu

  theplumber
  Apple forgot to mention Safari not being open source but rather tied to a proprietary platform not to mention Safari on mobile kept in a short leash to protect the AppStore.
• Menu

  samdixon
  Needs ublock and I would use it
• mkirsten
  Funnily, it's not a "Switch to Safari" campaign, but a "Stay on Safari" if you look at Apple's material.
• ivell
  Reminds me of PC vs Mac campaign
• t1234s
  Its like when M$ was advertising IE11 on TV back in 2012~13
• Menu

  fluidcruft
  There's always Edge (increasingly favored by IT here). Our machines used to ship and favor Chrome, but Edge has been the new IT-gods blessed browser ever since we bumped to Windows 11. Apple seems to be the only tech-titan that is not interested in extending their browser onto other platforms. So be it.
• Menu

  drnick1
  I would consider Safari, if Apple open sourced it and it ran on Linux.
• techgnosis
  I almost lost my Google account because of Safari. I bought some official Google USB keys https://store.google.com/us/product/titan_security_key?hl=en...I setup two of them for my Google account but I made them both in Safari. Only one of them worked. What if both of them failed? I would have been fucked.I re-made them on Chrome and they both worked.
• advisedwang
  Why don't they just say "c'mon, get us even more than $20B per year please". That's really whats going on here.source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-dodged-a-20-billion-hit...
• stychos
  No problems Apple. How about Safari and keychain for Linux?
• InfiniteQwert
  give me Split Tabs outside of Fullscreen you cowards. That's what is holding me back (and Safari occasionally losing all my tabs when I restart it)
• nitin7
  They should increase extension support and improve dev tools! And for UI, they can really take a leaf out of BCNY - Arc browser was good.
• Menu

  emehex
  I would... if it <proper> had vertical tabs
• mococa
  Wipr2 for adblocking in Safari - the best adblocker.
• pcdoodle1
  Adding WebSerial even if it's locked in a Developer tools menu would make Safari a more serious tool for me.
• Menu

  bearjaws
  I am like one more Microsoft / Chrome update away from switching entire company to Firefox.The absurdity of every week another AI feature, another way for data to leak to their services, another crash report.They are exhausting and abusing their positions of power.
• dbg31415
  Gives off real "I'm a Mac, he's a PC" campaign vibes from 20 years ago.Also... not sure all of those ads would still hold up today.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYErwT-zRRI
• LoganDark
  Here are some reasons I don't use Safari in place of Chrome for certain things:- it doesn't like to serialize the state of tabs. Chrome is pretty good at somehow snapshotting the entire state of tabs to the point where it can be reconstructed after relaunch, even offline.- webpage loading is sort of janky. Chrome will show the webpage streaming in live, but Safari will simply freeze in place until it's done. Maybe this is due to an Apple philosophy decision, but I don't prefer it.- similarly to how Safari doesn't seem to serialize tab states, navigating forward or back usually needs to load the page from scratch, including resubmitting forms or whatever.- speaking of forward and back navigation, I'm kinda annoyed that each time I use the trackpad to navigate history, I have to wait for the swipe animation to finish before I can interact with the webpage. I try to always use cmd+brackets instead now, because it's much faster.- IIRC, it seems the newer macOS 27 betas caused Safari to develop an issue where after it's been open for long enough, certain types of videos will stop being able to play at all until the browser is quit and restarted. kind of annoying, combined with the lack of tab snapshotting, because I have to manually visit each tab to load it on each launch.I still daily drive Safari and use it as my main browser. But I keep an instance of Chrome open for tabs that I never really close. And then I have an instance of Orion for spreadsheets. (I use spreadsheets to keep track of medication usage, sleep times and finances)
• gigatexal
  too much stuff works better in chrome than in safari ... it's just ie6 but far, far better. is it great? am i being tracked on every keystroke? probably, but i want the stuff i do on teh web to work idc really.
• pipolo
  Safari's performance (both speed and power use) keep me on it vs. Chrome, but I do wish we could have some of the more power-user-friendly features. Chrome's omnibar history and bookmark suggestion algorithm is unparalleled, and I miss it.
• myko
  Put Safari on my Android and Linux devices and I'll consider it
• Menu

  secretsatan
  I recently downgraded one of my macs so i could use some 32 bit audio peripherals. You can’t update safari separately from the os i found out, and most websites now just won’t render with that os and if they do, barely work. I installed firefox and that was fine.OTH, i use safari on my other mac, it’s fine most of the time, but i also have have chrome installed as some websites are so buggy otherwise, linkedin is a particular culprit, it barely works on chrome too.
• j45
  On iPhone, for the longest time, every browser has been forced to be Safari's engine underneath. Firefox, Chrome, etc are all forced to run Safari underneath.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).
• Menu

  unified101
  Bullshit.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.
• ur-whale
  List of reasons to ditch chrome is very, very, very long, first among which it is becoming the prime enshitification tool for the internet.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
• bossyTeacher
  Given the state of affairs, anything and anyone pulling people away from Chrome is a good as long as they not more invasive than Chrome. 1 big bad actor is worse than multiple smaller bad actors imo.
• surgical_fire
  I may hate Chrome in particular and Google in general with every atom of my being, but I would rather be forced to use IE6 than open fucking Safari.
• tamimio
  Seriously, if you use anything besides firefox and ubo, I don’t even know what to say.
• Menu

  bensyverson
  Safari is faster, uses less RAM and is more power-efficient. But people love leaving 2000 tabs open, and I guess Chrome's UX is better for that. I don't think people realize that you can go back to a website after you've visited. It's not strictly necessary to leave the tab open for the rest of your life.