And still does: http://caniuse.com
I would also remind everyone that Google chose to fork Webkit to create Blink. They could have contributed their IndexDB engine to webkit at any time but chose not to. They could have contributed to the process isolation refactor but chose to do their own thing instead. They could have collaborated on JSCore instead of creating V8. That isn't wrong or right but it is the truth and it does mean duplicated effort.
Some of the features supported by Chrome are interesting to web-only developers I'm sure, but I don't want the browser on my mobile phone running service workers eating my battery in the background. With great power comes great responsibility and the JS-advertising-infested web has a really poor record on handling responsibility.
If you give a web developer media playback, they force auto-playing media on you.
If you give a web developer responsive layouts, they steal your ability to zoom.
If you give a web developer cookies, they inject tracking bugs to invade your privacy.
If you give a web developer service workers they will absolutely drain your battery.
(Yes not everyone but it will be widespread enough that browsers will be forced to invent countermeasures.)
Wasn't this because the amount of work required to co-operate with the WebKit project made it not worth it for Google?
Note: Chrome exists for many OSs - Safari is only found on Apple ones.
Some features in particular service workers Apple has deliberately chosen to take a firm position on because they value battery life and security.
Safari has always been ahead of Chrome for design & user experience. I'm not sure what the benefits of Chrome are?
I would love to switch to safari full time though. The battery gains are pretty nice.
Honestly feel like I'm back in the IE era at times as I go over to devs and point out something isn't working only to be told "try it in Chrome".
Only difference between the IE era and the Chrome era is the self satisfied grin that they're on the cutting edge when something only works in Chrome.
My main gripe with Safari is that its release schedule is basically tied to OS releases. Ever since Chrome, I've come to love continuous releases. It's extremely satisfying to know that your browser will receive those important security updates quickly.
With Safari I have to deal with the App store nonsense (I still can't believe how bad that application is), waiting for stuff because Apple wants major releases to happen with their busted OS releases (your OS is free now! Please do rolling releases).
And I'm not a fan of Apple's positioning for web apps compared to Google or Mozilla. I like fancy new features!
The OS integration is, of course, better. Looks nice to use. And I think Chrome halves my battery life at this point. I should give it a shot again.
This release also has a ton of compatibility and standards compliance fixes.
Apple has shipped plenty of Safari security updates outside of the OS update cycle. Feature releases of Safari are tied to the OS update cycle, not security updates.
(Although, it has had some pretty major bugs. There was about a month where commenting on Github was broken, and currently JIRA doesn't even render.)
Thanks!
EDIT: Also just found this Firefox bug report for the same thing: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1328218 Discussion there seems like it's really more of a JIRA bug than an FF bug ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> The future of extensions development takes place in Xcode
and
> To develop without a certificate, you must tell Safari each time it is launched
These points can be trivial for someone who is or has no issue becoming a part of the Apple Developer Program. However, the red tape seems contradictory and almost hostile compared to developing extensions for Chrome and Firefox where all you need is your favorite text editor.
However, the tension between developer and user friendliness as noted elsewhere in this discussion applies here as well. Presumably a part of the fees that Apple collects from developers covers the cost of auditing extensions for security, and identifying developers which provides a disincentive for user-hostile activity.
Meanwhile, Chrome extensions have been a vector for adware and malware–often because bad actors will buy popular but unmaintained extensions and users will get an updated version that is user-hostile in some way. One could argue that Apple should fund the auditing process out of other revenue, and that it is short-sighted of them to try to make the developer ecosystem self-funding on the backs of deveopers of free extensions, but either way, I've felt a lot safer recommending Safari to my less technical friends and family than Chrome for this reason alone.
I keep the privacy settings much tighter on Safari, even though I frequently delete all 'web data' (cache, cookies, etc.) on both browsers.
My main complaint is that tabs are slower to open, switch, and close, all things I do very frequently and while impatient. I'm going to guess that these are largely fixed costs and aren't noticeable on a newer system (mine is from 2011).
The lack of favicons is a big productivity hit when I have many tabs open and need to find specific tabs. But, I haven't yet given "Show all tabs" a good-faith shot, maybe it is a viable alternative.
A smaller productivity hit is that quick search for websites doesn't lock in or provide visual cues, so you need to pause after typing your query to make sure it didn't switch to searching Google.
Performance seems to be generally better than Chrome, but occasionally much worse. I'm not sure if I prefer Safari's better average-case performance or Chrome's better worst-case performance.
I think I would prefer Safari if just the tab performance matched Chrome's.
Also it's extension ecosystem isn't that great. Stuff like ublock isn't in the official safari extensions page, so you have to go discover it yourself. I can't find a good right click to image search extension either.
Also, IMO Safari until recently was very buggy and lagging extremely behind other browsers in features. Not sure if Apple ever got their act together on that.
I find Chrome trashes my battery, and for some reason will never quit reliably and requires force-quitting. I've also never figured out how to start Chrome with an empty blank screen, which I feel should be simple enough...
However, I do still use Chrome sometimes because some websites simply work better with it and it has integrated Flash support (which means I don't need to install Flash globally in my system).
I use Chrome only for a) google docs b) flash/pdf c) news sites that block me due to content-blocking.
Also, I can't browse without Vimium.