Safari isn’t the problem, but the lack of browser choice in iOS is

Re:Safari isn’t the problem, but the lack of browser choice ... by biftek on Friday July 03, 2015 @09:45AM (#9825530)

It's as if the people buying Apple products actually like Apple's choice…

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Re:Safari isn’t the problem, but the lack of browser choice ... by oksawe on Friday July 03, 2015 @10:10AM (#9825669)

Exactly. Occasionally I'll give Chrome, Firefox, among others a try, but I keep coming back to Safari. I hate the way the other browsers look, especially Chrome, and Safari is super quick while being easy on the battery.

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Re:Safari isn’t the problem, but the lack of browser choice ... by ashark on Friday July 03, 2015 @10:20AM (#9825718)

Its being the only major browser that respects battery life is pretty much the only reason I use Safari. It hurts to see that "time remaining" indicator drop by 2 hours just because I have Chrome open.

I really miss Chrome's multi-profile support, but it's just so much heavier. Last time I used Firefox (admittedly ~3 years ago) it was even worse. System-wide beachballs. Much worse than having Eclipse open. That's what got me to switch to Chrome for a time, after being a FF user since the Phoenix/Firebird days.

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Re:Safari isn’t the problem, but the lack of browser choice ... by t0mas88 on Friday July 03, 2015 @03:55PM (#9827610)

That's because Apple actively provides Safari with advantages with regards to API access and performance. They royally screw over the other browser vendors.

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Re:Safari isn’t the problem, but the lack of browser choice ... by panic on Friday July 03, 2015 @04:11PM (#9827682)

Safari's engine, WebKit, is open source. There are no secret advantages. Other browsers are free to read WebKit's code and copy its techniques.

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Re:Safari isn’t the problem, but the lack of browser choice ... by TheDong on Friday July 03, 2015 @04:48PM (#9827872)

Not true.

Apple also owns the app store and the default configuration of the OS is moving towards only allowing app store software (has it already finished that transition)?

They can and will reject anyone who uses private apis that they themselves use.

In addition, because they own the OS they can require that a private API is only accessed by software signed by them.

It also could cause firefox to break on OS updates and would require firefox to keep abrest of those changes.

Here's a couple references:

Apple does use private APIs: http://www.wired.com/2008/02/firefox_developer_uncovers_appl...

Apple rejected firefox from the app store at some point for using private apis:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=636841

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Re:Safari isn’t the problem, but the lack of browser choice ... by panic on Friday July 03, 2015 @06:15PM (#9828221)

You can still install any software you want on your Mac. As that bugzilla page says, Firefox already uses plenty of private APIs, so this doesn't seem to be a big deal in practice. And Firefox was not rejected from the App Store, another XUL client was (IMVU).

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Re:Safari isn’t the problem, but the lack of browser choice ... by toyg on Friday July 03, 2015 @10:33AM (#9825777)

> Safari is super quick while being easy on the battery.

That's not surprising, considering it's the only product not forced to use the public web view object in iOS. It's like Microsoft Office, which has always used private MS apis that other products running on Windows were not allowed/supposed to.

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Re:Safari isn’t the problem, but the lack of browser choice ... by realityking on Friday July 03, 2015 @10:57AM (#9825906)

I believe they're talking about Desktop Safari, there's yet no Firefox for iOS to test.

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Re:Safari isn’t the problem, but the lack of browser choice ... by blinkingled on Friday July 03, 2015 @09:59AM (#9825606)

I guess the same can be said about all the people buying Windows devices in the 90s. Everything is absolute, 1:1 after all - you buy something and you must like everything about it 100%!

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