Comment on new foss adblocker for safari (macOS, ipadOS, iOS)
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 week agoApologies for my incorrect assumptions. I have had some very exhausting conversations with apple users. The EU had to force apple to use USBC (among other things no other company needs forcing to do) which is just insane. Honestly I’m a bit shocked that you came from Android phones and haven’t noticed the difference. There are many areas where you have little to no choice on iOS. How have you not noticed? If apple doesn’t want you to do it, you basically can’t.
If the browser thing was the only thing that would be a deal breaker for me for sure. You could install any browser you wanted on computers thirty years ago. How is it a thing that in 2024 a company is literally preventing you from installing a web browser on a phone that you bought?
There are many countless examples I’ve noticed over the years of things that cannot be done or are harder on iOS. On my android phone (and I wish there were options besides Android btw, because fuck Google) I can use SyncThing to keep my photos and other files backed up automatically without paying any cloud service. On iOS, last I checked you could even use a file manager, let alone anything remotely like SyncThing. They literally lock you out of doing anything that would cost them a penny. Such a shitty business model, removing any choice that doesn’t put money in their pockets.
bamboo@lemm.ee 1 week ago
I’m very aware that there is less choice and have run into the various related issues. Ultimately it’s still been a positive experience, despite that.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 week ago
… Ok.
So you knew all about this, you just wanted me to give specific examples so you can decide if you care about them?
To each their own but personally a company locking down the device I paid them for is a non starter. And consistently being years behind the competition when you’re a trillion dollar company is just… Sad.
Seriously imagine how much damage is done to the web as an evolving ecosystem by them disallowing all other browsers on hundreds of millions of devices. I know I personally have spent months of my life specifically supporting Safari in particular. Things that worked immediately on all other tested browsers took a lot of finagling to get working on iOS safari. I could’ve been spending that time developing new features (for all users, not just the wealthiest ones who bought iPhones) and fixing bugs.
bamboo@lemm.ee 1 week ago
Here’s a different perspective on Safari: it’s the largest competition to Chrome there is. It’s the only relevant one, really. Apple forces iOS users to use Safari (or at least WebKit), and that’s the only thing standing in the way of Chrome/Blink having >90% market share. Safari alone stops Google from dictating the web. Firefox is great and I love it but it’s got like 3% market share and is itself funded by Google. Hence I think Safari is really important in maintaining an open web, even if that’s not why Apple is incentivized to force it on users. I know web devs also hate it but requiring they put in the effort to support Safari is what an open web is all about.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Wowwwww, you are accepting what apple forced to happen as the only way things could be.
Safari is by farrrr worse than Firefox and the only reason firefox share is so low is because of (largely Apple’s) anti-competitive monopolistic practices that specifically are about increasing app store revenue. Apple is a huge anti-open-web force like no other company has been before. Even Google, who is horrifically fucking the ecosystem up, lets you install any browser you want, and even though they are a controlling asshole force on the w3c, they don’t completely flout or oppose standards like apple does.
I haven’t read a statement this wrong in a while. Fuck no it isn’t. Supporting other browsers, mobile or desktop, is never as difficult as supporting Safari is. There are two reasons for this, both rooted in apple being a blight on the history of the web.
One is that they literally make a conscious choice to make the web worse. Their worst nightmare is for users to be able to replace app store apps with web apps they make no money from, so they intentionally never have adopted most pwa features. They also choose to implement new standards years after everyone else for the same reason. Gotta keep users in the mindset that the web is lacking and not a great solution for anything an app can do. Even if they have to strongarm and brainwash their users to keep that attitude popular.
The other reason would be forgivable, if they weren’t a TRILLION DOLLAR COMPANY: incompetence. I don’t believe Safari is so buggy by choice. They just aren’t great at making a web browser. People love to crow that safari is so fast and light on battery, but only web developers are uniquely qualified to understand how much of a mess it is. For example, try supporting a video player on Safari iOS. Absolute nightmare. Nothing works completely as expected. It is a dumpster fire of bugs.
What the open web is all about is creating web browsers that consistently are all interoperable with websites in the same way. But somehow you’ve shifted that burden to web devs, for us to toy for weeks with sketchy workarounds for Safari that are not needed by Firefox or chrome. Firefox demonstrates that you don’t need a trillion dollars to make a web browser that isn’t full on garbage and conforms to standards. You just need a team of smart people and literally just to care about the web vs care about keeping it worse.
Even if apple wanted to care about the web, their business model requires them not to. So they will continue to make the web worse until the EU drags them kicking and screaming toward a better business model. And they’ll fight it for years. To spin all of this as apple being the last bastion for web freedom is absolutely cult-lke apologia and you should check yourself.