Well i have no complains about Safari but their Extension system is really costing them users. At this point I uBlock Origin is by far the most reliable AdBlocker you can find and my having the developers explaining that in the future maybe only Firefox will support it it's kinda of sad.
Of course we know that Google has to make money from Ads so its understandable but what about Apple ? They are putting heavy focus in privacy, would it be good if they open their browser to make sure their users will not move to Chrome/Firefox or other browser ?
The day ublock origin doesn't work on chrome is the day users will flock to firefox. We have seen time and time again that users aren't afraid of switching browsers. This is because since their core functionality is so similar, small advantages will tip the scales.
But how many are actually using uBlock Origin? Nearly every person I come across is using AdBlock, AdBlock Plus, or some other adblocker, no matter how many times I recommend they switch to uBlock Origin. Most people are not aware of what Chrome’s changes mean (or of the changes at all) and for those that do use uBlock Origin, my guess is most people will simply switch to a different adblocker rather than switch to a different browser.
I doubt uBlock Origin being removed from Chrome will change the status quo. Maybe in a few years when enough powerusers convince enough casual users. If you just look at software out in the world, it's clear that powerusers have next to zero influence. It's why desktop Linux use, for example, is still just a blip after all of these years.
> my guess is most people will simply switch to a different adblocker rather than switch to a different browser.
the moment they can't find ad blocker that actually works they will stop switching ad blockers and switch browsers.
What's holding back linux isn't the lack of influence power users have, it's that it's still lacking in gaming, hardware compatibility, and ease of use (although those are improving all the time)
This is correct. I remember showing friends Chrome after hearing their complaints about how slow IE was. Some had to get over the hurdle of downloading and installing chrome (whereas IE just came with the laptop) but once they used it they never looked back.
That's just wrong. It's impossible for uBlock Origin to turn itself into a content blocker while retaining its current functionality.
Content blockers in Safari are limited to 50k filters. uBlock Origin's default filters have more than that. Therefore, the choice is between a new, but much less useful extension, or no extension at all. uBlock Origin decided on the latter.
People always downplay the power that technical users have on regular people.
Who do you think the moms and friends all listen to? Their technical friends. This of course won't hit 90% of users but it's enough to have a large influence well beyond just power users.
Few companies survive pissing off the nerds when there is legitimate competition available in consumer products.
B2B enterprise sales is a totally different beast than free consumer software. That type of boardroom decision making is inherently disconnected from the technical capabilities and even integration success rates.
I think if it was that small, Google wouldn’t take an aggressive stance against ad blocking. They would likely retain more users overall by appealing to that small power user minority that converts others.
This was true during an intermediate period where all browsers were more-or-less equivalent. It wasn't true before then, when many sites were designed with Internet Explorer in mind, and tended to work less well on other browsers. I don't think it will be true now, either, now that most sites are designed with Chrome in mind, and tend to work less well on other browsers.
The big difference is that the functionality problems 20 years ago were easier to explain, and therefore easier to get people upset about. It's a lot easier to weave a compelling political story about straight-up incompatibility than it is to weave one about degraded performance due to differing just-in-time compiler optimization behavior.
Also, we seem to be stuck in a situation where people are still so fixated on a monarch that hasn't been in power for over a decade that they maybe haven't been so concerned that the old monarch's overthrower has consolidated power to become a new monarch.
There seems to be this idea that some sites work worse with FF but in all the time Chrome has existed, I've never found any sites that didn't work with FF.
I've never found any that don't work, but Firefox supports fewer "standards", so you can end up with a somewhat degraded experience on some sites. My own company's product, for example, has some janky bits on browsers other than Chrome. The performance is only a little bit behind on most benchmarks, but isn't anywhere near as fast for certain kinds of animation. It can be noticeable on sites that run a lot of animation. Like, say, sites with ads. Possibly only if you're using an older or less powerful computer. Which isn't how we of the orange header bar like to roll, but also isn't a terribly uncommon thing to do out there in the wider world.
(Scare quotes around "standards" because calling Chrome-only things standard nowadays seems a bit like calling AcitveX a standard 20 years ago.)
I use Chrome almost exclusively at work, Firefox on my gaming computer, and Safari on my personal MacBook. Other than extensions on Safari and minor differences in keyboard shortcuts, I don't really notice the differences.
Maybe it's ublock, but I've had plenty of sites that just don't work on firefox. barclaycard, blackboard, and the schools web print system (dts) are my recent examples.
As a chrome-user: this. Firefox lost me years ago due to performance differences, and since chrome works fine for me, there was no ux-related reason to switch back. The day I'll see ads everywhere will be the day I'm back to firefox, and without second thoughts at that. If I really like your service, I'll happily pay for it. I hate ads, the psychological strats behind them are completely unacceptable. I'd happily pay google a subscription-rate, if that's what it takes tbh. Take my money, not my attention.
I think Firefox is faster than Chrome these days. Unfortunately I prefer the web developer tools in Chrome, so I use Chromium as I wasn't a fan of every URL I type going to Google.
Likewise. Unfortunately, some services such as YouTube TV don't work on chromium. Also if you're not on linux, updating is a pain (you must do it manually iirc)
Edge is macOS/Windows only but VSCode is available over there. Worth keeping an eye out because I wouldn't be surprised if Edge lands on desktop Linux[0] someday. I'm not a web developer and a Firefox diehard for almost 20 years now, but the Edge beta has become my fulltime Chrome alternative when I feel I need to try something on a Chromium-based browser.
Is unlimited system resource usage ok for you? If not, you should really re-evaluate your premise of performance differences. Fire up sys mon, activity mon, top, or what have you, open both browsers. Firefox wins on every metric by substantial amounts (memory for example wins by an order of magnitude).
Since I never max out my resources (mbp 2016, 16 gigs, entire workload happens on servers and not on my local machine) that doesn't really affect me - and with 50+ tabs open frequently, just go ahead and take my ram to keep them available, sure. Unused resources are wasted resources - and again, I'm never above 10gigs, maybe 12-13 if I have a local vm running.
Like I said: ux-wise, I'm not impacted negatively by using chrome, at all. If my laptops resources were more limited or my local workload was bigger, I'd probably check out Firefox, but since I'm not bottlenecked, why bother?
That logic works if you're not bounded on RAM, but it's not an inexhaustible resource; personally I'd rather keep it free for VMs or other high cost operations.
>The day ublock origin doesn't work on chrome is the day users will flock to firefox.
>This is because since their core functionality is so similar, small advantages will tip the scales.
It is a a bold assertion, which is not backed up by the data. Despite Mozilla repositioning Firefox recently and reclaiming some lost ground, it is to a larger extent, still only maintaining a steady set of core users. To make an assumption that small advantages will tip the scales in favour of FF is wishful thinking, as demonstrated by some of the conversations. Furthermore, it is inherently not in the best interests of Google to actively promote ad-blocking policy unless it serves it's own purpose, coupled with the acute awareness of why power users and developers pick Chrome ─ they are well positioned to throttle any competition.
I have started moving my friends and family from Chrome to FF. Biggest piece is the privacy angle, but the multi-site containers is also pretty important. It's nice to be able to block facebook API calls from other sites, etc. etc.
You say that (and I agree - I use Firefox everywhere because there's no Chrome plugin support on Android) but I'm genuinely curious to see what happens if/when Chrome stops supporting ublock origin. I suspect - sadly - that there won't be the "flocking to firefox" we might be hoping for. Just enough ads will get blocked with a new, gimped ublock origin, or built-in ad blocking of some flavour, to prevent any meaningful exodus.
Firefox on Android is a usability shitshow compared to Chrome on Android. And I say that as someone who doesn't like Google products.
I think most people who wanted adblocking on Android switched to Brave instead, which is essentially a Chrome fork without the Google stuff and with better tracking protection.
FFAndroid (Fennec?) does strange things. A few examples:
1. You are on this web page in Fennec[1], and you want to do a web search. Click the address bar, type in your query, hit go. Sometimes, Fennec will start the progress bar and act like it is searching, but will draw another tab in the main viewport before resetting the progress bar and changing the url to the SERP you want. If you don't know its going to do that, it looks like Fennec completely ignored your search and loaded another tab.
2. Fennec will sometimes lose its cool and stop rendering pages. The UI layers will respond, you can open hamburger menus, tab listings and thumbnails, but no matter what tab you select, it no longer renders anything but a blank canvas in the viewport. You have to force close Fennec to restore normal behaviors.
3. Fennec will after a long time of being active lose its extensions like noscript et al, you have to force close and re-open to get them to show up in the hamburger menu again.
A good list, but it won't matter for much longer. Fennec is dying, Firefox Preview is coming.
As in, the core browser is available and seems to work fine, but for many people there's not much point in switching until it supports extensions. It won't replace Fennec until it does.
I personally never liked the nav bar and everything at the top. It loads sites much better than Brave and feels more precise for things like dismissing cookie/signup notifications, but navigating the interface always felt tedious. If they just had options for interface layout or nav bar contents it would be great.
I only use Firefox on desktop, but I stopped using it on Android because for a period of time it needed something like one minute to show a web page. Since I don't mobile browse much I just uninstalled it and use Chrome. Privacy is a lost cause on Android anyway. Maybe one day I'll be able to afford an iPhone + the Mac needed to make apps for it.
Exactly, especially for people who don't do web development the difference is hardly there. Actually I recently started to prefer Safari, despite its less smoother Tab UX but this was enough reason to make me switch to Firefox (Nightly). I'm also surprised that it seems to start faster than Safari.
What do you doubt about their claim? Adblockers are an significant privacy vulnerability in the traditional model. Apple has no vested interest in ads. It seems entirely consistent with their privacy focus why they'd do this.
The problem is that websites are also currently a significant privacy vulnerability.
I'd love an adblock system that allowed me to block trackers with a purely declarative API. I do not trust Apple (or Google) when they say that their API will be as effective as current extensions.
Ublock Origin and UMatrix are hands-down the gold standard for blocking right now. I'm very, very cautious about ignoring the advice of the person who made them, and that person is saying that declarative APIs don't offer enough flexibility for the blocking they want to do.
Of course extensions are a privacy risk. But I only need to vet two extensions, and without them I need to vet hundreds of websites. If the current extensions do a better job without a declarative API, then I'd rather risk installing them. You have to look at the risk of extensions in the context of the risks of the broader ad ecosystem on the web.
The same way you vet desktop apps. Install as few of them as possible, because the sandboxing is currently quite bad. Do research on the people who are developing them. Read the source code.
If you're worried about malicious transfers of power, turn off auto-updating in Firefox. If you're worried about being able to audit the actual installed code, use Firefox Developer Edition and audit and compile your own version to run.
In practice, I trust UMatrix and Ublock Origin because I'm familiar with Gorhil's work and comment history around Github and HN. I also extend a similar amount of trust to Decentraleyes for similar reasons. Those are the only big 3 you need to get the biggest impact on your privacy. Arguably, you don't even need Decentraleyes if you only want to trust one person.
Why not just run all desktop apps in sandboxed virtual machines then?
There's a tradeoff between default privacy settings and user simplicity. As a power user you're still free to run whatever complicated scheme/browser you want to.
> Why not just run all desktop apps in sandboxed virtual machines then?
Ideally, we would like sandboxing on the desktop to be at least as good as sandboxing on the web (preferably better). People don't run sandboxed desktop apps right now because the ecosystem currently makes it inconvenient. Wayland and Flatpack are both good steps in the right direction. Apple's making some progress as well there, but it's all pretty early-stage stuff.
Until the sandboxing gets better, you should be cautious about installing unvetted desktop and phone apps. You should also be cautious about installing unvetted browser extensions. But browser extensions are complicated because while keeping a minimal system isn't that hard, you're probably not going to stop visiting unvetted websites, even if you know it's dangerous. It's a much higher priority for experienced users to make the browser sandbox good than it is to make the extension sandbox good.
People take a long-term view on this, and while I agree with them in theory, I don't think it's always particularly helpful to think about what technology will look like. With browsers, it's not a question of whether or not theoretically it would be good in the future to make extensions entirely declarative. Of course it would be good. It's a question of, 'is it possible to do that right now?' At the moment, Safari's declarative API is significantly less powerful than the blocking API that Firefox has. In the future, that could definitely change, but people have to use computers today.
So for the moment, the browser advice I give to non-power users is to install UBlock Origin and Decentraleyes on Firefox and nothing else. I think that's a safer, more private environment than anything they'll be able to set up on Safari. I advise power users to add uMatrix to that list, and for people who are really paranoid, I advise them to run Firefox Developer edition, which will let them compile extensions from source.
If you're just handing someone a computer and you don't trust them not to go off and install random extensions, then sure, give them Safari. In that context, it's not confusing why Apple would do this -- they're optimizing for the largest number of users; people they can't trust not to install random extensions. It just means that more experienced/responsible users will be safer using Firefox.
Of course Apple has an interest in ads given their competition with Google, which is an ad company. Harder to make money off of ads is bad for their competitors and in a zero sum view of the world good for Apple.
Because ads and trackers are as great a threat to privacy. All ads are malicious, while only some extensions that misuse powerful extensions are. I'm aware ads are not Apple's business model, yet I'm incredibly skeptical whenever an API that is open and powerful gets shrunk down to 'protect' users.
Apple has gone to great extents to enable ad and tracker blocking, making it a first-class feature in iOS, and pushing the envelope on the blocking of tracking cookies and other technologies. I use AdGuard on my iPhone and it might be the most effective browsing experience I enjoy.
For that matter, on macOS I don't have anything in Safari, and regularly go between Safari, Chrome and Firefox (the latter two with uBlock Origin). Somehow just the native anti-aggravation technology in Safari is more than sufficient to give me a great experience. If it has a list solution like the iOS Safari, then I'll partake of that.
Apple should enable classic-style blocking as an admin override kind of thing, but remarkably their list-based regex approach has been remarkable effective.
Local code execution is also a significant privacy vulnerability. Should Apple take away the ability of their users to install non-app-store programs?
Some security vulnerabilities are acceptable in some situations in exchange for user freedom and/or other benefits, such as blocking ads, which are essentially malware for your brain.
>I must admit the the terminology isn't very clear. A Safari "content-blocker" app sends a list to Safari, and Safari blocks it. A regular blocker (like uBO) blocks content itself. Safari content blockers aren't all bad, they are more secure in that they can't possibly collect your browsing history (not that uBO does), but lack the level of customisation and power that a regular blocker like uBO can provide.
It's nice that random extensions can't peek at your browsing history, but on the other hand, you have to trust that Apple won't decide to ignore any block rules. What if one day they make a deal with Disney and now all Disney ads are on the permanent do-not-block list?
" they are more secure in that they can't possibly collect your browsing history (not that uBO does), but lack the level of customisation and power that a regular blocker like uBO can provide."
There is no spin. Apple is pretty open about restricting freedom to increase security.
Many people don’t have time or inclination to check which extension is doing what. Proof is the fact that ublock and adblock are bad, but ublock origin is good.
Whose non-techy friends and family are going to spend time to figure that one out? In that case, the macOS and iOS content blocking system is better for those users.
> If the extension can't inspect the traffic it can't meaningfully filter content.
I’m sorry, but does uBlock Origin detects & filter ads based on contents?
I thought they maintained a database of URLs that serve ads & page elements... and Safari content blockers also have the same capability to block content based on URLs (hence can block YouTube ads).
BTW, PiHole blocks ads based on hostname... and is more incapable than Safari content blockers.
uBlock Origin can be configured to do much more than a simple list based filter (like EasyList, etc). [1] It's not quite the same as detecting, but it's incredibly configurable, and that functionality can't be used when list based filtering is all that's allowed.
And I'm aware PiHole is just DNS filtering, but an extra layer of blocking is useful.
Why would Apple care if Mac users used a none Safari browser? Apple doesn’t lose a penny from users switching browsers. As far as iOS, no matter which “browser” you use, you’re still using WebKit.
>Why would Apple care if Mac users used a [non-]Safari browser?
Apple doesn't care individually what users use. However, Apple (and everyone else for that matter) does have reason to be concerned about Google's Chrome completely dominating the web in the way IE once did. iOS is certainly their biggest bulwark, but that doesn't mean they'd be delighted if Mac users felt required to use Chrome. Further, they also have made being able to avoid the anti-privacy ad-driven ecosystem to some extent an important differentiating factor. Even with Firefox existing, having a purely Mac focused and maximally optimized browser (FF is only barely catching up this/next version on basic power efficiency for example) that has strong privacy protections with no conflicts of interest is a sales point.
That doesn't mean it's a total core focus of course, but neither is there no pressure at all.
If every single Mac user used Chrome, it wouldn’t matter. The market cares about Safari compatibility because of iOS.
Just like most printer manufacturers don’t focus on AirPrint compatibility because of the Mac. That’s just a byproduct of iOS compatibility - which they do care about.
It's quite important that developers actually test their desktop layout and functionality (hover states, etc which don't work on a touch screen) with Safari's engine.
We don't want websites to be written for compatibility with a single browser engine. That means developers are writing to Chrome's quirks, not to actual web standards. Over the long term, that gives Google complete control over how the web is run.
There are currently between 3 and 2.5 browser engines that matter, depending on how you count webkit vs blink. I'd really rather that not fall down to only 2 on desktop.
I’m not saying what we want I’m saying that whether we want it or not, it doesn’t matter whether Safari’s desktop market share drops from the current 3.6% (https://netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?options...) to 1.8%, it won’t change the calculus on whether web designers care about desktop safari when they can just tell people who are complaining - use Chrome.
It makes a big difference for me, at my job. 3.6% is enough users that I can justify spending (some) time to test and fix bugs. As that number approaches 1%, however, it gets much harder.
and the total usage of safari across all device types allows for a certain percentage of users in the wild which acts as the size of the lever apple wields for changes they want (or don't) in the specs.
Last time they posted numbers, they were selling around 200 million iPhones a year, 45 million iPads and maybe 20 million Macs. The Mac market share is insignificant even to Apple in the grand scheme of things.
Any web standard is useless without Apple being on board. Developers either won’t implement it or create an app for iOS to use a feature they need.
Even with your numbers, 1/10th the sales for a more expensive product isn't insignificant. It's especially important for their brand value as a tech company.
Of course we know that Google has to make money from Ads so its understandable but what about Apple ? They are putting heavy focus in privacy, would it be good if they open their browser to make sure their users will not move to Chrome/Firefox or other browser ?