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.
srcreigh 2 hours ago [-]
Agree that it should be easier to test on safari from other platforms.
But no way is it a good idea to let other browser engines onto the OS.
I can’t make it website owners problem that their site doesn’t work on non-Google browser. Apple can.
Safari sucks but it’s the only thing stopping Chrome from taking over everything.
Im happy if Google never has that amount of control. We don’t know how bad it could have been, we have enough privacy issues already.
thunderbong 2 hours ago [-]
IMHO, that also should be addressed from the legal perspective very strongly. But forcing Safari for every Apple owner is certainly not the solution.
xoa 1 hours ago [-]
>IMHO, that also should be addressed from the legal perspective very strongly
Then do that FIRST (or at the same time). Don't give us, yet AGAIN, the tired bs song and dance about how you'll make things worse first and then totally someday address the other part properly, and oops what a surprise that turns out to be too hard nevermind.
>But forcing Safari for every Apple owner is certainly not the solution.
Objectively it is a solution though. Because it's been done, and it's been more effective than nothing, while meanwhile nothing has happened from a legal or political angles. If a better solution can be done down the road great, but a hack dealing with a problem non-optimally can absolutely be better then just having the problem completely unaddressed. And count me skeptical that any government is going to have the will or capability to actually address what a lot of us already hate about not just the Chrome monopoly but that entire approach (I don't in fact want my web browser to be a full lowest common denominator operating system with low level hardware access thanks). I dislike much of what Apple does now but I'm glad their selfish interests have happened not to align that way either. Until monopoly lock-in gets better addressed, one of the main ways to push back is via another monopoly lock-in that has different incentives.
freecodeio 1 hours ago [-]
if someone told me you have to use ie6 so chrome doesn't take over every browser, then I'll just use chrome
SoftTalker 37 minutes ago [-]
At the time the roles were reversed. The spin was "use Chrome to break the IE browser monopoly." And Chrome was a better browser, and much faster. It worked.
srcreigh 31 minutes ago [-]
Not if ie6 is your only option
bigyabai 2 hours ago [-]
I'm getting some serious "Microsoft has to protect Internet Explorer from evil competitors like Netscape" vibes from this comment.
Safari simply sucks. If WebKit was any good, then Apple wouldn't have to worry about allowing third-party engines onto iOS. The situation on Mac tells us everything we need to know.
ch_sm 28 minutes ago [-]
I‘m a long-time Safari user, and I still prefer it, but I nonetheless concur with everything you said in this post.
robotnikman 2 hours ago [-]
>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 remember a long time ago they used to make a Windows version of Safari you could download and install, but at some point they stopped.
2III7 1 hours ago [-]
For testing one could use any other webkit browser. Most of them have similar rendering quirks to Safari.
wongarsu 47 minutes ago [-]
Anecdotally that's not enough. I've deal with multiple quirks that only happen in Safari but not in linux-based webkit browsers
floorsthelimit 53 minutes ago [-]
I only use Apple hardware. I’ve never used safari only Firefox or brave. I don’t understand why you are saying it is a monopoly.
wongarsu 49 minutes ago [-]
On macOS it isn't an issue. But on iPhone all the browsers are just different user interfaces for Safari's rendering engine
kwanbix 45 minutes ago [-]
At least on iOS, if I am not mistaken, you can only run the Safari Engine. Even if you run Firefox or Chrome, it is running Safari under the hood. That is what I understand. Please, correctme if I am wrong.
warkdarrior 47 minutes ago [-]
At least in US, Firefox on iPhone is basically a reskin of the Safari engine.
timcobb 28 minutes ago [-]
Agreed but ironically it's this monopoly that keeps webkit in the game
dylan604 43 minutes ago [-]
Can you use some of the cloud providers that now allow for a macOS instance? I know I know, but maybe better than nothing?
tharos47 38 minutes ago [-]
No because apple mandate 24h leasing minimum time.
zsoltkacsandi 51 minutes ago [-]
> First let us install other browser engines on iOS, and then we can talk
Just checked in the App Store, I can install Firefox, Opera, Brave, and many many other browsers on my iPhone.
dylan604 44 minutes ago [-]
Those are not the same underpinnings as their desktop/Android brethren. All of these iOS apps are still using WebKit.
greggsy 5 hours ago [-]
Forgive my ignorance.
How is the iOS engine requirement considered a monopoly?
cassianoleal 4 hours ago [-]
Because Apple controls the only browser engine that runs on iOS and iPadOS. There are no alternatives. Chrome, Firefox and other browsers are just the browser chrome on top of the Safari/WebKit engine. Apple will not allow anything else.
alt227 2 hours ago [-]
> browser chrome
Bad choice of term!
latexr 1 hours ago [-]
Fun fact, the Google Chrome team was very aware of “browser chrome” as a term when they named their browser. They make that clear in the introductory comic.
iOS and iPadOS aren't the most dominant OSes, so therefore this can't be a monopoly.
foolswisdom 4 minutes ago [-]
Apple isn't the most dominant business on earth, so maybe they can't do anything in violation of antitrust?
Not how it works. You define a relevant market, and the market of iPhone users (which a stable market, there are barriers to just switching to android tomorrow) can be used for evaluation.
ur-whale 5 hours ago [-]
iOS is a de-facto monopoly in the first place.
yipinwong 2 hours ago [-]
As much as I am pro-android, this is a dumb take.
Numbers say otherwise.
mingus88 3 hours ago [-]
Ridiculous take
Android’s global marketshare is 70% of mobile so you would have to declare a monopoly as “things I can run on an iPhone” as your position for that to work
There is plenty of competition and choice to iOS, you just won’t find that on Apple hardware for reasons that have held for three decades
lxgr 2 hours ago [-]
> so you would have to declare a monopoly as “things I can run on an iPhone” as your position for that to work
Yes, that's pretty much it. A similar concern applies to Google and Android.
alt227 2 hours ago [-]
But you can install other OSes such as Graphene on Android phones, I dont think you can do that on iPhones can you?
It's absolutely how they work. If there's only a single grocery store in town (and for whatever reason others can't be opened), is that somehow not a monopoly even though there are several pharmacies and hardware stores?
imthatsteve 3 hours ago [-]
Did you read the post you replied to?
Are you just being pedantic about the definition of monopoly or did you fail to understand the problem as it was explained.
Do you use ios? If so do you like using broken websites? Do you have no desire for things to function as intended?
Id imagine its very annoying as a developer to have your things broken for no reason other than pure corporate greed.
If you do use ios then you probably enjoy paying more for an inferior product so ig this is more of a feature than a bug.
protimewaster 3 hours ago [-]
Why would I use the global market share to determine if someone has a monopoly, though? It seems like a flawed way to determine how much choice consumers have.
For example, there's a monopoly on garbage service where I live, but he company with the monopoly has basically 0% of the world market.
snapcaster 2 hours ago [-]
How do you defend a company with 30% marketshare being a monopoly but the other company with 70% market share isn't? I can see the duopoly argument, but no idea how apple could be a monopoly by itself
protimewaster 1 hours ago [-]
I'm not defending anybody. I'm just saying, if I live in a market where one company has 99% of the market, somebody coming in and saying "There's not a monopoly. They only have 30% of the global market! " isn't going to make me feel any better, because I don't live everywhere in the world. I live where I live, and that company has 99% of the market there.
I just don't think the 30% of the global market number is relevant to anything in terms of arguing if somebody has a monopoly. Are there even any countries who use a definition of "monopoly" that uses global marketshare to determine if there's a monopoly? Surely those definitions all look at marketshare within some specific region?
floydnoel 50 minutes ago [-]
that argument doesn't relate to this discussion at all, though. you aren't limited to only buying Apple devices in your neighborhood, are you?
protimewaster 35 minutes ago [-]
There are entire countries where one company has 93%+ marketshare. Yes, maybe people can go to another country where the marketshare is different, but do we all seriously think that the global marketshare not resembling a monopoly definitely means that there's no one market where a monopoly exists?
I imagine trying to effectively use (or market) a competing product in a region with 93%+ marketshare is a painful experience, regardless of whether the global marketshare is more balanced.
Using global marketshare hides details like that. Apple could have 100% of the market in China and India, and Android could have 100% of the marketshare in the rest of the world. This would put, worldwide, Apple at about 35% and Android at about 65%. I would argue there are clearly monopolies in that case, though, even if the worldwide numbers are 65 and 35.
bigyabai 2 hours ago [-]
Being a monopoly isn't illegal. So many discussions gloss over this fact, and people get at each other's throat over hypothetical abuses and ad-hominem scenarios.
Abusing a monopoly is illegal. Alphabet and Apple are both unquestionably monopoly businesses, and make incredible year-over-year revenue through market-damaging services like AdSense and the App Store. If they are allowed to continue, then other Fortune 500 businesses will copy their decisions, thereby destroying genuine market value that they provide in exchange for safer, more exploitative revenue streams.
In the case of AdSense and Apple's App Store both, I think that any fair FTC investigation would conclude they are shakedown services that harm the greater economy.
snapcaster 1 hours ago [-]
When nothing is stopping you from using an alternative i just don't see it
bigyabai 1 hours ago [-]
You could have said the same thing about Windows during it's antitrust case.
Fat lot of good that logic would do Microsoft when they were deliberately gimping competitors.
Jtsummers 17 seconds ago [-]
[delayed]
jasonlotito 2 hours ago [-]
> How do you defend a company with 30% marketshare being a monopoly but the other company with 70% market share isn't?
One allows you to install different browsers, the other does not.
Being a monopoly isn't illegal (in the US). It's what they do that matters.
Now, that doesn't mean Apple is a monopoly with iOS, because the Sherman act doens't dictate it only looks at US only markets. It look at what makes sense in the context. Of course, a court could decide that regardless of what the numbers are internationall, what matters in this case is just the US market.
Trying to predict that is useless at the moment though because the US courts are all over the place.
FireBeyond 17 minutes ago [-]
When you install Chrome, which you cannot accidentally do, and when you set it as the OS browser default, which you also cannot accidentally do...
... the next time you launch Safari, it will say that the default browser has been changed, "Did you mean to do that?" and of the two options presented ("Keep using Chrome" or "Switch back to Safari") the Safari option will be the default.
brunoborges 5 hours ago [-]
Can you be more specific on how iOS blocks other browsers? You mean for embedded browser engine in apps?
iOS does not allow third party browser engines. Every browser you download from the iOS App Store is using 'Safari Lite' under the hood. It's ostensibly for security, but it's more about control.
bliteben 2 hours ago [-]
I would bet the security claim holds up, I have definitely seem more RCE mentioned from Chrome than from Safari.
I would bet Google's track record would easily allow them to defend this in court. More an issue with Google though.
lxgr 2 hours ago [-]
I guess that might have something to do with the fact that Chrome is vastly more popular than Safari, and also available on many more operating systems.
ajross 1 hours ago [-]
No, it's definitely about control. Allowing an arbitrary browser means allowing access to platform stuff from portable (gasp!) APIs. And Apple doesn't want that. They want an iOS app to be the primary face of everything important, and the other stuff to be an expensive port.
And the problem isn't abstract. Safari lacks a ton of very useful API implementations. Like, try programming a QMK keyboard on an iPhone: it's literally the only platform in the whole world unable to run the Via web app.
hbn 1 hours ago [-]
If it's browser monopolies you're worried about, Apple beginning to allow other engines on iOS is going to instantly cement Chrome as the only browser in the game.
Apple's Safari enforcement is the only reason Chrome hasn't completely taken over.
bitpush 40 minutes ago [-]
"The only just monopoly is my monopoly"
hbn 2 minutes ago [-]
There is no monopoly right now. Chrome and Safari are both in use enough that you generally need to test against both.
Once real Chromium is available on iPhones, there will be a monopoly.
I use that to test our website at work in Safari, though without a GPU (there is no virto-gpu driver for macOS and my PC's GPU doesn't support vGPU) the performance isn't great.
jedberg 3 minutes ago [-]
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, I have Session Buddy in Safari.
So maybe the plugins aren't a problem anymore...
jillesvangurp 3 hours ago [-]
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.
oldsklgdfth 4 minutes ago [-]
> Chrome is the new internet explorer.
My take is Safari is the new IE.
It is packaged with the OS. I can't get an older version of Safari without an older version is macOS. From a testing standpoint, this means we have a bunch of hardware or images we never update so we can test against.
That was the IE thing, it was baked into the OS. Also, trash dev tools. Crashes pretty easily with the console open for more than 30s.
cosmic_cheese 1 hours ago [-]
Google has always aggressively promoted Chrome, too. The promotion is just invisible to most people since most people run Chrome.
If you visit a Google property using a Gecko or WebKit-based browser you'll get hit with banners nudging you to switch to Chrome and Google's iOS apps ignore the long-available default browser setting when linked are tapped, prompting you to choose between your default browser and Chrome even if you don't have Chrome installed.
And then there's the whole thing with how Chrome for Android conveniently never gained the ability to run even pared-back MV3 blocker extensions. Massive conflict of interest there.
I wish Google were called out for this stuff way more, but more often than not they're given a free pass.
zaphar 2 hours ago [-]
I use safari regularly and it has not really kept up. All kinds of stuff that is partly broken for rendering. Especially on heavily dynamic sites. Chrome at least works for any web standard which IE did not.
jiehong 2 hours ago [-]
It’s more like devs only test on chrome.
linguae 47 minutes ago [-]
Yup, just like during the bad old days of Internet Explorer's dominance. I remember encountering websites that only worked on the Windows version of Internet Explorer as late as 2006. We had a nice time in the late 2000s and early 2010s when web developers coded against standards instead of against the market-leading web browser. There was competition between Firefox, Opera, Safari, and a revitalized Internet Explorer. I don't remember IE 7 and later being that bad, though by then I had switched to Firefox on Linux/Windows and Safari on Macs.
Then came an upstart web browser from Google named Chrome....and now we're back to the bad old days of web developers coding to the dominant web browser again.
cosmic_cheese 1 hours ago [-]
Yes. These days if a site is broken in Safari there's a ~70% chance it's broken or degraded in Firefox too.
lobf 2 hours ago [-]
Where do you run in to this? I switched from Chrome to Safari about 5 years ago and can count the number of websites I’ve had issues with on one hand, I think.
Alex_L_Wood 1 hours ago [-]
Mobile Reddit is awful on Safari, but it speaks more about Reddit developers than it speaks about Safari.
watermelon0 1 hours ago [-]
Strava is an example of a website that's dog slow on Safari. Pages take 10+ seconds before they start rendering.
jacquesm 6 hours ago [-]
You should ditch Chrome. And switch to FireFox.
alt227 2 hours ago [-]
Ive used Firefox as my daily driver for around 12 years. I switched to Chrome a couple weeks ago to see what the fuss is about and I am shocked how glitchy it is in comparison. Firefox is a much more stable experience.
pupppet 2 hours ago [-]
Firefox should just have a 'Chrome' mode where it just shamelessly looks exactly like Chrome. Apart from Chrome removing the flag to hide the close buttons on tabs, I think the UI is damn near perfect.
rocketvole 2 hours ago [-]
we're getting closer with the nova redesign
barelysapient 6 hours ago [-]
I've been very happy with FireFox.
yipinwong 2 hours ago [-]
Nope. I watch a lotta youtube on a PC, FF runs vids like crap because Google changes something, and FF struggls to play well unlike Chrome or Edge.
That's the only reason I am not switching to FF 100%. I do use it though but not as a main driver.
accrual 2 hours ago [-]
Interesting, YouTube runs fairly well on my system with Firefox. I do get the "Experiencing interruptions? Find out why" pop-up often. It's funny though, the only interruption I actually experience is the pop-up. If the pop-up went away, so would all interruptions.
yipinwong 24 seconds ago [-]
I have a paid sub, and runs youtube without any ad blockers on chrome and FF.
The issue happens only on FF
nicce 56 minutes ago [-]
They do that on purpose. To keep you using Chrome.
4k? That might have something to do with it. Though given a big enough box that too shouldn't be an issue. But I'm using a decade+ old thinkpad driving a fairly high res dell and it works well enough.
lelanthran 1 hours ago [-]
I've used FF for the past 20 years (Linux and Windows). I have seen thousands of youtube videos in that time without a glitch. So have many hundreds of other FF users.
If FF is not working on youtube for, it's not working for you and you alone.
vasachi 2 hours ago [-]
I've had zero problems with Youtube on FF for I don't remember how many years. I'm on Mac though.
floydnoel 45 minutes ago [-]
I just use Brave for YT. Adblock built in!
throw0101c 2 hours ago [-]
> Nope. I watch a lotta youtube on a PC, FF runs vids like crap because Google changes something, and FF struggls to play well unlike Chrome or Edge.
I generally use Safari on my Apple devices (and YT works) and Firefox on any Linux machines. If something does not work on Safari I try Firefox on my Mac. In the past I've also sometimes used Chrome when no other option works.
So one option could be to use Firefox as a 'general use' browser, and switch to something else on an as-needed basis.
A bit of a hassle, but it may be the best compromise currently.
jacquesm 2 hours ago [-]
Never had a problem with that.
lightedman 2 hours ago [-]
"Nope. I watch a lotta youtube on a PC, FF runs vids like crap because Google changes something, and FF struggls to play well unlike Chrome or Edge."
You must have a hardware problem, as I'm playing 4K videos on a 1st-gen Ryzen and GTX 1080 using Firefox and I've never had a single issue since I got the machine, around the 4th week the processor was available to purchase.
t1234s 2 hours ago [-]
Agreed!
veber-alex 2 hours ago [-]
No thanks.
I am perfectly happy with Chrome.
baal80spam 6 hours ago [-]
Nope.
6 hours ago [-]
ur-whale 5 hours ago [-]
> Nope
Really well argued, congrats.
t1234s 2 hours ago [-]
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
martheen 47 minutes ago [-]
Due to App Store $99 per year compared to PlayStore one-time $25 and iPhone being unaffordable for most people in my country, there's too many niche and/or local apps I'm using in Android where they won't port to iOS.
alt227 2 hours ago [-]
If you added "Allowing manual sideloading of apps" to that list I would jump to an iPhone in a heartbeat
nticompass 52 minutes ago [-]
There's TrollStore, but that's a hack not an official way.
Which apps can't be uninstalled on the latest iOS?
ssttoo 2 hours ago [-]
I’ll dump my iPhone for an Android as soon as:
- iMessage works so I can participate in the family group chat
tantalor 2 hours ago [-]
RCS exists
lightedman 2 hours ago [-]
Not me, because Apple still disallows direct competition with their other 'apps/features' like Compass.
curt15 6 hours ago [-]
Safari has the same manifest v3 limitations that preclude the full-blooded ublock origin you get with Firefox.
armadyl 5 hours ago [-]
I notice no difference using AdGuard (in basic mode, with only the content blocking rules and no page read access) in Safari or uBOL in basic mode on Chrome vs. using UBO on Firefox. And in uBOL’s case you can always increase the filtering level if you’re willing to grant the extension read access to pages to basically match uBO. You can even hide/delete elements or add your own custom rules.
I feel like most people who make MV3 complaints didn’t bother actually trying it, they just repeat the default anti-MV3 talking points.
ctkhn 4 hours ago [-]
Google serves ads and videos from the same servers. Adblock can't use DNS to drop the ads without dropping videos too. Ublock in firefox sees the actual content in my browser and can distinguish youtube videos from ads.
AuthAuth 2 hours ago [-]
Google doesnt turn on MV3 and have it break ads day one that would highlight a negative change for users. Google wants people to move to MV3 and notice no difference and then they can start chipping away later.
zaphar 2 hours ago [-]
It's cute that you think they have level of sophistication in their strategy.
toomim 5 hours ago [-]
Does it block ads in youtube videos?
moi2388 2 hours ago [-]
Yes.
icantevenhold 5 hours ago [-]
I personally notice a lot of difference between AdGuard and UBO.
AdGuard just blocks much less.
5 hours ago [-]
2OEH8eoCRo0 5 hours ago [-]
Why don't they lean into ad blockers and making the web less shitty? Is it because the web staying shitty makes people use apps instead?
icantevenhold 5 hours ago [-]
I’m sure that is a part of the reason.
I hate apps with a passion…
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.
jonhohle 6 hours ago [-]
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.
yipinwong 2 hours ago [-]
You deserve the kudos for just mentioning Konqueror and extra +1 for using it.
I liked Konqueror but abandoned in favor of Chrome browsers and variants especially after working on frontend projects and stoped using KDE
yipinwong 2 hours ago [-]
You deserve the kudos for just mentioning Konqueror and extra +1 for using it.
I liked Konqueror but abandoned in favor of Chrome browsers and variants especially after working on frontend projects.
glimshe 6 hours ago [-]
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.
SirMaster 6 hours ago [-]
It even used to run on Windows...
martheen 33 minutes ago [-]
I suspect that was a legacy from when they planned for iOS not supporting any third-party apps. If they want to force devs to target mobile Safari, the least they can do was to provide the desktop version on Windows.
Once apps dominate (which requires devs to have a Mac anyway to compile and debug) and turns out nobody use the Windows port, it's just a money sink.
tkdb 5 hours ago [-]
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.
DrBazza 5 hours ago [-]
'Find in page' is in.... 'Share' (on mobile). But Apple has the best UX, so who am I to argue?
hiros-neko 1 hours ago [-]
Or you can just start typing in the address bar and it will list it below the autofilled list
idbnstra 5 hours ago [-]
yeah, for one, you can't put multiple tabs in a stack/accordion group
wereHamster 17 minutes ago [-]
If they fix the devtools. Because Safari devtools are worse than junk.
oldsklgdfth 7 minutes ago [-]
Hot garbage bro.
Also trash video playback.
freakynit 6 hours ago [-]
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.
2 hours ago [-]
PrimalPower 6 hours ago [-]
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.
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.
bob1029 5 hours ago [-]
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.
SirMaster 6 hours ago [-]
Could they please make Safari for Windows again?
accrual 2 hours ago [-]
I quite liked the old Safari for Windows. It felt like bringing over a slice of the Apple ecosystem to the common Windows XP or Vista desktop. You could run Safari and iTunes and have decent parity with (then) Mac OS X for the most common use cases.
malloci 5 hours ago [-]
They likely discontinued because there was barely any interest. Likely the only reason Safari has any use is that it's the default on MacOS and monopolized on i*OS.
maidaman 5 hours ago [-]
I’m not going to use different browsers on different devices. I can’t use Safari on my gaming windows desktop.
t1234s 2 hours ago [-]
Its like when M$ was advertising IE11 on TV back in 2012~13
theplumber 6 hours ago [-]
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.
oh ty, I legitimately didn't know I usually hide extensions icons in safari
rocketvole 2 hours ago [-]
could also use wblock for custom filter lists
baggachipz 36 minutes ago [-]
Wipr2 is amazing.
ssijak 5 hours ago [-]
adguard
hollowonepl 6 hours ago [-]
I ditched both to favor Firefox many many years ago.
mkirsten 5 hours ago [-]
Funnily, it's not a "Switch to Safari" campaign, but a "Stay on Safari" if you look at Apple's material.
ivell 7 hours ago [-]
Reminds me of PC vs Mac campaign
fluidcruft 5 hours ago [-]
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.
Grimeton 2 hours ago [-]
They stopped that years ago. Safari for windows was a thing.
stychos 2 hours ago [-]
No problems Apple. How about Safari and keychain for Linux?
mococa 2 hours ago [-]
Wipr2 for adblocking in Safari - the best adblocker.
drnick1 5 hours ago [-]
I would consider Safari, if Apple open sourced it and it ran on Linux.
ur-whale 5 hours ago [-]
> I would consider Safari, if Apple open sourced it and it ran on Linux.
Yes, absolutely. But then they wouldn't be able to lock the flock in the barn, which is so contrary to Apple's DNA that you can't event talk about it in a 1 mile radius of 1, Infinite loop.
InfiniteQwert 6 hours ago [-]
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)
LoganDark 2 hours ago [-]
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)
nitin7 6 hours ago [-]
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.
emehex 6 hours ago [-]
I would... if it <proper> had vertical tabs
nitin7 6 hours ago [-]
Yeah. I'm typing this on my safari which shows both vertical tabs and the horizontal tabs - looks so weird. And I always end up clicking a tab and then typing away, and Safari starts switching me to tabs starting with whatever letter I type - very annoying.
estetlinus 6 hours ago [-]
This is the only thing that matters, why does nobody get it right?
pcdoodle1 5 hours ago [-]
Adding WebSerial even if it's locked in a Developer tools menu would make Safari a more serious tool for me.
bearjaws 3 hours ago [-]
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.
latexr 1 hours ago [-]
> switching entire company to Firefox.
They just announced something which might be relevant to you.
Put Safari on my Android and Linux devices and I'll consider it
secretsatan 1 hours ago [-]
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.
latexr 1 hours ago [-]
> You can’t update safari separately from the os i found out
I was on Sequoia all throughout Tahoe and still updated Safari to the 26.x versions. There might be a limit to how far back they let you do that, though.
secretsatan 51 minutes ago [-]
It was to Mojave, and downgrading was a whole task in itself, apple really did not want me to do it.
pipolo 6 hours ago [-]
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.
dbg31415 2 hours ago [-]
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.
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).
unified101 6 hours ago [-]
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.
bensyverson 5 hours ago [-]
This is a bit of a chicken and egg, but the number of iOS users who have saved a web app or PWA to their home screen is probably in the single-digits worldwide. Half-joking.
People are just not aware that this is a thing, and when they learn it's a thing, they don't want to do it.
brazukadev 40 minutes ago [-]
Of course they are not aware it is a thing, it doesn't work. Every dev that tried to support it got burnt.
sdellis 6 hours ago [-]
100% this. And in case you missed the Scooby Doo episode... Chrome on mobile iOS is just Safari in a ski mask!
bensyverson 5 hours ago [-]
Nearly every browser on the market and most desktop application are just Chrome in a ski mask. Safari and Firefox are the tiny holdouts that prevent web technology from being 100% controlled by Google.
mmmlinux 6 hours ago [-]
Most other browsers on the market are just chrome in a ski mask. So what's your point?
bossyTeacher 6 hours ago [-]
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.
ur-whale 5 hours ago [-]
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
surgical_fire 5 hours ago [-]
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 4 hours ago [-]
Seriously, if you use anything besides firefox and ubo, I don’t even know what to say.
bensyverson 5 hours ago [-]
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.
hanlec 2 hours ago [-]
> Safari is faster, uses less RAM and is more power-efficient.
I am really curious about data proving these.
I am not aware of any benchmarks proving or disproving.
ur-whale 5 hours ago [-]
> I don't think people realize that you can go back to a website after you've visited.
This is about as wrong as you can possibly get.
This would be true in a stateless world (assuming you can remember the site you want to visit).
Which the web hasn't been since a very long time.
bensyverson 5 hours ago [-]
Can you give me a concrete example? I close windows and tabs with ruthless abandon.
Unless you have a web app which is entirely local and doesn't save its state to local storage, what could you possibly be doing that requires a tab to remain in residence?
Rendered at 21:04:10 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
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.
But no way is it a good idea to let other browser engines onto the OS.
I can’t make it website owners problem that their site doesn’t work on non-Google browser. Apple can.
Safari sucks but it’s the only thing stopping Chrome from taking over everything.
Im happy if Google never has that amount of control. We don’t know how bad it could have been, we have enough privacy issues already.
Then do that FIRST (or at the same time). Don't give us, yet AGAIN, the tired bs song and dance about how you'll make things worse first and then totally someday address the other part properly, and oops what a surprise that turns out to be too hard nevermind.
>But forcing Safari for every Apple owner is certainly not the solution.
Objectively it is a solution though. Because it's been done, and it's been more effective than nothing, while meanwhile nothing has happened from a legal or political angles. If a better solution can be done down the road great, but a hack dealing with a problem non-optimally can absolutely be better then just having the problem completely unaddressed. And count me skeptical that any government is going to have the will or capability to actually address what a lot of us already hate about not just the Chrome monopoly but that entire approach (I don't in fact want my web browser to be a full lowest common denominator operating system with low level hardware access thanks). I dislike much of what Apple does now but I'm glad their selfish interests have happened not to align that way either. Until monopoly lock-in gets better addressed, one of the main ways to push back is via another monopoly lock-in that has different incentives.
Safari simply sucks. If WebKit was any good, then Apple wouldn't have to worry about allowing third-party engines onto iOS. The situation on Mac tells us everything we need to know.
I remember a long time ago they used to make a Windows version of Safari you could download and install, but at some point they stopped.
Just checked in the App Store, I can install Firefox, Opera, Brave, and many many other browsers on my iPhone.
How is the iOS engine requirement considered a monopoly?
Bad choice of term!
https://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/big_24.html
Not how it works. You define a relevant market, and the market of iPhone users (which a stable market, there are barriers to just switching to android tomorrow) can be used for evaluation.
Numbers say otherwise.
Android’s global marketshare is 70% of mobile so you would have to declare a monopoly as “things I can run on an iPhone” as your position for that to work
There is plenty of competition and choice to iOS, you just won’t find that on Apple hardware for reasons that have held for three decades
Yes, that's pretty much it. A similar concern applies to Google and Android.
https://grapheneos.org/
Are you just being pedantic about the definition of monopoly or did you fail to understand the problem as it was explained.
Do you use ios? If so do you like using broken websites? Do you have no desire for things to function as intended?
Id imagine its very annoying as a developer to have your things broken for no reason other than pure corporate greed.
If you do use ios then you probably enjoy paying more for an inferior product so ig this is more of a feature than a bug.
For example, there's a monopoly on garbage service where I live, but he company with the monopoly has basically 0% of the world market.
I just don't think the 30% of the global market number is relevant to anything in terms of arguing if somebody has a monopoly. Are there even any countries who use a definition of "monopoly" that uses global marketshare to determine if there's a monopoly? Surely those definitions all look at marketshare within some specific region?
I imagine trying to effectively use (or market) a competing product in a region with 93%+ marketshare is a painful experience, regardless of whether the global marketshare is more balanced.
Using global marketshare hides details like that. Apple could have 100% of the market in China and India, and Android could have 100% of the marketshare in the rest of the world. This would put, worldwide, Apple at about 35% and Android at about 65%. I would argue there are clearly monopolies in that case, though, even if the worldwide numbers are 65 and 35.
Abusing a monopoly is illegal. Alphabet and Apple are both unquestionably monopoly businesses, and make incredible year-over-year revenue through market-damaging services like AdSense and the App Store. If they are allowed to continue, then other Fortune 500 businesses will copy their decisions, thereby destroying genuine market value that they provide in exchange for safer, more exploitative revenue streams.
In the case of AdSense and Apple's App Store both, I think that any fair FTC investigation would conclude they are shakedown services that harm the greater economy.
Fat lot of good that logic would do Microsoft when they were deliberately gimping competitors.
One allows you to install different browsers, the other does not.
Being a monopoly isn't illegal (in the US). It's what they do that matters.
Now, that doesn't mean Apple is a monopoly with iOS, because the Sherman act doens't dictate it only looks at US only markets. It look at what makes sense in the context. Of course, a court could decide that regardless of what the numbers are internationall, what matters in this case is just the US market.
Trying to predict that is useless at the moment though because the US courts are all over the place.
... the next time you launch Safari, it will say that the default browser has been changed, "Did you mean to do that?" and of the two options presented ("Keep using Chrome" or "Switch back to Safari") the Safari option will be the default.
I would bet Google's track record would easily allow them to defend this in court. More an issue with Google though.
And the problem isn't abstract. Safari lacks a ton of very useful API implementations. Like, try programming a QMK keyboard on an iPhone: it's literally the only platform in the whole world unable to run the Via web app.
Apple's Safari enforcement is the only reason Chrome hasn't completely taken over.
Once real Chromium is available on iPhones, there will be a monopoly.
Also, you /can/ run macOS in a VM on Linux: https://github.com/Coopydood/ultimate-macOS-kvm
I use that to test our website at work in Safari, though without a GPU (there is no virto-gpu driver for macOS and my PC's GPU doesn't support vGPU) the performance isn't great.
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, I have Session Buddy in Safari.
So maybe the plugins aren't a problem anymore...
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.
My take is Safari is the new IE.
It is packaged with the OS. I can't get an older version of Safari without an older version is macOS. From a testing standpoint, this means we have a bunch of hardware or images we never update so we can test against.
That was the IE thing, it was baked into the OS. Also, trash dev tools. Crashes pretty easily with the console open for more than 30s.
If you visit a Google property using a Gecko or WebKit-based browser you'll get hit with banners nudging you to switch to Chrome and Google's iOS apps ignore the long-available default browser setting when linked are tapped, prompting you to choose between your default browser and Chrome even if you don't have Chrome installed.
And then there's the whole thing with how Chrome for Android conveniently never gained the ability to run even pared-back MV3 blocker extensions. Massive conflict of interest there.
I wish Google were called out for this stuff way more, but more often than not they're given a free pass.
Then came an upstart web browser from Google named Chrome....and now we're back to the bad old days of web developers coding to the dominant web browser again.
That's the only reason I am not switching to FF 100%. I do use it though but not as a main driver.
Some of the related posts:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/youtube-is-slowing-video-loads...
I keep retrying Firefox over multiple years and it's still not quite equal to Chrome for Youtube 4k playback ...
2021: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28783904
2024: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42176450
2026 still talks about the problem: https://go.tabbit.ai/blog/firefox-youtube-4k-stuttering
And a recent Youtube comment (2026-September) notices that Firefox doesn't run as well as Chrome on his modern high-end laptop with 64GB RAM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIE_PkuFeng&lc=UgxfGeBL6sopr...
If FF is not working on youtube for, it's not working for you and you alone.
I generally use Safari on my Apple devices (and YT works) and Firefox on any Linux machines. If something does not work on Safari I try Firefox on my Mac. In the past I've also sometimes used Chrome when no other option works.
So one option could be to use Firefox as a 'general use' browser, and switch to something else on an as-needed basis.
A bit of a hassle, but it may be the best compromise currently.
You must have a hardware problem, as I'm playing 4K videos on a 1st-gen Ryzen and GTX 1080 using Firefox and I've never had a single issue since I got the machine, around the 4th week the processor was available to purchase.
I am perfectly happy with Chrome.
Really well argued, congrats.
https://ios.cfw.guide/installing-trollstore/
Which apps can't be uninstalled on the latest iOS?
- iMessage works so I can participate in the family group chat
I feel like most people who make MV3 complaints didn’t bother actually trying it, they just repeat the default anti-MV3 talking points.
AdGuard just blocks much less.
Maybe have an Edge mode as well to convince the Edge users to come over.
I liked Konqueror but abandoned in favor of Chrome browsers and variants especially after working on frontend projects and stoped using KDE
I liked Konqueror but abandoned in favor of Chrome browsers and variants especially after working on frontend projects.
Once apps dominate (which requires devs to have a Mac anyway to compile and debug) and turns out nobody use the Windows port, it's just a money sink.
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.
Also trash video playback.
No thanks.. I'd rather switch to Firefox, or even any other shitty browser, but not the one from any other gatekeeping monopoly.
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.
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.
For everything else, I use some chromium derivative that can traverse pirate streaming sites and ChatGPT without disintegrating under their weird JS workloads.
it's missing the element zapper and has some other limitations, but it works pretty well for the most part
combined with ublacklist and sponsorblock it's fairly good coverage for safari
Support for element zapper was added more than 18 months ago in version 2025.3.23.1241.[1]
---
[1] https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home/releases/tag/uBOLi...
Yes, absolutely. But then they wouldn't be able to lock the flock in the barn, which is so contrary to Apple's DNA that you can't event talk about it in a 1 mile radius of 1, Infinite loop.
- 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)
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.
They just announced something which might be relevant to you.
https://www.firefox.com/enterprise/
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.
I was on Sequoia all throughout Tahoe and still updated Safari to the 26.x versions. There might be a limit to how far back they let you do that, though.
Also... not sure all of those ads would still hold up today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYErwT-zRRI
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).
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.
People are just not aware that this is a thing, and when they learn it's a thing, they don't want to do it.
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
I am really curious about data proving these.
I am not aware of any benchmarks proving or disproving.
This is about as wrong as you can possibly get.
This would be true in a stateless world (assuming you can remember the site you want to visit).
Which the web hasn't been since a very long time.
Unless you have a web app which is entirely local and doesn't save its state to local storage, what could you possibly be doing that requires a tab to remain in residence?