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Is Chrome the New IE? (2023)

(www.magiclasso.co)
281 points bentocorp | 13 comments | 17 Nov 24 22:05 UTC | HN request time: 0.208s | source | bottom
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fellowniusmonk ◴[18 Nov 24 19:10 UTC] No.42175790[source]▶
No not even close by every single possible measure.

I was there, I suffered through it, Google would have to make TONS of hostile moves for that fact to change.

I have no interest in the arguments of a closed source subscription service that wants me to switch to the bundled browser of the wealthiest company on earth's most popular consumer OS, lecturing me about using the 4th wealthiest company on earth's browser that I freely installed.

The most important one from an anti-trust perspective, every device I've ever had Chrome on I've had to seek out and install/make default Chrome, that includes my mobile devices which used the manufactures browser by default.

If I want to use chromium I can, Safari has been VERY late in implementing certain industry spec standards (SSE's, web sockets, IndexedDB API, animations, relative color syntax, container queries, a bunch of <video> stuff, flexbox, the list goes on and on.)

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pjmlp ◴[18 Nov 24 20:56 UTC] No.42176917[source]▶
It definitely is, I was also there, just like everyone was doing IE only sites, not only plenty of people do the same with ChromeOS vision of the Web, they ship Chrome alongside Electron crap.

Safari is the last man standing before a ChromeOS world.

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1. fenomas ◴[19 Nov 24 00:22 UTC] No.42178828[source]▶
Considering Safari is mainly used on a platform where it's mandatory, I'm not sure "standing" is the term.

Last man being propped up Weekend-at-Bernie's style?

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2. EasyMark ◴[19 Nov 24 01:18 UTC] No.42179191[source]▶
It’s not really mandatory, you can use other browsers on both iOS and macOS
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3. fenomas ◴[19 Nov 24 01:35 UTC] No.42179294[source]▶
Safari is mandatory to have on iOS - it's preinstalled and can't be removed. It's also propped up in the sense of being built on apis and OS features that other browsers aren't allowed to use.

I mean, imagine if DOJ forced Apple to divest Safari and treat it the same as other browsers. What would happen? Parsimonious answer: the same thing that happened everywhere else.

4. gregable ◴[19 Nov 24 02:01 UTC] No.42179428[source]▶
Except you can't. Every browser on iOS uses Safari's rendering engine. Chrome/Firefox on iOS are effectively reskinned Safari. This is an apple requirement. The rendering engine being the important part here when talking about standards and such.
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5. WD-42 ◴[19 Nov 24 02:48 UTC] No.42179653{3}[source]▶
The only browser that seems to be able to get around this is Orion. No idea how they are doing it.
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6. dcow ◴[19 Nov 24 02:48 UTC] No.42179655{3}[source]▶
Every time this discussion happens a non-trivial number of people reveal they’ve fallen into this trap of believing other browsers are allowed on iOS. Feels like a consumer protection issue, at some level.
7. dcow ◴[19 Nov 24 02:49 UTC] No.42179656{4}[source]▶
Orion is WebKit. Safari’s rendering engine is WebKit.
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8. fenomas ◴[19 Nov 24 03:12 UTC] No.42179776{3}[source]▶
> effectively reskinned Safari

It's worse than that, even - IIRC the renderer that other browsers have to use is slower and more limited than the one Safari uses.

So other browsers are effectively reskinned hobbled Safari.

9. travisgriggs ◴[19 Nov 24 05:01 UTC] No.42180213{5}[source]▶
I tried Orion (m1 MBP) recently. From about 3wks ago til a few days ago. I liked the UI. But there were a lot of pages that didn’t work correctly. I persevered for a while. But gave up a few days ago and went back to Brave.
10. pjmlp ◴[19 Nov 24 07:24 UTC] No.42180816[source]▶
It is, without iOS and related Safari, anyone doing Web can update their CV as ChromeOS Developer.
11. WD-42 ◴[19 Nov 24 15:07 UTC] No.42184208{5}[source]▶
I know it’s WebKit. But they are somehow allowing extensions, which none of the other iOS browsers has managed afaik.
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12. dcow ◴[20 Nov 24 02:50 UTC] No.42190419{6}[source]▶
Likely just emulating/providing the javascript interfaces needed for FF and Chrome extensions to run.
13. freediver ◴[20 Nov 24 15:11 UTC] No.42194554{4}[source]▶
When there is will, there is way!