40
kiki
2y

Please. Hear me out.

I've been doing frontend for six years already. I've been a junior dev, then in was all up to the CTO. I've worked for very small companies. Also, for the very large ones. Then, for huge enterprises. And also for startups. I've been developing for IE5.5, just for fun. I've done all kinds of stuff — accessibility, responsive design (with or without breakpoints), web components, workers, PWA, I've used frameworks from Backbone to React. My favourite language is CSS, and you probably know it. The bottom line is, you name it — I did it.

And, I want to say that Safari is a very good browser.

It's very fast. Especially on M1 Macs. Yes, it lacks customization and flexibility of Firefox, but general people, not developers, like to use it. Also, Safari is very important — Apple is a huge opposing force to Google when it comes to web standards. When Google pushes their BS like banning ad blockers, Apple never moves an inch. If we lose Safari, you'll notice.

As for the Safari-specific bugs situation, well… To me, Safari serves as a very good indicator: if your website breaks in Safari, chances are you used some hacks that are no good. Safari is a good litmus test I use to find the parts of my code that could've been better.

The only Safari-specific BUG I encountered was a blurry black segment in linear gradients that go from opaque to transparent. So, instead of linear-gradient(#f00, transparent), just do linear-gradient(#f00f, #f000).

This is the ONLY bug I encountered. Every single time my website broke in Safari other than that, was for some ugly hack I used.

You don't have to love it. I don't even use it, my browser of choice is Firefox. But, I'm grateful to Safari, just because it exists. Why? Well, if Safari ceases to exist, Google will just leave both W3C and WhatWG, and declare they'll be doing things their way from now on. Obey or die.

Firefox alone is just not big enough. But, together with Safari, they oppose Google's tyranny in web standards game.

Google will declare the victory and will turn the web into an authoritarian dictatorship. No ad blockers will be allowed. You won't be able to block Google's trackers. Google already owns the internet, well, almost, and this will be their final, devastating victory.

But Safari is the atlas that keeps the web from destruction.

Comments
  • 14
    What? Someone in devRant doesn’t bash Apple product? Blasphemy!
  • 1
    I hate ad blockers. They are the reason none ad block users get mire ads.
  • 5
    I no longer hold a grudge against Safari, it ships for Linux and Windows for debugging purposes so in my eyes it's a genuine call for collaboration from Apple much like Bonjour.

    Some years ago they were stalling on implementing parts of the PWA standard, allegedly because it loosens Apple's grip on the app ecosystem, but whatever the reason it was really uncool and considering that they had the least work with shell integration it's hard to believe that it wasn't a conscious choice.
  • 6
    I have been loving apple products since I was a kid, so it is nice to see someone not neckbeard bashing it online. Never had one single fking flaw on the apple devices I use, but I understand that might be more luck than anything else.

    and yessir, i have been on track knowing that Safari(and a lot of their tools and programs actually) are more of a rebellious act agaisnt big tech than anything else.

    Lastly, I knew it was you because I am a firm believer that only YOU would look me dead in the eye and tell me that you "love CSS", because again, and remember kids:

    Only kiki knows CSS. No, this is no sarcasm, this is not an insult or trying to throw shade, I legit believe that the only person that properly understands CSS is kiki.

    okthxbye
  • 4
    Safari was the last to implement 'flex-gap'. When flex-gap was finally shipped in iso, people still report bugs when no one bother updating their phone. Google is shit for sure, but we should shame apple for slow Safari updates
  • 2
    Interpolating to "transparent" (black with 0 alpha) is not Safari-specific, and not even a bug. It's just how colors are in CSS.

    Basically, Safari is a way to test if Mac users don't get left out, which in certain cases may be a decisive fraction of users indeed. Safari is pretty stoic as it is now, but it's so much better than bullshit Chrome's trying to accomplish.

    Test checklist: Firefox, Brave, Safari.
  • 3
    @vintprox brave is the most disgusting browser I know of
  • 1
    @kiki it's a lesser evil to Chrome. So if you internally exclude Chrome, Brave is the first thing to be disgusted by...

    Just kidding, it's Opera! 🤦‍♂️
  • 5
    @vintprox it's even more evil. Brave is advertised as a privacy-focused browser, meanwhile https://reddit.com/r/privacy/...
  • 1
    > if your website breaks in Safari, chances are you used some hacks that are no good.

    Ah, yes, because expecting 100vh to be equal to the actual height of the viewport is a "hack that's no good". 🤣
  • 1
    @fristys vh is not stable yet across browsers. Safari, Chrome and FF all yield different results on this
  • 0
    Off the topic question.

    "with or without breakpoint"

    How do you handle responsiveness without breakpoints? JS client window checks?

    Also, how do websites with completely different UIs for desktop and mobile for certain pages are rendered if built on server side?

    Let's say, we've a landing page built on server completely different on mobile and desktop, how do we build pages for different screen sizes directly on the server with frameworks like NextJs? Although I understand we can prioritize one over the other but what we want both HTML static builds ready to serve based on screen client is visiting from?
  • 1
    @techcatchers no JS, pure CSS.

    How do I handle your case? I don’t. I use breakpoints, the right tool for the job. Precisely one breakpoint to be exact.

    But sometimes breakpoints aren’t the right tool for the job. Then, you rely on wraps, intrinsic columns, flex basis, etc
  • 0
    @kiki OK, and the other questions?
  • 1
    @AleCx04
    @K-ASS seems to know his css pretty well too
  • 0
    @black-kite thanks fam! I'll keep an eye out!
  • 1
    Been so disappointed in Safari in the past when they held back features like web push (possibly to give the Web a disadvantage vs apps) and refused to support codecs so WebRTC stuff like GoogleMeet didn't work, plus random bugs like their read mode crashing given certain html tag orders.

    And lacking Devtools.

    But now I think it's OK. And I do appreciate that it's providing some competition.
  • 1
    @jiraTicket webrtc was probably left off because of security vulnerabilities exposing user's IP address. I remember using a snippet that will print the computer's IP address even without a server
  • 2
    @black-kite thanks for summoning me, I’m not really good at css, but from my experience, safari is not that good on doing memory intensive works. Rendering large scene using webgl? Too many overlapping div that requires lots of depth check? Video player that is not html based? You better use chrome for them.

    On the other hand, light tasks like browsing blogs, watching just YouTube videos, etc are pretty good on safari. For a period of time I want to transit to using only safari, but couldnt tolerate the problems listed above so I stayed with chrome.

    Conclusion: light tasks? Safari is refreshing. Heavy tasks? You better stay with chrome.
  • 2
    @K-ASS if I replace “chrome” with “firefox” in what you said, it also works.

    Btw I gotta admit I'm impressed with your CSS spheres. They are amazing.
  • 3
    @kiki thx, with math and will for self torture, you too can make that sphere
  • 1
    Google "sponsoring" Firefox is just their way around anti trust lawsuits. As they have someone to point at that "prooves they aren't a monopoly".
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