EDIT: Apologies. Updated with a link to what gorhill REALLY said:
Manifest v2 uBO will not be automatically replaced by Manifest v3 uBOL[ight]. uBOL is too different from uBO for it to silently replace uBO – you will have to explicitly make a choice as to which extension should replace uBO according to your own prerogatives.
Ultimately whether uBOL is an acceptable alternative to uBO is up to you, it’s not a choice that will be made for you.
Will development of uBO continue? Yes, there are other browsers which are not deprecating Manifest v2, e.g. Firefox.
Adding to this, Firefox’s JavaScript is much more strict than others (which I love). As a web developer I prioritize testing it in Firefox because it’s helped me find bugs other browsers just plow through.
Personally I use Safari daily and the number of websites that are broken due to poor security (but function fine in Chrome) is alarming. Chrome doesn’t even check content type on
<iframe>last time I checked.I tend to agree with you. Normally if something doesn’t work in firefox it makes sense, but less often is that the case in chrome.
I am fascinated by the idea of a web developer choosing to use Safari, honestly, though. Can I ask why? For me, the hesitancy of adopting new web standards, the lack of a real extensions, and lack of support for non-Apple OSes… combined with lots of random bugs that I only ever see so often in Safari, I absolutely loathe that browser. And I feel like being a web developer conditioned me to feel this way. And then there’s the business practice concerns (Apple selectively supporting new web features with the intention of keeping native apps seen as superior, because it makes them money)… but even ignoring this, I’m a Safari-hater through and through. It feels like Internet Explorer 7 vs Firefox to me.
On iOS I have to support a few major versions of Safari back and it’s nightmarish at times. For certain featuresets, you absolutely cannot assume things will probably work like you can with FF/Chromium browsers and it makes me so ragey sometimes. I’ve been spending the last few weeks trying to workaround an issue in various Safari iOS versions, and it’s not the first time I’ve been in this situation.
I’m curious – what versions of Safari are you required to support on the job?
This was my poor attempt to mean “as an end-user.” I just love that it’s tied in to the Apple ecosystem and the UI is so much cleaner than other browsers.
I’ve tried to make the switch to others but they always feel very clunky. I love Firefox to death but it looks awful (at least on macOS). I’m not a big extension guy because I’m filtering DNS and IP traffic at the network layer — if we’re talking about ad blocking, tracking and the like it doesn’t make sense to only protect against it in the browser, as apps tend to send traffic to the very same domains as the websites.
I actually hate the trend of apps being nothing more than a wrapper around web applications. It comes off as lazy development, and I miss native apps (regardless of platform) instead of these creepy wrappers around web applications. So I actually have to agree with Apple there.
As for browser support, my team works on an internal-only app and our security policy doesn’t allow outdated browsers, so there’s no hard rules when it comes to browser support.
I use a lot of extensions for a lot of various reasons. Privacy and ad blocking are only two of them. For development purposes, UI preferences, making common actions easier to access, disabling website features I don’t like, re-enabling ones I do, the list goes on and on.
I’m a bit confused about your app vs web comment. What I’m saying is that instead of allowing the web ecosystem to evolve at an organic pace by keeping up with the rest of browsers, apple puts their thumb on the scale, choosing not to support things, so that installing an app works better. This isn’t a matter of comparing ways of building a downloadable app, it’s a matter of them guarding against users quickly accessing a web app without needing to download something from their store (which provides them with profits). They even make money on free apps now!
The entire state of the web is held back because iOS is so popular, and Safari is always behind on feature support especially on iOS. And it really irks me. Many times every browser we support will support a really nice feature, except safari. And sometimes even the latest safari doesn’t support something even though the others have for years!
You are lucky not having to support old versions of Safari. The latest safari is always somewhat reasonable to support but Jesus… try supporting anything of complexity on iOS 14. So painful.