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Comment by VWWHFSfQ | Hacker News Reader

The problem with safari is that it's extremely buggy and doesn't support a number of basic web technologies, such as webrtc, very well. And unfortunately it's the only thing that anyone is allowed to use on iOS, so we all just have to deal with it. I'll happily pay for a little extra ram in my computer if I can just go to a website and know that it will work in my browser.

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It's been quite a while since I've run into a Safari bug. What's far more common are sites which either lock functionality to Chrome (most Google properties) or didn't implement it following the standards (e.g. GitLab's FIDO implementation checks for the first Chrome U2F API and they've been slacking on the standard version).

To be honest, one of the best reasons for using Safari or Firefox is just to remind companies that “web” doesn't mean Chrome. The added performance is a rather nice bonus.

I have yet to run in to any bugs. The speed difference between anything else and Safari is shocking. My Ryzen 3700 with 32GB of ram cannot come close to matching the performance of Safari even on an Ipad 4.

I haven't run into many Safari bugs either, but the majority of my digital life also isn't inside of a web browser so YMMV. The limits of my web app usage are Discord, Slack, Google Meet, and occasionally Gmail.

As someone who has routinely ran into CSS quirks and unsupported features with Safari, I don't really see a problem with "the web" == Chromium, especially if the major web players (Apple, Firefox, Google, Microsoft) having an equal stake in the project.

I’ve also run into plenty of quirks or bugs in Chrome. That’s not a reason to give up on a browser unless the vendor gives up on it – and it’s especially important to see how many proposals started on Chrome but were substantially improved by working with other browser implementors. The Chrome team are quite good but they’re not perfect and the web benefits from multiple perspectives.

... So you are pro the IE4-6 era?

Only google has a stake in chromium - if google wants a feature that feature becomes a "basic web feature". If chrome does something one way, anything else is buggy. That's literally what happened in the IE4-6 era.

> extremely buggy

Citation needed, this is quite the claim.

> basic web technologies, such as webrtc

WebRTC may be important to some people, but is by no means a basic web technology

> I'll happily pay for a little extra ram in my computer > if I can just go to a website and know that it will > work in my browser.

A common web browser requiring RAM upgrades for normal use doesn't sound like the right trade off for most people.

> WebRTC may be important to some people, but is by no means a basic web technology

WebRTC is absolutely a basic web technology in 2021. Especially in the COVID age. Safari's implementation is lackluster at best, and unusable at worst. Many popular conferencing services simply don't support it.

Extremely buggy? It's been my primary browser for the last 5 years and my impression is closer to "rock solid".

I get about twice the crashes on chrome than safari. The only reason I'm using chrome is for development purposes. Safari is bad with extensions though.

Firefox all the way, Extensions, Privacy, Speed...and a somewhat decent company.

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