I didn't even know safari can't do webm. I wonder what else safari and WebKit can't do?
A ton of media codecs. Apple is attached at the hip to the MPAA, and so they only implement standards that generate MPAA royalties such as MPEG and its descendants.
Web data storage is in pretty bad shape too. For a while WebSQL was totally broken in Safari, and they are years behind the state-of-the-art APIs.
Firefox doesn't support them either, and like Safari considers them harmful. And for good reasons that Google (who are the sole authors of these Chrome only non-standards) completely ignores.
Yes, they are being dealt with because Safari and Firefox are persistent. Chrome just releases them.
> where does it differ that much from normal apps
"Hey, we know that native apps are a nightmare for privacy and security, why would you oppose making the web more like native " isn't a good argument
Yes. And Bluetooth/USB etc. pierce that sandbox and communicate to devices outside the browser.
And no, you can't "fix it" with a simple "oh hey this page wants to access a device".
Hint: we can't successfully ignore prevent people from phishing sites and scammers, but sure, let's give an untrusted execution environment full access to everything.
> What can a native app possibly do that's such an egregious invasion of privacy that a webpage can't do
Webpage doesn't have full access to file systems (and Chrome wants to give full access to file systems), or to USB/Bluetooth/etc. (and Chrome wants to give full access to that), and...
Once again. "Hey, we know that native apps are a nightmare for privacy and security, why would you oppose making the web more like native " isn't a good argument".
Also, hint: native apps exist beyond mobile.
Also, hint on filesystems: even though they are encapsulated, that encapsulation differs greatly between systems, and having, say, full access to cloud files is just as bad.
You can disable commonly abused/exploited things like service workers and still use most websites just fine, while a webapp might depend on having that functionality enabled reducing your security when using websites and webapps.
> What can a native app possibly do that's such an egregious invasion of privacy that a webpage can't do?
Harvest your contacts? (unless that's changed)
I’ve heard Opus is supported, but not in Mkv (WebM) or Vorbis containers, making it a bit pointless.