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Comment by thayne | Hacker News Reader

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thayne

Safari only exist on Apple devices, and generally had even less features than Firefox.

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> Safari only exist on Apple devices

Webkit, at least, builds on a lot more platforms than you think. Take a look at https://build.webkit.org/#/builders

I'm seeing at least three other MAJOR platforms:

  • GTK-Linux-64-bit-Release-Build
  • PlayStation-Release-Build
  • Windows-64-bit-Release-Build

WebKit 100% exists on Windows and Linux, Microsoft builds it under the playwright project.

I use it occasionally, only for debugging purposes though.

And just a tip, if you don't have any Apple devices but need to test a bug/inconsistency being reported by Safari users, you can usually use GNOME Web (Epiphany) and the same behavior will usually manifest, since it is a true Webkit browser. It also includes the Web Inspector with the exact same interface as Safari. And it's not super outdated or anything like that, it tracks Webkit quite well nowadays.

It's a bit ironic that Webkit started as KHTML, a component of KDE, but eventually made its way to GNOME when a Gecko-based Epiphany became hard to maintain.

Kagi is starting to build their Orion browser which is WebKit-based for Linux as of this year. I never do anything close enough to the browser engine to know, but apparently devs like WebKit a lot?

Devs like WebKit because it's easy to integrate in non-browsers.

Like for desktop apps? I guess this differs fundamentally from Chromium in that... you do not run the "entire" browser like in Electron?

I thought that electron == chrome

...is there a better reason to like webkit? Chromium certainly doesn't make effort to seem appealing to developers outside of its association with WebKit.

Since when? I don't see any mention on the blog, and the FAQ still says they're not targeting anything other than MacOS. https://help.kagi.com/orion/faq/faq.html#other_os_support

It was officially announced late February/early March I believe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43302073

I used a really low-end system for a while some time back, running Linux, and WebKit-based browsers were the only ones with a mainstream (so: actually renders correctly for practically all sites) engine that was usable with even one tab open (I could do 2-3 as long as none of the pages were “webapps”)

This indicates some kind of fundamentally better design, to me. Probably related to why Safari’s by far the most respectful to battery life, of the big three browsers.

However, WebKit exists elsewhere.

On mobile, I somewhat like Sleipnir browser for various configurable UI niceties unrelated to WebKit. I like the way it displays tabs as a scrolling strip of buttons, instead of making me open a "manage tabs" UI.

I configured a different user-agent string[1] to make some sites happy or to get some sites to neither force a dumbed-down "mobile view" nor spam demands that I use their mobile apps.

It has a small selection of plugins/extensions, mostly written by users.

Occasionally, a captcha will get stuck in a loop, so I'll have to try Opera[2] or Firefox. Or a Google site will sometimes refuse logins.

. o O ( I don't bother with Sleipnir on desktop, because it's buggy, quixotic, and nothing like the mobile version. )

[1] There's an optional UI button for switching UA string among Sleipnir's desktop or mobile ones, or your own custom string.

[2] The only mobile browser I've tried that can always convince a site to load is desktop view. Some Google sites try Very HardTM to force a mobile experience.

Sure, but fewer (sic) features is mostly a better state of affairs, and apple devices are mostly what matter if you're catering to rich westerners (as most products on this forum try to do).

To me, chromium only matters so much as I am forced to care by being employed. It offers very little to me outside of being necessary to enable the "blur" background on my video chats and offers a very shitty corporate UX.

you can blur the background now at OS level on macOS from the menu bar.

Not sure how this contradicts the fact that Safari is quite popular.

Going purely by (mis)feature count, I'd say they're pretty similar:

https://caniuse.com/?compare=chrome+136,safari+18.5,firefox+...

WebKit also exists on Linux, albeit not as good as on Darwin.

Apple devices make up over half of all visitors in some markets/segments.

Update: Downvoted for facts, stay classy, HN!

So what? For many people, having to buy new hardware to use it means it isn't a viable alternative browser.

My point was more that it's hard to ignore as a publisher due to its user base, less that it's a viable alternative as a user.

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