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Comment by mr_sturd | Hacker News Reader

Nilay Patel has the audacity to say that the mobile web sucks[0]. No. It's just your website that sucks, mate.

[0] - https://www.theverge.com/2015/7/20/9002721/the-mobile-web-su...

He blames mobile browsers for at least half the article (I had to stop reading). Sure, mobile browsers may not be great, but web sites these days seem to be written by people who just don't give a shit. Their hipster attitude is ruining people's experience.

I agree. I've wanted to write my own blog post about the things that suck about Mobile web, it's not the device or the software (typically), it's the way websites are designed (or not) for phones that sucks. You get advertisements that hijack all your screen real estate, open up the Android Market out of nowhere (why do they have this much priviledge? That shouldn't happen on the desktop without asking for permission). There's also the hell of being redirected to a websites "mobile" friendly site, only they redirect you to the home page, not the mobile version of the content you were trying to get to (seriously?) I mean there's so much. I usually have to ask for the desktop version of websites, and this is ignoring JavaScript that jacks up your resources and flash based content. Try triggering OnMouseOver on mobile as well. Lots of warts to browsing the internet on a Mobile phone.

> open up the Android Market out of nowhere (why do they have this much priviledge? That shouldn't happen on the desktop without asking for permission).

This is based on how Android browsers handle URLs to the Play Store. Some browsers (like Firefox) don't do this automatically (at least for me); instead, they'll just present you with the web page version of the Play Store (as if you were on a desktop), but with an icon in the address bar indicating that you can open the URL in the Play Store instead.

But yeah. The mobile web is a hellhole. My "favorite" is when a site will throw a browser dialog asking to install the app version of their site.

I feel like web developers nowadays are treating XKCDs #1174 [0] and #869 [1] as sincere, genuine advice instead of the scathing observations and condemnations they are of mobile web behavior.

[0]: https://xkcd.com/1174/

[1]: https://xkcd.com/869/

> My "favorite" is when a site will throw a browser dialog asking to install the app version of their site.

Yes! If I wanted the app I wouldn't be on a browser!

I hate how helpless I feel when using a phone. This website wants to open the App Store? Guess I have to let it. I was hoping this was at least a little better on the Android side of things, but maybe not. Sigh.

Mobile browsers are fine. The problem is that the A9 processors from a generation ago (and current low-end phones) have similar processing power to an old Pentium 4 processor (with less bandwidth and RAM). Put the same website behind something running an A57 and watch those intolerable numbers become reasonably acceptable for a >3W processor. Don't blame the browser, blame ARM.

Mobile processors are slow because Moore's Law is grinding to a halt. I think we should blame the process engineers, but the process engineers are being halted by the size of atoms and weird quantum mechanics issues.

Nilay, don't blame browsers, blame the universe.

(or alternately, blame your inefficient website).

It's not a question of CPU power, it's shittycrap designed websites that push everything to the browser.

I wrote an angry rant on the Verge forums in response to his article — http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/20/9003677/re-the-mobile-web-.... Perhaps the language was too pointed (the thread got shut down), but I just couldn’t get over his arrogance — “But we can't fix the performance of Mobile Safari” — when the performance problem is PROVABLY the publisher’s fault.

No, it isn't. The mobile web does suck, and I say this as someone who works making mobile web sites every day.

While Nilay's article is a bit hit and miss, it still seems pretty undeniable to me that the mobile web experience is inferior to native apps.

As someone who builds mobile sites every day I disagree, mobile web does not suck. It's not accurate to blame mobile web when someone attempts to make it work in a way it wasn't intended, as a native app replacement. It's not a tool's fault if someone insists on using it incorrectly. A hammer isn't bad for hammering nails because a wrench is a better choice, over the hammer, for removing bolts.

Yes, the mobile web is inferior, but the point is that websites have done the legwork to make it so. Facebook's instant articles are basically a web page where facebook forbids bloat. In fact, the publishers deliver it to facebook as html, and i suspect facebook renders it in a webview. So, why not just show the exact same content on their mobile web page, instead of something with ten times the bloat? The bloat has become gratuitous. Just look at facebook's page where they explain instant articles, itself a fine ironic demonstration of gratuitous bloat.

I don't think mobile safari can be blamed. When the iphone was first released, people thought safari on it was amazing. Today's safari is a much better browser, running on vastly superior hardware, but the browsing experience is inferior. Who else is to blame but the content providers?

Inferior in what ways, and for what purposes?

For the most part, I haven't seen a technical superiority between web & native for most of what folks want to do. It seems more a practical superiority because we haven't been allowed to / found a need to crap up the native experience quite as much.

App stores & in-app purchases go a lot way toward obviating the need for so much cruft. Too much JS framework cruft is a self-inflicted injury. These are addressable issues, not inherent to the web.

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