Safari Team Asks for Feedback Amid Accusations That 'Safari Is the Worst, It's the New IE'

[JosephAW]

Yeah right… they listen to user feedback and change code.
Maybe the touch bar removal and return of other ports but how long did that take?

 

[4743913]

Since there are no game devs left to acquire, apple should acquire Firefox

 

[cecil444]

I have not came across any major issues or bugs. So far it’s been working great on iOS and macOS. However...

Still, have no idea who came up with this idea? You might as well put tabs on side of the iPhone.

View attachment 1956511

I highly prefer tabs on the bottom. It’s easier to tap on them when using the phone one-handed, which is my preference as an iPhone mini user.

 

[Wildkraut]

Up until this last vulnerability I used Safari exclusively on all my Apple devices then switched to Firefox and haven't gone back yet.

Would never consider Chrome.

Well, I have an issues with Firefox on Mobiles, specially on iOS. It has no decent Adblockers and a few disturbing bugs, I hope they fix firefox on Mobile someday. The Firefox Mobile UI is also far from being intuitive, but on the Mac, Linux and Windows i use it.

 

[fde101]

One obvious issue is the lack of a bug tracker that integrates well with their development efforts and provides reports on outstanding issues that need to be resolved.

 

[Hombre53]

I switched over to Brave (macOS) about 6 months ago. Positive experience so far.

 

[jicon]

On Mac, it's worked alright. On iOS... many websites won't properly load, or never load. On Windows... hasn't been updated in years.

To ensure compatibility, the browser should be available on as many platforms as possible. Best of luck to web developers without a Mac to access Safari developer tools. Basically means the company I work for outright won't support our web application on anything but Chrome, Firefox, Edge.

 

[MauiPa]

I use Safari daily on macOS and iOS and it’s been working great for me. I have no complaints.

100%

 

[julesme]

Safari *mostly* works as it should, and (for me, anyway) it gets *most* things right. It also integrates really well with Apple's other products.

However, after last year's disastrous / counter-intuitive redesign (which they thankfully rolled back), and now this ill-advised strategy of asking for random feedback on Twitter, I am beginning to question whether Safari's managers either 1) don't use Safari very often, 2) are stretched too thin on resources, 3) are just plain incompetent, or 4) some combination of 1-3.

 

[paddylaz]

Safari has always been good to me. (No comment cocerning the rest of the recent OS stuff!)

There was that period where Safari couldn't get higher than 1080p on YouTube, but now everything is a well-oiled machine.

 

[tekmoe]

Been using Safari for as long as I’ve been using a Mac which has been nearly 20 years. I love it 🥰

 

[TracerAnalog]

Im a light user and enjoy Safari but slowly things have been frustrating me. The fact I couldn’t look at a bank statement because Safari doesn’t have a PDF viewer was frustrating making me use Chrome. While watching Twitch, Safari eats up so many resources I get memory errors so I need to use Chrome for that as well. Some of the websites I need for work don’t display at all on Safari so Chrome it is again…what’s the point when none of the things I do work in Safari? I really don’t like Chrome but I have to use what works.

Start by separating Safari updates from OS ones on all platforms.

No PDF viewer? Huh?

 

[Hombre53]

People complaining have obviously never used an alternative browser:

• Chrome is awful regarding privacy and resources management
• Firefox is just too slow and buggy, and ads are coming
• Edge is hmm... packed with useless stuff and is starting to become the next IE
• Brave: using crypto, rewards, incentives and ads isn't my vision of a web browser
• Opera is now infiltrated with Microsoft services (spywar)
• Vivaldi: same things as Opera but even worst (Google, Amazon, Bing, …)

It's a chance Apple is providing an alternative browser, otherwise, personally, I don't know how I would do.

Crypto, rewards, incentives, etc can all be turned off in Brave, which is what I do.

 

[MauiPa]

Feel they're going to have issues with the second point. They're a multi-trillion dollar company, asking for unpaid help and then gate keeping on feedback isn't gonna happen anyway. Just ignore the problem if you know its been resolved, or offer incentives for those issues which are accurately reported and help them move forward.

it is called a false narrative when people (some paid) keep harping on stuff that is not true. "If you say something long enough and loud enough, people will believe it". Take for instance a Siri whiner, "I don't use Siri, haven't fr years, but it is stupid". OK, totally your right to like or dislike a product, but seriously, haven't used it in years and feel you have a valid opinion. No, simply no. Facts matter

 

[thogin]

On the Mac, the inability to drag bookmarks from one folder to another in the Favorites menu bar is annoying. And you can't hover your mouse cursor from an open folder to the next like you can in other browsers.

I've been using Edge lately and so far it's pretty good.

 

[soupfm]

Her tone is quite counterproductive. The community should get rid of her.

 

[Haiku_Oezu]

I think the New IE thing is just that a lot of browsers use WebKit (and in the case of iOS browsers HAVE to) yet the engine doesn’t keep up the pace with new web standards as they crop up.
One only needs to visit html5test.com on Safari and any Chromium based browser to see a stark yet not even complete difference.

What I find interesting is while this is generally true IE did it because of apathy on Microsoft’s part Apple/WebKit doesn’t follow them out of principle.
The fact that Safari doesn’t implement certain WebExtension API’s necessary for ad blockers for example is clearly because they believe Safari content blockers to be a superior solution.

A lot of their decisions are based heavily on what they believe is right and general slowness is surely tied to their “no regressions” policy, which I honestly personally respect.

Also comparing it to IE feels really mean because IE was absolute trash. Safari is objectively a good browser, it just doesn’t keep up with web standards as fast because they prioritize user experience, and this angers the web developers (who are always angry anyway, I would be angry too if I needed 40MB of JavaScript dependencies to do basic things any desktop UI fragment can do out of the box)

 

[MauiPa]

Safari Dev Team: Point out bugs and things we can fix

Users: *gestures broadly*

Safari Dev Team: No, not those things

so your saying users say nothing of relevance?

 

[Brien]

I’d say iOS is the new IE….so many bugs these days from random app freeze/crash, url bar not transitioning from night to daytime mode to where you can’t even read the text, and sharing stuff in messages is a hit or miss most of the time

Agreed. It no longer ‘just works’.

 

[schneeland]

Mostly I wish they would get their Web API support up to the level of Firefox (ideally even Chrome). It's especially irritating if they start adopting an API, but then only partially implement it (e.g. storage manager API). It might not be noticable in everyday use with standard web sites, but as soon as you have more complicated applications, stuff just breaks.
Also, the update cycle is really a problem - new Chrome versions go out every couple of weeks, while Safari gets updates only with the OS.

 

[DrCC]

Apple's Safari and WebKit team has asked for feedback on Twitter amid criticisms of the browser's bugs and missing support.

​

Safari has been met with complaints from some users in recent years over the browser's bugs, user experience, and website compatibility. The problems reached fever pitch last year when Apple unveiled a substantial redesign for Safari at WWDC, which was met with widespread criticism that accused the changes of being "counterintuitive." After months of tweaking the ambitious redesign in response to feedback, Apple eventually gave up on the changes just before the public release of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey, reverting to the previous Safari design by default.

Article Link: Safari Team Asks for Feedback Amid Accusations That 'Safari Is the Worst, It's the New IE'

Please make the Active tab Coloured and the Inactive tabs Grey or dimmer, the way it is right now is very counter intuitive.

Why would an Active Tab be grey? It doesn't make any sense. It's been months and I still can't get used to it, I keep on closing the active tab by accident. I am sure nobody would object it you make the inactive Tabs grey and leave the active one in full colour.

^^^^ This is not user friendly or intuitive at all, please listen to your users. A lot of people all over the internet are complaining about this.

 

[dannys1]

I have not came across any major issues or bugs. So far it’s been working great on iOS and macOS. However...

Still, have no idea who came up with this idea? You might as well put tabs on side of the iPhone.

View attachment 1956511

Tabs on the bottom is much better - it's where my thumb can actually reach!

 

[Madhatter32]

People complaining have obviously never used an alternative browser:

• Chrome is awful regarding privacy and resources management
• Firefox is just too slow and buggy, and ads are coming
• Edge is hmm... packed with useless stuff and is starting to become the next IE
• Brave: using crypto, rewards, incentives and ads isn't my vision of a web browser
• Opera is now infiltrated with Microsoft services (spywar)
• Vivaldi: same things as Opera but even worst (Google, Amazon, Bing, …)

It's a chance Apple is providing an alternative browser, otherwise, personally, I don't know how I would do.

Honestly, Firefox is much snappier for me on MacOS. It's no contest.

 

[FNH15]

Tabs on top and address bar like chrome.

Please no.
That’s not consistent with the OS UI design.

Safari is the only browser that actually looks like a Mac app…

 

[Superhappytree]

I can only speak for the iOS version which is abysmal. The choppy, stuttery animations in particular, especially the animation when lifting up from the bottom bar to switch between tabs is just dreadful. The bottom bar itself also glitches and blanks out a lot. Then there’s the constant freezes requiring you to force close the app. Constant refreshing of tabs that barely stay in memory etc.

I really liked iOS 14 and was hoping things would improve from there, but iOS 15 is completely amateur hour. iOS in general has been a disjointed mess since iOS 7.