The only way is WebKit: Vivaldi's browser arrives on iOS The Vivaldi browser is finally making its way to iOS devices, although Apple's WebKit continues to lurk behind the scenes. Vivaldi was notably absent from Apple mobile devices in recent years, despite other Chromium-based browsers such as Chrome or Edge turning up. As Reg readers likely know, this was because Vivaldi couldn't …
Yes, because Apple has gone the IE6 route with Webkit. It lags pretty significantly behind Blink and Quantum. I think even KHTML, which WebKit is a fork of, is ahead of it. Apple has basically given up on Safari and really only provides pretty nominal updates on its own schedule.
I have nothing against that approach on macOS where you can install a different browser, but when it comes to iOS/iPadOS where you can't use anything else...
A lot of newer web standards Google has been pushing are security issues waiting to happen like allowing web pages to access USB devices. Apple will never implement those, and no one else should either.
I have yet to run into a web page that doesn't work on Safari, so being "behind" in standards hasn't caused much in the way of issues. I guess web designers might care because they want to use funky new features, but no one writes HTML anymore they are using software which takes the limitations of various target browsers into account when doing layout and so forth.
Never fails that someone makes a comment like this. "I haven't had an issue with any of the half-dozen sites I visit on a regular basis, so the hundreds of millions of other people in the world, and all the different sites they visit on a regular basis, clearly won't have experienced any issues either!"
Talk to some web developers who lived through the "browser wars" and how much of their time was spent making sure that the site looked and acted the same in different browsers. They likely wrote millions of extra lines of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript all so that people like you wouldn't notice the difference. That's what web developers are having to do now to support Safari. Be sure to buy a pint for any web developer you meet at a pub, because they've earned it and then some.
I browse a lot more than a half dozen sites, but whatever.
And spare me the bullshit about the horror of supporting multiple browsers. Only moron web designers would think a Chrome only monoculture is a good thing. That would be a total disaster for the web, far worse than the near monopoly Microsoft had in the "best viewed in IE6" days you want to go back to.
Web designers haven't earned shit. It is the lowest skilled job in the IT world, and deservedly so. Excel spreadsheet devs are worth 10 web designers. A CPU architect is worth 100,000 of them.
With my enterprise hat on: It means that you can configure the device with things like content filtering rather than having to configure every single possibility of web app instead. Android is like whackamole, compared to the simplicity of iOS. Of course, that's one tiny usecase, and I'm sure that there's an ulterior motive, of which we'll never learn!
At least on Android, you can be on the latest (and safest) browser even if the OS isn't getting updates. With Apple, once the OS goes out of support, so does the browser and you are vulnerable. Once Apple relaxes their rules, uptodate browsers will be able to run on old version of iOS.
As said above, because they can. Apple take a fairly protective stance of software they permit to be installed on iOS. One notable example was the Flash rendering engine, which Apple excised years ago, ostensibly on the grounds that it was a CPU-hungry POS that gave their iPads a bad name. To be honest, I don’t much care, as Apple’s fork of WebKit works pretty well, and when it goes wrong, updates for gazillions of users (who use WebKit for both browsing and other things) are provided. This may well all change if their hand is forced and they are obliged to allow third party rendering engines.
This dictating of browser engines is one of the reasons I truly despise mobile platforms.
I detest Chrome and webkit based browsers, everywhere. (especially qt-webkit based browsers... what rubbish)
Previously, I liked mobile Firefox on Android, but they yanked that out from underfoot and it's a shitty Chrome back end browser too now. In one unwanted update, they took away everything I liked better about it than other mobile browsers. My one comfort was gone.
Also, the extensions I was using with mobile Firefox are GONE (Can't do that Dave... not in this browser engine)
I had started to use it for looking things up, reading to pass the time while waiting for something etc. but I pretty much phased out the use of my smartphone after that. Mobile Vivaldi is OK, but it's cumbersome and STILL acts like a mobile browser. I find using a browser to be such a chore on mobile that I all but refuse to do it. My cell phone sits there turned off until I need to call a tow truck or something. I start it up once every few weeks to get updates, then I shut it down and charge it. (Nobody know my cell number, so I don't get calls or SMS)
Every time I go to do anything on a mobile it just irritates me.
Previously, I liked mobile Firefox on Android, but they yanked that out from underfoot and it's a shitty Chrome back end browser too now.
No, Firefox uses GeckoView instead of WebView or Blink.
Also, the extensions I was using with mobile Firefox are GONE (Can't do that Dave... not in this browser engine)
They're removing restrictions on Android extensions in December.
Yep, I can confirm proper FF experience on Android with critical extensions available (noscripy, ublock origin) and no Google login implied. Minor gripes would be that mainstream version does not give access to some/all about:config flags (like ability to specify dns over https provider). Still one can install FF Beta to get that option.
Vivaldi fot Android is also fine.
Chrome is there to download better browsers.
Life of iOS users is so restricted (one would wander if they've got paid to suffer like that). I guess it just works, just.
Having used both Android and iOS devices at various points. iOS is generally better overall because of the vertical integration, and the browser nonsense is really the only major glaring exception. Once upon a time you could add email to that, but some years ago Apple finally loosened its sphincter a little and allowed third party email apps, even if they have to use WebKit to render HTML in messages. It's probably only a matter of time before the EU forces Apple to allow other browsers.
Personally, I find web browsing on mobile devices to be way more effort than it's worth, so I don't even really bother unless I have no other choice. Maybe I'm in a store and need to look something up quickly, or I'm stuck waiting somewhere like an airport and it's not worth the hassle to get my laptop out while I wait.
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