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Discussion on: February 11th, 2022: What did you learn this week?

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ingosteinke profile image
Ingo Steinke • Edited

This week, I learned why Safari, a browser that I had celebrated for early adoption of parent selectors and CSS level 4 colors, is said to be "the new Internet Explorer" and that it's actually worse, because Microsoft at least always let the users install real alternative browsers.

On an iPhone 6 Plus there is no way to get a rendering engine more up to date than iOS 12.5.5 with Safari 12 (AppleWebKit/604) and so I have to use arcane browser hacks and prefixed vendor properties to make a modern website work on a device, that is still working well, despite its outdated browser and despite Apple's planned obsolesence policy.

What a waste of time!

The code below shows just some of the hacks needed to adjust a website using

  • apect-ratio
  • height: 100vh
  • clip-path
  • flex-basis
  • flex gap
.home__logo:after {
  -webkit-clip-path: inset(0px -15px -15px -15px); 
  clip-path: inset(0px -15px -15px -15px);
}

/* work around mobile safari 100vh height "features" */
@supports (-webkit-touch-callout: none) {
  @media (max-width: 992px) {
    body.is-burgermenu-open {
      height: -webkit-fill-available;
      max-height: -webkit-fill-available;
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Sorry for the rant. I'd rather have spent my time for something more productive this week as well!

Besides, I also learned that Gnome Web has a rendering engine similar to AppleWebkit and might be a good way to test macOS Safari experience on a Linux computer.

I also learnend that Opera mini is still quite popular in Africa and that it still works fine on a modern Android phone and has way less rendering problems than the old iOS Safari.

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nickytonline profile image
Nick Taylor

I know they've been working on it. Check out this thoughtful post from Dave Rupert about it.

Loki holding KFC

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ingosteinke profile image
Ingo Steinke • Edited

I respect the hard work that browser vendors do! I try to make contructive contributions and bugzilla issues as well. And we definitely owe to @codepo8 for succeeding to launch a new Edge browser to replace Internet Explorer. I also respect Apple's innovative work on the original iPhone and Steve Job's achievements with NeXTSTEP and OSX. What I will never respect is companies intentionally blocking possible progress and open source software.

There are useful mobile browsers, there are different rendering engines, and there used to be alternative browsers using different rendering engines for iPhone users. It's not impossible to build and ship a working mobile browser based on the Gecko engine. Just so that the people who don't agree in Safari's 100vh implementation being a good feature can choose to use Firefox, Vivaldi or any other brother as their default user agent.

Browser developers are working hard, while companies like Apple (and formerly Microsoft, and currently Google as well) trying to use their power against open source software, usability, and sustainability.

Respect to the web browser people!

Read the linked posts and open bug reports if appropriate!