I was waiting for some Safari news. Apple has previously been so proud to keep Safari in the frontline, and talk about it during keynotes. Lately though it seems a lot of web developers are no that happy with Safari, claiming there are significant bugs, urging users to use Chrome or Firefox instead. Also, after quickly trying out Chrome it really feels much more snappy than Safari.. although I have a feeling my slightest move is being monitored, so I'm quickly closing it when I'm done with the sites that are not compatible in Safari.
Any performance gains in the new Safari? Any fixes, optimisations, other Safari news?
Flash and Java just won't die, will they? Life support, yes, but still not in the grave yet. It's amazing that those are still profitable (assuming Adobe and Oracle aren't taking a loss on them yet supporting them).
I've wanted to see Flash die while it was still being developed but Java is a lot further away from dying since (I believe) everything Oracle sells is written in Java. The last version of Solaris was Java and the Oracle database products are also written in Java. The Oracle DB product line isn't going away anytime soon. If Java were to die, that would also mean Android would die as well, which wouldn't be that bad, but I don't see that happening especially since the judicial system just can't understand how some parts of open-source software need to be protected. Running Java on a Mac isn't always necessary and usually isn't done all that well but it's a lot safer to run properly programmed Java applications than dealing with anything written in Flash. Flash continues to be the most exploitable system around.
I was waiting for some Safari news. Apple has previously been so proud to keep Safari in the frontline, and talk about it during keynotes. Lately though it seems a lot of web developers are no that happy with Safari, claiming there are significant bugs, urging users to use Chrome or Firefox instead. Also, after quickly trying out Chrome it really feels much more snappy than Safari.. although I have a feeling my slightest move is being monitored, so I'm quickly closing it when I'm done with the sites that are not compatible in Safari.
Any performance gains in the new Safari? Any fixes, optimisations, other Safari news?
As a developer I can say that Apple used to be a frontrunner for new HTML5/CSS/Javascript standards. The last 2 years this is no longer the case. Apple has become very slow to implement newer standards (indexDB, Vibration API, asm.js, Pointerlock API, ...) and when a feature like indexDB eventually is added, it is very buggy. Apparently Apple prefers that developers choose native iOS and macOS apps, even when a pure web app can be sufficient
If you have a 2011 or newer Mac and OS X 10.10 or newer you don't need Silverlight for Netflix. Netflix will use HTML5 instead.
Exactly, how do people not realizing this think Netflix runs on an iPad? /sigh
I don't know, but I can tell you for sure that my 2009 MBP will not play Netflix content without the Silverlight plug-in. According to the information @bigdo provided that would be because the Mac is too old. That means how plug-ins are handled in Safari is relevant to that machine. Of course, that only matters if Safari for El Capitan is updated to the new plug-in handling scheme because the machine is too old for Sierra.
Either way, it doesn't look like my original concern is an issue since apparently the new Safari allows plug-ins to be permanently enabled for specific sites so constant re-activation should not be required.
I didn't specify in my question, but what I was wondering is what eliminated the need for Silverlight on the RECEIVING end, rather than the delivery end. In other words, why does my 2009 Mac require the Silverlight plug-in to play Netflix content but a 2011 Mac doesn't? @loquitur suggested that it's related to older machines not offering hardware decoding of h.264.
Is it an evergreen browser yet? ONLY Safari is still working in dinosaur mode. Literally every other major browser updates in the background.
That sounds like something people wouldn’t want. What if an update breaks support? I like to be in charge of everything that comes onto my machine.
Is that what evergreen means? Automatic updates? If so, I agree with tallest skin. I absolutely, unequivocally do NOT want updates to happen without me being able to decide if and when they occur.
"If" because mission-critical apps like Pro Tools can be broken by changes you would never imagine might be a problem so I need to make sure the update is Pro Tools-friendly before I install it.
If the update is safe, I still want to be able to decide when I install it so it happens during a time that it won't compete with my work for disk access, CPU cycles and RAM.
An option to turn automatic updates on or off is fine. Off for machines like my workstation, on for machines that aren't so hyper-sensitive.
I've wanted to see Flash die while it was still being developed but Java is a lot further away from dying since (I believe) everything Oracle sells is written in Java. The last version of Solaris was Java and the Oracle database products are also written in Java. The Oracle DB product line isn't going away anytime soon. If Java were to die, that would also mean Android would die as well, which wouldn't be that bad, but I don't see that happening especially since the judicial system just can't understand how some parts of open-source software need to be protected. Running Java on a Mac isn't always necessary and usually isn't done all that well but it's a lot safer to run properly programmed Java applications than dealing with anything written in Flash. Flash continues to be the most exploitable system around.
There are a few different implementations of Java. The only kind that would affect Safari is what is known as a Java Applet which requires a browser plugin and also the Java Runtime Environment, which is a system-wide resource. Almost no one uses Java Applets at this point anyway.
To uninstall the browser plugin, use the Java control panel where you can disable the plugin while retaining the JRE for other uses such as programming in the Java language and compiling applications in an integrated programming environment or using it on a server to create and serve JSP webpages, which do not require the client browser to have Java installed because the server renders the page to HTML exactly the way PHP or .Net do. So to summarize, the browser plugin could die, as could Java Applets, yet Java, the programming language, could live on completely unaffected for use in creating Oracle and Android software.
I was waiting for some Safari news. Apple has previously been so proud to keep Safari in the frontline, and talk about it during keynotes. Lately though it seems a lot of web developers are no that happy with Safari, claiming there are significant bugs, urging users to use Chrome or Firefox instead. Also, after quickly trying out Chrome it really feels much more snappy than Safari.. although I have a feeling my slightest move is being monitored, so I'm quickly closing it when I'm done with the sites that are not compatible in Safari.
Any performance gains in the new Safari? Any fixes, optimisations, other Safari news?
As a developer I can say that Apple used to be a frontrunner for new HTML5/CSS/Javascript standards. The last 2 years this is no longer the case. Apple has become very slow to implement newer standards (indexDB, Vibration API, asm.js, Pointerlock API, ...) and when a feature like indexDB eventually is added, it is very buggy. Apparently Apple prefers that developers choose native iOS and macOS apps, even when a pure web app can be sufficient
This is very unfortunate, and I had a hunch this was the case. I guess their focus lies elsewhere.. But with their massive work force, one would think that keeping the Safari team in the lead would be something rather important.
Comments
Any performance gains in the new Safari? Any fixes, optimisations, other Safari news?
I've wanted to see Flash die while it was still being developed but Java is a lot further away from dying since (I believe) everything Oracle sells is written in Java. The last version of Solaris was Java and the Oracle database products are also written in Java. The Oracle DB product line isn't going away anytime soon. If Java were to die, that would also mean Android would die as well, which wouldn't be that bad, but I don't see that happening especially since the judicial system just can't understand how some parts of open-source software need to be protected. Running Java on a Mac isn't always necessary and usually isn't done all that well but it's a lot safer to run properly programmed Java applications than dealing with anything written in Flash. Flash continues to be the most exploitable system around.
Apparently Apple prefers that developers choose native iOS and macOS apps, even when a pure web app can be sufficient
Either way, it doesn't look like my original concern is an issue since apparently the new Safari allows plug-ins to be permanently enabled for specific sites so constant re-activation should not be required.
I didn't specify in my question, but what I was wondering is what eliminated the need for Silverlight on the RECEIVING end, rather than the delivery end. In other words, why does my 2009 Mac require the Silverlight plug-in to play Netflix content but a 2011 Mac doesn't? @loquitur suggested that it's related to older machines not offering hardware decoding of h.264.
"If" because mission-critical apps like Pro Tools can be broken by changes you would never imagine might be a problem so I need to make sure the update is Pro Tools-friendly before I install it.
If the update is safe, I still want to be able to decide when I install it so it happens during a time that it won't compete with my work for disk access, CPU cycles and RAM.
An option to turn automatic updates on or off is fine. Off for machines like my workstation, on for machines that aren't so hyper-sensitive.
To uninstall the browser plugin, use the Java control panel where you can disable the plugin while retaining the JRE for other uses such as programming in the Java language and compiling applications in an integrated programming environment or using it on a server to create and serve JSP webpages, which do not require the client browser to have Java installed because the server renders the page to HTML exactly the way PHP or .Net do. So to summarize, the browser plugin could die, as could Java Applets, yet Java, the programming language, could live on completely unaffected for use in creating Oracle and Android software.