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

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

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Jen Simmons, an Apple Evangelist and developer advocate on the Web Developer Experience team for Safari and WebKit, Tweeted that "Everyone in my mentions [is] saying Safari is the worst, it's the new IE." This led her to ask users for feedback, preferably highlighting specific bugs and instances of missing support that inhibits websites and apps.

Simmons also urged users who notice bugs that are "several years old and not fixed" to contact her with a link from bugs.webkit.org or a Feedback number from Apple's Feedback Assistant so it can be looked into more closely. The call for feedback has largely been received positively.

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.

Apple has also been criticized for demanding apps that browse the web to use the WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript on iOS and iPadOS, a policy that effectively bans non-WebKit based browsers. This has caught the attention of regulatory agencies, including the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which said that "due to the WebKit restriction, Apple makes decisions on whether to support features not only for its own browser, but for all browsers on iOS." A previous tweet from Simmons appears to suggest the importance of maintaining the WebKit restriction.

Following consultation with developers, the CMA is considering forcing Apple to reverse the ban on non-WebKit based browsers to allow for more competition. It is unclear if Apple's latest push for feedback is related to the growing regulatory pressures around Safari.

Tags: Safari, WebKit

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Top Rated Comments

MrENGLISH Avatar
40 months ago
I use Safari daily on macOS and iOS and it’s been working great for me. I have no complaints.
Score: 182 Votes (Like | Disagree)
teak421 Avatar
40 months ago
I guess I'm odd, but I like Safari. I've been a Windows user for most of my career and just moved to the Mac last year, love it. I also like how the tabs work (compact)... I can't think of any real bugs that I've seen......
Score: 74 Votes (Like | Disagree)
antnythr Avatar
40 months ago
Safari Dev Team: Point out bugs and things we can fix

Users: *gestures broadly*

Safari Dev Team: No, not those things
Score: 71 Votes (Like | Disagree)
antiprotest Avatar
40 months ago
If anyone on their team asks for feedback, they should do it with humility instead of that tone and then rebuking people for bringing up old stuff. Very off putting and increases the resentment.

In any case, one example is that they need to work with their cloud team and fix the cloud tabs sync issue once and for all. Yeah, that's bringing up old bugs that THEY STILL HAVE NOT FIXED.

Or are the people the real bugs?
Score: 47 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Sheepish-Lord Avatar
40 months ago
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.
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
SevLucas Avatar
40 months ago
Aside from being just a smidge slower than other browsers (Edge), I think Safari is great. Can't beat the integration with the rest of the Apple ecosystem.
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)