Apple argues (without any particular merit or evidence) that these other engines are a security and performance risk and that only WebKit is truly optimized and safe for iPhone users.
They probably know, but can’t talk about how iOS and Safari are intertwined in a way that isn’t possible with other browsers.
Without being an expert on the subject, it wouldn’t surprise me if important security features were missing in iOS and patched into WebKit instead. That doesn’t pose a problem, as long as WebKit is the only way to browse the internet.
only WebKit is truly optimized and safe for iPhone users
So that’s why it interprets certain standards differently than all other engines. Must be the security.
The amount of rendering errors I have to debug just for iOS is annoying. Especially, since you need a MacBook AND an iPhone to debug this bad engine properly, so either me or my employer needs to buy into their ecosystem.
For some reason I thought the Safari engine was proprietary, but you’re right, you totally can.
However, you need to have the specific Webkit version on your system that’s also used on the iOS release where the bug is present. Which can be a real pain to manage and I imagine compiling this engine will take quite a while.
Still better than buying unnecessary, overpriced hardware, though! I will for sure check this out soon.
I mean it hasn’t been perfect but it has made a good effort in keeping the security issues contained in only webkit and not letting a lot of them out to affect other browsers.
They probably know, but can’t talk about how iOS and Safari are intertwined in a way that isn’t possible with other browsers.
Without being an expert on the subject, it wouldn’t surprise me if important security features were missing in iOS and patched into WebKit instead. That doesn’t pose a problem, as long as WebKit is the only way to browse the internet.
So that’s why it interprets certain standards differently than all other engines. Must be the security. The amount of rendering errors I have to debug just for iOS is annoying. Especially, since you need a MacBook AND an iPhone to debug this bad engine properly, so either me or my employer needs to buy into their ecosystem.
Do you? WebKit is open-source and other browsers use it too, GNOME Web (Epiphany) for example.
For some reason I thought the Safari engine was proprietary, but you’re right, you totally can.
However, you need to have the specific Webkit version on your system that’s also used on the iOS release where the bug is present. Which can be a real pain to manage and I imagine compiling this engine will take quite a while.
Still better than buying unnecessary, overpriced hardware, though! I will for sure check this out soon.
I’m guessing we’ll find out.
WebKit hasn’t exactly been the bastion of security Apple makes it out to be.
I mean it hasn’t been perfect but it has made a good effort in keeping the security issues contained in only webkit and not letting a lot of them out to affect other browsers.
But other browsers are forced to use webkit on iOS.
See how far Apple went to prevent other browser engines from being affected by security issues on their platform?
That’s their problem. If iOS has a breach because of this, they are on the hook for fines for that as well.