| ▲ | Safari Technology Preview 248 Released(webkit.org) |
| 84 points by Erenay09 7 hours ago | 61 comments |
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| ▲ | alberth 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The team has been on a roll lately with massive fixes &
improvements. Like last months announcement of over 500 fixes. https://webkit.org/blog/17967/news-from-wwdc26-webkit-in-saf... |
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| ▲ | ksec 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The Safari beta is actually covering ~6 months of work in WebKit. So it isn't one release with 500 fixes. It is more of a consolidation. But yes WebKit has been getting tons of feature gap and bug fixed in the past 2-3 years. I think it accelerated during Safari 17, and Safari 18 has been the release that I find it good enough for most cases and finally with no rendering issues on all the site I browse. I have been trying to get the release note and update from Safari on HN frontpage but it never got much attention. Hopefully like you others will see how far Safari has come. And out of all the features coming from new macOS releases it has always been Safari that I am most looking forward to. At the same time I still think it has some way to go before catching up to Firefox and Chrome is many areas. But at least it is improving fast. | |
| ▲ | bombcar 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They finally used some of those trillions to buy one (1) Claude pro subscription. | | |
| ▲ | lern_too_spel 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's because the EU is forcing competition on them for iOS Safari, and iOS Safari shares code with MacOS Safari. Now they have to at least try to keep up. | | |
| ▲ | SaltyBackendGuy an hour ago | parent [-] | | I am OOTL - How does the EU force competition in this context? | | |
| ▲ | fragmede 21 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The EU passed laws to force Apple to allow other browser engines to run. Previously, all iOS browsers were reskinned WebKit by Apple decree. |
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| ▲ | CuriousRose an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Safari is the only real opposition to Google based browsers at the moment. Yes Firefox is a contender, but it has no brand traction among non-power users. Google has the brand, Safari has the defaults and energy efficiencies of the growing Apple laptop/desktop market. Although not open source, I trust it far more that a Google based browser as Apple - aside from PWAs competing with their App Store - has no real incentive to commodify, restrict or surveil the web like Google does. |
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| ▲ | owebmaster 28 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > aside from PWAs competing with their App Store Yeah. Aside. Let's just ignore that Apple intentionally prevents users from using the browsers most needed feature for the common user today killing it just like they killed Flash. | | |
| ▲ | leejoramo 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | On macOS i use Safari for PWAs. It is just fine. But I use Firefox as my primary browser. PWA support non-existent. They killed their basic PWA support many years ago. There are suggestions they will support it in the future. On Linux/Windows, I use Brave for PWAs. | |
| ▲ | nozzlegear 23 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Intentionally how? Mobile Safari has pretty broad support for PWAs: https://pwascore.com | | |
| ▲ | owebmaster 18 minutes ago | parent [-] | | It does not. It doesn't support the installprompt event and hides the "add to home screen" behind 4 actions/clicks to make sure the users don't easily install PWAs. | | |
| ▲ | nozzlegear 6 minutes ago | parent [-] | | So one missing thing is enough to decide that PWA support isn't broad and Apple doesn't care about them, despite all those supported PWA APIs? > behind 4 actions/clicks to make sure the users don't easily install PWAs. I maintain a PWA for retainer client. Our website has a paragraph telling users how to install the PWA via the share button. We'd have a paragraph telling them how to install it from the App Store too if it weren't a PWA. | | |
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| ▲ | paddingtone 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| And they recently released the Safari MCP in STP as well. https://webkit.org/blog/18136/introducing-the-safari-mcp-ser... Looks like the Safari MCP is also now available in the most recent Golden Gate beta part of system Safari: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safari-developer-t... |
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| ▲ | Affric 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Since they nixed uBlock Origin Safari has not been a serious web browser to me. No amount of technology can make up for it. |
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| ▲ | paddingtone 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I've been using uBlock Origin Lite on Safari with no issues. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269... | | |
| ▲ | jvican 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I use Adguard/wipr to great success. Why's uBlock Origin better? Also, wipr now has filtr, which provides URL filtering at the macOS level, so it's as efficient as it gets. | | |
| ▲ | kstrauser 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Seconded for Wipr. It's my favorite adblocker I've tried yet (although 1Blocker is also really nice). And if the author sells it to some creepy company, the Safari API means that the new owner can't spy on my viewing. I'm not sure how it could be materially improved by using less privacy-respecting APIs. | | |
| ▲ | flyingshelf 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > the new owner can't spy on my viewing Quick question: how do you distinguish content blocker extensions from regular extensions? All the Adblockers I know have to use both to be effective at hiding ads, especially on YouTube. In that case, the new owner can still do the spying. | | |
| ▲ | fizwidget an hour ago | parent [-] | | In iOS at least, it tells you in Settings > Safari > Extensions. E.g. if I tap into one of the AdGuard ones I see: “"AdGuard — General" does not have permission to read or transmit content from any web pages.” Ones that have more permissions will say so. |
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| ▲ | arijun 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I think the limitations are similar to the manifest v3 issues that the Chrome version has. Specifically, you (the ad blocker) send the browser a list of sites to block, instead you blocking them yourself. That means it's way harder to do clever things like scriptlet injection to find ads and get around adblock detection. | | |
| ▲ | whstl 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Not true in Safari. uBlock Origin Lite doesn't have those problems. |
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| ▲ | jjice 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I use AdGuard, Wipr, and uBlock Origin Lite on my iPhone, and uBlock Origin on desktop. I swear there are little gaps in each that the others get, but they're very minor. When uBlock Origin Lote recently released on iOS (within the last year), I noticed a few more things blocked. I also prefer the custom element removal or uBlock and can reuse my desktop filters. It's free, so I'd recommend adding it as an addition to the bunch. |
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| ▲ | JSR_FDED 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 1Blocker has been rock solid for me. Got it after reading about it on Daring Fireball and now I can’t use a Mac without it. |
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| ▲ | Noaidi 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts | | |
| ▲ | zarzavat an hour ago | parent [-] | | This doesn't solve the problem. The whole point of uBO is that it plays the cat and mouse game between adblocking and anti-adblocking. If you are OK with sites blocking you when you use an adblocker then there's a multitude of other options. |
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| ▲ | argee 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Does this help stable Safari in any way? I have a WebKit bug I’m tracking that’s fixed in STP but not in stable and it seems like there’s no telling whether it’ll ever land. |
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| ▲ | lapcat 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | It'll land eventually. They always do, though maybe months down the road. But of course Apple won't preannounce its plans, and unfortunately I'm not aware of a way to track WebKit commits in specific Safari releases. |
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| ▲ | exabrial 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Please, can we put the "Disable Javascript" menu back in the Developer menu |
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| ▲ | kqp 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Anybody know how to get Safari to “sanitize” on shutdown (delete cookies, cache, etc), except for whitelisted domains? After lots of fiddling I’ve realized this is probably the best privacy/convenience compromise for me, but Safari is the only browser I can’t even find a plugin to do it in. |
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| ▲ | dylan604 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | s/Safari/Firefox/ and it is super simple to do this. I know that's not helpful to the question as asked, but possibly a better answer??? As for Safari, closest I see is Preferences -> General -> Remove History Items. It has options ranging from After One Day, one week, one month, never. I don't see an option for at quit like FF has. |
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| ▲ | robrobrobrob 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Please add way to maximize the window. I rage quit when it goes fullscreen or just tall. |
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| ▲ | geerlingguy 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The one feature I would love to see is WebSerial support, now that Firefox has it too. |
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| ▲ | SigmundA 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Wonder if they will ever fix upload progress using XHR, pretty annoying to not be able show accurate progress to the user when using larger chunk sizes: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=277286 |
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| ▲ | lapcat 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This update fixed some web inspector bugs that I reported, but I can't use it because Safari Technology Preview inexplicably supports fewer macOS versions than Safari itself, i.e., no longer Sequoia. |
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| ▲ | kstrauser 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't know, given that Safari is bundled with the OS, targeting a newer macOS seems pretty explicable. | | |
| ▲ | lapcat 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Safari supports 3 major macOS versions. For example, Safari 26 continues to support Sonoma and Sequoia as well as Tahoe: https://support.apple.com/en-us/127685 Safari 27 will support Golden Gate, Tahoe, and Sequoia. However, Safari Technology Preview now supports only Golden Gate and Tahoe, despite the fact that the same WebKit commits will make their way into regular Safari on Sequoia. Thus, it seems that Apple is just shooting itself in the foot by failing to test sufficiently on one supported platform. |
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| ▲ | nikanj 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It’s impressive that pinch-zooming reddit.com in-out-in-out has reliably crashed ios safari for at least a few years already. One would assume Apple gets telemetry from iphone default browser crashes, and reddit seems important enough to warrant a fix |
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| ▲ | bearjaws 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I cannot use a browser that is owned by a company who's financial model is dependent upon browsers being nerfed. Apple and Google have far too many incentives to wall garden browsers, Apple due to the app store, Google due to advertising. Independent browsers are the only safe path forward. |
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| ▲ | wpm 5 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Funny, I prefer to use Safari because it is just a damn web browser and isn't trying to let every webslop dev try and re-invent the wheel in slow JITed Javascript and build their own crappy operating system. Whatever their reason, Apple is the enemy of my enemy, and therefore, in this regard, my friend. | |
| ▲ | SJMG 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Well this preview includes many changes made to WebKit which Kagi, a so called independent browser, depends on. It's good news for you. | |
| ▲ | gausswho 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You're correct. Which makes it all the more inscrutable that the Firefox team doesn't embrace PWA's as a differentiator. | |
| ▲ | dbbk 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | What did they nerf | | |
| ▲ | bearjaws 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Apple: adblocking, PWA being put in a odd spot, surely to be followed by a post "nobody was using it" before being removed, if they mention it at all. Google: ad blocking | | |
| ▲ | dbbk 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ad blocking isn't nerfed | | |
| ▲ | arijun 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | It is when compared to Firefox. Safari and now Google claim that it's for security, as the newer interfaces expose way less attack surface for malicious add-ons. I think that it's true that it does improve security, although I'm not sure that I believe Google when they say they're not doing it to stop people from blocking their main revenue source. | | |
| ▲ | whstl 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | At least the blocker I use, uBlock Lite, isn't nerfed. It doesn't have Manifest v3-ish limitations, and can do dynamic blocking, injection, etc. |
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| ▲ | unsungNovelty 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | PWA for starters?
They are not interested in Indie devs anyways. Might as well let us use PWA no? | | |
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| ▲ | JSR_FDED 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| After being so disappointed by Tahoe and the whole Alan Dye era, it’s great to see Apple getting their mojo back. Golden Gate is shaping up to be a great release. |
