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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
uBO Lite is exactly MV3, it has most of MV3 limitations plus its own limitations comparing to Chromium. Safari just auto converts MV3 codes to Safari's own blocking engines.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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...
They finally used some of those trillions to buy one (1) Claude pro subscription.
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.
I am OOTL - How does the EU force competition in this context?
The EU passed laws to force Apple to allow other browser engines to run. Previously, all iOS browsers were reskinned WebKit by Apple decree.
And is there any other browser engine actually running on iOS anywhere?
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.
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...
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.
> 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.
Thankfully, otherwise the Web would already be ChromeOS Platform, because that is what 99% of the folks that don't use Safari would install.
Intentionally how? Mobile Safari has pretty broad support for PWAs: https://pwascore.com
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.
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.
I think the fact that the paragraph is necessary is the damning part
Like I said, we'd have that paragraph even if the app was on the App Store. If it's damning, then it only damns the users because they're goldfish.
One missing thing? You think Apple forgot to implement the install event? Or that there is some technical reason?
No, I'm asking if that's the one thing you're hung up on? I feel like that was obvious.
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.
Since they nixed uBlock Origin Safari has not been a serious web browser to me. No amount of technology can make up for it.
I've been using uBlock Origin Lite on Safari with no issues.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ublock-origin-lite/id674534269...
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.
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.
Not true in Safari. uBlock Origin Lite doesn't have those problems.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
Agree. I've never seen any single ads so far.
Even the ads on the Youtube are block by default. It's quite buggy though.
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.
https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
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.
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.
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.
Please, can we put the "Disable Javascript" menu back in the Developer menu
Been gone a while?
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/465150/make-shortc...
Not sure why they removed this tbh
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.
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.
Please add way to maximize the window. I rage quit when it goes fullscreen or just tall.
Try option-click on the green icon in the app window. It’s well hidden and unintuitive, but I think it does what you want.
(bonus: this is not exclusively a Safari feature, this is a macOS feature)
option click does not fully maximise!
I just use Rectangle. It's got all the core functionality. https://rectangleapp.com/
Fn-Control-F or hover over the green dot and pick the maximize option
omg it works.. why is this so hard?
The one feature I would love to see is WebSerial support, now that Firefox has it too.
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
This was fixed but then reverted. No further updates 3 months later. https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=305622
Not sure how this comment is related to Safari Technology Preview, though, which is Mac-only.
Kind of a confusing title, but maybe it means more to the WebKit team. I don't think I've ever seen jetsam used as a verb before.
if only they bring back safari to windows
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.
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.
Well this preview includes many changes made to WebKit which Kagi, a so called independent browser, depends on. It's good news for you.
You're correct. Which makes it all the more inscrutable that the Firefox team doesn't embrace PWA's as a differentiator.
What did they nerf
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
Ad blocking isn't nerfed
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.
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.
uBO Lite is exactly MV3, it has most of MV3 limitations plus its own limitations comparing to Chromium. Safari just auto converts MV3 codes to Safari's own blocking engines.
PWA for starters? They are not interested in Indie devs anyways. Might as well let us use PWA no?
PWAs enjoy excellent support in Safari:
https://pwascore.com
Safari arguably has better PWA support than Firefox last time I checked.
How
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
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.
I don't know, given that Safari is bundled with the OS, targeting a newer macOS seems pretty explicable.
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.
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.