Why Hasn't Safari Achieved Chrome-like Success?

[Rob Williams]

This is a simple question, but a good one. What is it about Apple's Safari browser that is holding it back from mass adoption? The first Windows release occurred long before Google Chrome's existence, and for all intents and purposes, both are fast, competent offerings. Yet, Chrome came out in September 2008 and today by most reports has surpassed Mozilla's Firefox in overall usage - a browser which saw its 1.0 version released in late 2004.

Read the rest of our post and then discuss it here!

 

[RainMotorsports]

First thing I noticed about Safari when it came out on windows is text did not render the same between it and any other browser out there. I really haven't messed with chrome but at the time why would anyone want to view the web the way it was NOT meant to be seen. Frustrated me since at the time I was still doing web design. Size 12 looked like it was 14 or bold causing tightly designed menus to overflow even though this would not happen in any other situation.

 

[MacMan]

Safari on Windows definitely sucks. It compares to the old Internet Explorer that Microsoft did for the Mac, which actually sucked even more on the Mac than Safari ever did on Windows. On a Mac, Safari is definitely a whole new ball of wax and I prefer it to any other browser as they were literally made for each other, however, ever since Apple created WebKit as an open source project they just didn't seem to give a damn about the Windows version, and the only version that has a chance for Safari to take more share.

 

[Rob Williams]

ever since Apple created WebKit as an open source project

Apple didn't create anything related to WebKit except the name. The company took the open-sourced KHTML (KDE) project, forked it, and got a bunch of other developers in on the action. As Wikipedia states:

WebKit was originally derived by Apple Inc. from the Konqueror browser's KHTML software library for use as the engine of Safari web browser, and has now been further developed by individuals from KDE, Apple Inc., Nokia, Google, Bitstream, Torch Mobile, Samsung, Igalia, and others. Mac OS X, Windows, GNU/Linux, and some other Unix-like operating systems are supported by the project.

I am just tired of seeing people say that Apple created WebKit when it didn't. If I took an article from another tech site and edited it to my liking, that wouldn't mean that I created it.

 

[MacMan]

Your wrongly suggesting that KHTML is nothing more, nothing less than being 100% WebKit, except for the name. Your basically saying that WebKit is entirely open source and Apple had nothing to do with it? . You are totally wrong! KHTML was the foundation, and only the foundation that Apple used to build WebKit! Not only that, Apple changed a lot of that foundation, making the open source community mad as hell because Apple, at first, withheld a lot of that code.

After launching Chrome, Google took out full page ads in one major tech journal thanking Apple for creating WebKit, and not the original KHTML developers, which is rather strange don't you think, which also helps to explain the quote from below! There is a reason why WebKit's official page uses the Safari logo you know? That's because Apple was the main reason for WebKits very creation:
[
url]http://www.webkit.org/[/url]


"And to think, Google and RIM have Apple to thank for all this. Apple. You know, that uber-secretive company from Cupertino."

Source: http://web.appstorm.net/general/opinion/the-history-of-webkit/

Saying that KHTML was developed by others is CORRECT, but saying that WebKit was totally developed by others, or KHTML, and had nothing to do with Apple, is totally WRONG! Apple started WebKit using a large part of KHTML as its foundation, but everything the building on which that foundation supports was built by Apple, something Apple haters just won't admit! Without Apple there would be NO WebKit, but nothing but an inferior KHTML browser engine in its place that more-or-less probably wouldn't have gone anywhere. No wonder why KHTML continued for awhile to develop both a KHTML version, and another version built on top of WebKit.

 

[Rob Williams]

From Wikipedia:

The code that would become WebKit began in 1998 as the KDE project's HTML layout engine KHTML and KDE's JavaScript engine (KJS). The WebKit project was started within Apple by Don Melton on 25 June 2001[5] as a fork of KHTML and KJS.

WebKit would not exist if not for KHTML, so how is that an Apple "creation"? Apple does well taking code from others and improving it, and there's nothing wrong with that. But to say that WebKit is Apple's "creation" is offensive to anyone who knows otherwise. If I took the code for Apache and edited it all up then released it as a new product, does that mean I "created" it? I don't think so. I made a fork, much like KHTML > WebKit.

http://web.appstorm.net/general/opinion/the-history-of-webkit/

In January of 2003, at the Macworld Expo Keynote Address in San Francisco, Steve Jobs announced the open sourcing of WebCore, Apple’s port of the KHTML engine.

Yeah, Apple "created" WebKit, all right.

 

[MacMan]

Yes, Apple created "WebKit, and you know it. It might have built on someone else code, but as you ADMITTED:

"Apple does well taking code from others and improving it, and there's nothing wrong with that."

Apple improved on that code, adding to it, and the result is WebKit which included not only others OLD code, but a lot of NEW code from Apple, and its the combination of the old and new Apple code that resulted in WebKit, hence the WebKit's official page using Safari's logo as its own. Rebuilding a new engine, let's say from A Corvette, and stripping it down to the engine block while rebuilding everything else with new parts gives you a new engine, not the same old engine, and that new engine, browser engine, is not the same old code, but mostly new code based on the old, and that's the end of it, I'm not arguing with you.

 

[Rob Williams]

Rebuilding a new engine, let's say from A Corvette, and stripping it down to the engine block while rebuilding everything else with new parts gives you a new engine, not the same old engine, and that new engine, browser engine, is not the same old code, but mostly new code based on the old, and that's the end of it, I'm not arguing with you.

I disagree. Taking an old engine and rebuilding it isn't "creating" it. It's using it as a base and building atop it.

I'm done with this debate regardless, it's pointless.

 

[MacMan]

Let me put it this way:

If I write a ten thousand word article, but I base it on 800 quoted words from one of your articles, who would be the author of the 10,000 word article: you, or me?

End of story, and yes, it's pointless and I'm not going to add any further.

 

[Rob Williams]

If I took 800 words from another website and added 19,200 words to it, no, I didn't create it. I took it and added upon it / improved it.

 

[Rebeca]

Aw. I wrote a response, but I left and when I came back, I had been automatically logged out and my response was lost. It's too bad there isn't an automatic draft saving feature like when composing messages in Gmail. Let me see what I remember...

Safari in Windows is dreadful. Apart from the fonts not being displayed well, it's slow and the address/search bar doesn't work smoothly. The experience is extremely different from how it works in a Mac, and unless Apple is willing to have a team work in improving Safari for Windows, I doubt it will get better.

Regarding the argument about whether WebKit is a fork or a creation, it seems both MacMan and Rob agree on what WebKit is and how it came about, so the issue is what can be considered a creation, with Rob having a more rigorous idea of it, right? If so, may I add two things to consider? They are:

1) Can a fork be considered a creation? If so, how different would the end product have to be in order for it to be considered a creation?

2) Nothing can really be created from scratch, or as Carl Sagan said, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” If we think of it that way, nobody creates anything from scratch. We are surrounded by things that inspire us and ideas that we change or build upon, and that's good. What matters is that we keep building things, right? Let's take this response for example. It is based on what I read before and even quoted Carl Sagan, but can we say that this response is mine or is it from the people I've taken ideas from? And what is more important: that I participate or that I figure out what to label my response as?