stephen.nyc

Tag: The Web

  • Orion Browser

    Huh, you don’t see a new browser everyday, let alone one that opts for webkit over chromium. I suppose I’m pretty late to this discovery from Kagi. The chrome extension support is pretty neat. It’s a great idea and one that Apple should deeply consider. If Apple allowed cross-platform browser extensions, it would transform the web.

    Orion — a web browser designed from the ground-up. Native WebKit speed, full extension compatibility, and absolute privacy is finally together in one browser that respects you.

    orionbrowser.com

  • UbuWeb Returns

    From the homepage of ubu.web:

    A year ago, we decided to shutter UbuWeb. Not really shutter it, per se, but instead to consider it complete. After nearly 30 years, it felt right. But now, with the political changes in America and elsewhere around the world, we have decided to restart our archiving and regrow Ubu. In a moment when our collective memory is being systematically eradicated, archiving reemerges as a strong form of resistance, a way of preserving crucial, subversive, and marginalized forms of expression. We encourage you to do the same. All rivers lead to the same ocean: find your form of resistance, no matter how small, and go hard. It’s now or never. Together we can prevent the annihilation of the memory of the world.

    Next time you have an hour to yourself. Peruse these archives. Watch, listen, read and learn from others that came before us. The about page says it all:

    Founded in 1996, UbuWeb is a pirate shadow library consisting of hundreds of thousands of freely downloadable avant-garde artifacts. 

  • Wait, Apple supports alternative browser engines on iOS?

    Since the beginning of the iPhone, Apple has resisted opening up it’s operating system in many ways. The App Store being the biggest walled garden, but the lesser known and perhaps more arcane is the browser on your iPhone.

    As of writing, you can install an alternative browser on your iOS device: Google Chrome, Edge, DuckDuckGo etc. But really, under the hood… it’s actually powered by a Safari webview. Which means, it’s running webkit. The real Google Chrome on the other hand runs a Blink-based version of Chromium. Browser vendors render HTML and CSS differently. We’ve known this for a while. Surely you’ve noticed you bank’s website looks different on Chrome versus visiting the same website on Firefox. Heck, some even have wholly different JavaScript Engines.

    Apple, has for years successfully kept alternative browsers on iOS locked-into using Webkit to the dismay of Google and consumers. Last year in February, there was a concerted test to see how well a Blink-based browser would fair on iPhones. You see, Apple has resisted allowing apps to use alternative browser vendors for years because of several reasons.

    Apple likes to keep a iron-grip control on marketshare of it’s software. It is an old war that software companies continue to fight. For good reason too. It’s part of their strategy to keep users within the flywheel of their subscription businesses and tick-tock product cycles. If Apple wants to maintain market share of it’s browser, it must remain competitive. The problem with webkit, and Safari the browser by extension is, it’s lacking in terms of feature development and popularity. There are claims that webkit can has superior power management, simple to extend, secure and less of a memory hog.

    Yet, people continue to chose Chrome, even at the risk of antitrust and performance. Turns out, users like to see nice software features! Novel!

    All this being said, apparently the only consumers that will get to have true alternative browser choices on their mobile Apple devices will be EU consumers. Another disappointing reason to be American.

  • Adobe set to acquire Figma for $20B

    Adobe set to acquire Figma for $20B

    Big news yesterday in the tech world. Adobe likely minted a few millionaires with this deal. Figma was snatched up by Adobe for $20B

    For years, Figma stood headstrong in its’ resolution that collaboration in design tools begins and ends on the web — and they’re right. Productivity tools such as video creation, document collaboration, email, and even cloud storage (Dropbox) have had tremendous growth.

    Adobe’s humble beginning began way back in the 1980’s at Xerox PARC long before Tim Berners-Lee’s proposal on the web in 1989 was published. Ever since Sketch entered the market, the design tool market is becoming increasingly crowded. Adobe was once was a Goliath organization. A looming tower so large that no one dare take them on. Well, Figma gave them a really good run for their money.

    Chances are, Adobe was forced to make such a ludicrous offer, the board (and the founders) couldn’t refuse. For years, Figma has been eating Adobe’s lunch. They’ve been on buying spree building a moat around their Creative Cloud garden. Make no mistake, this deal will be bad for knowledge & design workers in the long-term, as design tool choices begin to dry up, and users are forced into Adobe’s suite of creative tools. If past is precedent, Figma will be slowly rolled into their brand and ecosystem and we’ll all be worse off for it. They’ll slowly raise the pricing, and lock us into expensive yearly plans to get access to Figma’s effortless product.

    How is the design world feeling about this? Well, this kind of hits the nail on the head:

    This won’t be the last we hear about Adobe + Figma. For now, pricing will remain unchanged, and educational account will continue to be free.

    This won’t be the last acquisition we’ll see from Adobe, but it might be last one that tops $20B.