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Or someone could be getting kickbacks on the down low.

Or it's just way easier to implement this way and they don't want to waste time on stuff only HN crowd cares about ?

Implementing Play Integrity is something developers have to go out of their way to do. Not implementing it requires literally zero effort. So no, it's not easier to do it this way.

One could say the same thing about virus scanners. They are obviously too little too late "security" so standards that require them have given up on real requirements like a way to achieve actual assurance of no buffer overflows. Nonetheless, an implementation to such a standard that chooses any off the shelf scanner is a lot less work than implementing a new scanner.

What if I don’t have a smartphone?

No one is required to use EUDI: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/spaces/EU...

Companies and providers (like banks) have to support it, but use is voluntary.

Check out the spec and legal framework, it actually makes sense and is open to different implementations, though you might need to certify it.


You are not required to accept anything other than digital ids. So from experience, whatever demands euid has will be what is required to identify you.

If they have to support something that most everybody has they will soon stop supporting alternatives that are not required by law. What then?

There are attempts make it almost mandatory through mandatory age verification. Which would mean that you'd have to submit to privacy violations or be cut off from a sizeable portion of the internet.

My prediction is that eventually services for people NOT using the digital ID will be so degraded to be almost useless or seriously disadvantageous.

Kinda like the discrimination DB does for people using paper tickets vs those using the DB Navigator app.


I wonder if there will be a big enough market for a very compact smartphone equivalent device that can be used just for credentials? A device that is offline on standby except when you need it. Perhaps the size of a car key.

What if it was the size of a credit card and it had stuff like your name, date of birth and even a picture of your face. I want to name this invention an ID card…

And if you added a cryptographic layer to it, with your own private key baked into it, you could both sign the documents, confirm your identity and the government could confirm it's actually you....

....wow, that would be reinventing the existing model of the leading ID cards....

Crazy if you think about it :)


If it can go online, I'd prefer to use an android work (or user) profile with only auth apps in it, and nothing else.

As a separate device, it should be offline always IMO, and perhaps the size of a passkey. Or one of those banking devices with a display that show an authenticated text saying what you are confirming.


You're screwed. This has been the way for a while now. You cannot exist in society without a smart phone and it's only going to get worse.

Essential services (banks, government services, public transport) generally still support SMS as an alternative to their mobile apps when there's no completely offline process.

If you can't exist in society without a smart phone already, how is it going to get worse?

Perhaps you won't be able to exist in private without a smart phone. Or there will be some technology beyond a smartphone that you can't exist without.

...without a smartphone that is surveilling you 24/7.

Private smartphones are excluded already.


Or maybe they deserve it?


You clearly haven’t tried to design anything complicated that has to run on safari iOS. Safari iOS is a massive piece of shit. I’ve been working on a web game for a while now using canvas and most of my pain comes from making it compatible with safari. So much stuff is broken on safari so you have to find work arounds. Like a simple but annoying one, CSS filters don’t work on canvas so you have to write all those filters your self and apply them by using imgData.

Also the constant crashing when using canvas and the web audio api, it’s a disaster to be honest and it feels intentional, like they want me to write an app instead so they can rent seek.


As a non-web developer I'm interested if anyone can answer this question:

  If you're designing for <X> browser, how hard is it to make it work on <Y> browser?
Answering with at least {Chromium,Safari,Firefox}

Because if it's hard when targeting Chromium and adapting to {Safari,Firefox} but easy when targeting Safari and adapting to {Chromium,Firefox} then honestly it seems like Chromium is the problem.

What I want to distinguish is the biases in being used to programming in one environment and actual ease of programming for an arbitrary browser. Regardless of what official standards are, there are "in practice" standards, what is used in practice.

What would be nefarious is if Google is promoting people to program in ways that are not compatible with other browsers, cementing its monopoly. (This may even be achieved without explicit direction. Achievable simply by Chromium devs building tools for devs but not carrying about compatibility with other browsers). After all, the web is for everyone, but just because it's open doesn't mean monopolies/oligopolies/collusion/<other nefarious actions> can't happen.

Tdlr: does developing on chromium encourage browser incompatibility?


> Because if it's hard when targeting Chromium and adapting to {Safari,Firefox} but easy when targeting Safari and adapting to {Chromium,Firefox} then honestly it seems like Chromium is the problem.

Exactly. Test and develop against Firefox and/or Safari first and Chrome afterwards. If it’s not a true web standard and isn’t widely implemented, don’t use it.

The web worked fine for decades without smart fridge integration or whatever weird thing Google has decided that browsers must be capable of most recently.


It's not easy, though. Most of my day job is spent trying to get html interactives on an e-learning platform to work reliably with iOS's ridiculous nonstandard interaction rules around when media is allowed to play. It's worse than working with the 20 year old jsp+servlet system that serves the interactives and business logic. no other browser behaves like iOS safari and to debug and develop against it you need an ios and macos device sitting on your desk. Firefox and Firefox on Android are a breeze but a rounding-error in our usage metrics, even accounting for our development. Apple desparately hobbles the web platform to collect IAP taxes.


> with iOS's ridiculous nonstandard interaction rules around when media is allowed to play.

Are there any standard interaction rules on when media is allowed to play? I thought everyone implements it differently based on their own ideas of security and user engagement


The problem is not Google, I hate Google so I’m not white knighting them or anything but a lot of basic things are just badly implemented on iOS safari. Also if something works in chrome it probably works in Firefox as well. The only odd duck is safari and people who defend clearly have no experience trying to develop for it.


Making things work in chrome and Firefox is trivial and is never hard but when it comes to safari you have to figure out the special dance to make things work properly even when targeting it first.

No developing for chrome does not encourage browser incompatibility.


Odd, because I hear so much about Firefox breaking. I'm a daily user so I don't know what they're talking about but still


The argument which has been provided so far about why Safari is crippled is that it does not implement non-standard Chromium-only features. There are other problems with Safari, but they are not found in the page we are discussing.


I compiled a "short" list of why amd how Safari is crippled. Not entirely on topic for the post, but seems appropriate as a reply on this particular comment ;)

https://webventures.rejh.nl/blog/2024/history-of-safari-show...


This article is quite literally the only one that actually discusses actual Safari problems.

And even this article falls prey to "failures in web platform tests" which are a very poor indicator. E.g. Safari passing all accessibility tests is much more important than Safari failing most accelerometer tests that only Chrome passes (because this is Chrome-only API).


The WPT graph shows failures for tests that fail in only one browser. So the accelerometer tests, for example, would need to pass in both Blink and Gecko for it to count as a failure on Safari's part.

This is excellent!


Seeing that there are cross platform game engines, it seems to me that making a web game is not the best way to go. How do you plan to monetize it? Get people to put their credit card on your website? How is your web game performing on Android? Have you tested the performance on the typical mid range Android phone?


Why isn’t it the best way to go? I’m not a fan of those web game engines so I made my own.

I have various avenues of monitization; sponsored ads and letting players buy cosmetic items.

I have yet to test it on android because my priorities are making it work on desktop and iOS first and then android after. Why? because of my past experiences with making games.


Monetization? But does making your own engine “make the beer taste better”? Does it lead to a better experience for the users? Does it give you an advantage in the market?

You really don’t think you need to consider the hardware capabilities of the average Android phone?

Hint: Facebook rewrite their apps years ago to not use web based technology because performance was horrible on the average Android phone.


Yes it does because it’s optimized and efficient because there is no bloat, everything in the engine is there to serve this specific game.

I will eventually test it on android but I don’t see why it would not work with out any issues.

I wouldn’t use Facebook as a reference, I have an inside joke that they have the worst programmers. They managed to make a site that shows text and images make my computers fans spin which is honestly just embarrassing all things considered.


You really don’t see how inefficient it is running a game on a web browser compared to a game engine running native code for the platform? And you think you are going to write a better performing game engine in a web browser?

> Yes it does because it’s optimized and efficient because there is no bloat, everything in the engine is there to serve this specific game.

Everything is there to serve your game except the entire web browser.


I don’t know what you’re on about, my game runs at 60fps while using 10% of the cpu and some GPU.

Let’s not kid ourselves, they knew exactly what they were doing. They were hoping people would just hang up and give up. This would save money in the short term but lose money in the long term but that’s what you get when the current quarter is all that matters.

Anyway my experience with HP has taught me to never buy their products ever again.


> Let’s not kid ourselves, they knew exactly what they were doing.

Not at all, they say they’re “always looking for ways to improve customer experience” and just wanted to “encourage people to self solve” to increase customer satisfaction. /s


Those cops are the epitome of the term “cry bully”.


I have been listening to John since I discovered him on “This Week In Tech” and I enjoyed his show “Cranky Geeks” while it was running. I hope he gets well and has a fast recovery!


I think Firefox’s “shift + right click” to bypass context menu blocking should be adopted by all browsers.


Yeah, it's one of those features where after getting used to it you just can't understand why not every browser has it. I remember trying to copy an image from OneNote and conveniently in the custom content menu there is a button to copy the image. The only thing it does however is tell you it doesn't work and to use Cmd+C instead, which doesn't work either. So Shift + Right Click saves the day again.


Why would it be in my interest?


This is troubling because I also left namecheap for porkbun some years ago. While porkbun is good I am willing to move my 50+ domains to a worthy alternative when the time comes, however for now I’m going to wait and see how this story unfolds.

Also what are some good alternatives to porkbun?


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