@GymW, sorry not convinced. The extension is there, it just has been deactivated as a precautionary measure inline with Apple’s stance on security. If that’s the best way to do it or not is another piece of cake.
As far as the extension gallery is concerned, the move is also in order to control the security of Safari extensions. The new approach promises “better security” because of the App Store filtering-out rogue apps/extensions.
There is no obligation to use Safari and alternatives are available. But please, let’s discuss merits based on facts and not prepositions.
You’re telling everybody to ditch Safari because alternatives “seem”, have “possibly more privacy”, are “supposed to offer more privacy”, “seem to work in both Firefox and Chromium”, “likely” but the bottom line is you don’t know yourself. Don’t advise anything if you’re not sure.
I based my comments on a number of factors including:
Reviews research which indicate Brave is one of the most secure browsers currently available and also state Chromium offers more privacy than Chrome.
Personal experience where I found Safari, running on MacOS 12.13.6 on a MacPro Desktop w/ a 3.2GHz processor and 1024MB of Ram provided substantially poorer browser performance with Safari than with Chromimum or Firefox to the same websites.
As for security, IOS 13.0 was released by Apple with known bugs that exposed user information to the network, which has been since corrected by IOS 13.1 a full week later that was rushed into early release to correct this issue. Apple upon release did not notify users of this known deferred issue and it became only became public after a reliable website found out about it and published the info about it on their website. In fact some lawsuits may have be generated over this. I could cite instance after instance where Apple has put greed and profit over a great user experience and designing hardware with built in obsolesce. A recent example of the is that the new Mac Mini has its SSD drive soldered onto the motherboard so if the drive fails either the entire motherboard (very expensive) or the computer has to be replaced. The move to the extensions to the App Store with little or no notification to registered Mac users seem do have been done with little to no consideration as to the impact to users. What I believe, if Apple cared about its users would to have create the new site for revised and updated existing extensions with a warning published on the older site that the extensions on that site have not been certified to be secure by Apple and should be installed at the users risk. Additionally it should have contained a link with an email or website address to notify Apple if a user found a security issue or failure to function with an existing extension on the old site so that Apple could remove those offending ones, rather than stripping an estimated 90% of existing extensions from availability. I also find it interesting that on the old site the majority of extensions were free but on the new site, most are fee based. Additionally most of the ad blockers and security oriented extensions including those from respected developers are now gone. If Apple was so interested in protecting users, why remove proven and trusted tools from user access as opposed to migrating them to the new site? To state the obvious, the old site, did not allow Apple to profit from Safari Extension at user expense. The new site does exactly that.
That said I am fed up with Apple assuming the role of ‘big brother’. My Mac is my machine that I bought and paid for. If I wish to install an extension and assume the risk of not having it blessed by Apple, that should be my decision to do, not Apple. The same goes for 2Factor. Once turned on Apple will not allow you to turn it off ever, not even for maintenance purposes. The only way to turn it off is to delete you Apple ID and create a new one which of course changes your Apple email address. Another Apple ‘Big Brother’ decision preventing users from managing their own machines in a manner that they wish to.
FYI: The ‘Medium’ website has recently published articles by respected journalists that indicate that 2Factor is not as nearly as secure as Apple would want you to believe it is.
This two factor is so stupid that it shows in the same machine you are trying to login. It is completely absurd that if you are login into, say, iCloud from one machine, you get the secret number in the same machine!!! I could then stole a machine and login!!!
Said that, I’m very “hot” with Apple. The only thing didn’t made me remove macOS in all my machines was DT. I’m even testing an Android Tablet (the Samsung Tab S6) in order to see if I can live without DT and DTTG, because, well, I’m tired of this last Apple. Lies over lies, promises not accomplished, complete silence about that… Quality of all is going down very fast. With the price of one MacBook Pro I can buy 3 Windows equivalent laptops and take the pleasure to throw 2 of them into the channel!!!
If macOS and iOS and now the iPadiOS (yes, bad writing is intended), give me the same problems than Windows/Android combination, to me is very clear what use and have enough money to buy more things.
Unfortunately you are “preaching to the choir”. I have been using Apple technology since 1982 and I am so immersed in them that the cost and time involved to switch would simply be overwhelming. That is now the only reason I continue to use their products and reluctantly support their myopic greed.
I am convinced that the only thing that will change Apple’s current paradigm back to a customer focus is a complete makeover of their senior management team, starting with Tim Cook. Mr. Cook may be a nice guy and make a good mid level manager able to manage projects, take instructions and motivate a team to work for him, but in my opinion he is no visionary and lacks the necessary skills to create customer loyalty, create futuristic products and make Apple a company that people will continue admire for the long term. His focus seems to be on short term profits, and stockholder dividends rather than Apple’s original legacy of state of the art quality products that excite users and are affordable by the masses. As such I do not believe that he should be allowed to continue as CEO, but that a suitable replacement needs to researched and drafted into that position who will respect and continue the Apple legacy of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak possessing the skills to perform it. That, in my opinion, is what is needed to insure and enable Apple’s long term future, respect and rebuild the customer loyalty it has lost.
Hear, hear!!
Cook does not have the ferocious protectiveness of Apple’s brand and reputation. It was not the shareholders’ company. It was Steve Jobs’ company and everything about it was a reflection of himself.
It isn’t Cook’s company, or Schiller’s, or Federighi, etc. It’s _“where they work” not “who they are”.
Sadly, Steve Jobs is truly irreplacable as a person and a leader of the company.
I agree with that it is where they work. However I have found that a corporate culture is most often determined by the values and moral compass of upper management, most specifically by the CEO. In the case of the current Apple, the primary focus of those values seems to be accumulating immediate wealth both corporate and personal, and providing returns to financial investors rather than investing into the companies reputation, creating customer loyalty, and providing exciting products while providing a delightful long term customer experience.
My experience has taught me that money has two faces. It can be used as a goal or a tool. When used as a tool, with a positive moral compass, the outcome is usually both profitable and creates a solid platform for long term growth and stability. When used as a goal, ultimately the long term outcome is usually disastrous. Based on Apple’s current paradigm, I am led to believe that the current focus of Apple is using money/profitability as a goal rather than as a tool. The term that I have coined for this is “myopic greed”. As such I believe that the current paradigm will ultimately lead to Apple’s long term downfall as more and more formally loyal customers get finally get fed up with Apple’s current corporate behavior and choose to migrate to competitive platforms.
Sadly, I personally don’t believe there is such a thing at this time. (And yes, I have run Windoze for years, and *NIX has it’s strengths and a lot of weaknesses for broader audiences).
Safari 13 does not even load .safariext extensions anymore, even if we would offer it for download. Traditional extensions for Safari are simply not more.
I disagree with you a lot. For example, at this moment the solely and only reason I don’t throw all my iThings and aThings into the channel is DT. It is the only thing that remains me chained into the ecosystem. There are other tools like DT in Windows, or more than one tool that can replace DT in Windows, but not as reliable and “performatic-magic” than DT. I’ve tested them. Even enterprise ones.
Windows has passed macOS by the right, by the left and by any other side. For example the “Shell” (Finder/Spotlight/Dock vs Windows Explorer/Start Menu). Security patches. Since 1903 Windows is very stable and is not so aggressive in restarting on update. And works in very old devices as well, like the 20011 iMac I’m using at work as my main development machine (Windows). Fully updated to last Windows version (a thing we cannot say from Apple and macOS).
The list continues, and the only reason I switched on about 2009 was because in macOS/iOS things used to work always. Could do less things than Windows/Android, but they were reliable always. That is not anymore, and having to pay 3.000 euro for a machine whose Windows equivalent is 1.000, and having a lot of problems with it, I prefer waste 1.000 than 3.000.
And sadly I’m in process of switching back. Currently my main phone is the new Note 10+ (was Note 9) and a Galaxy Tab S6 that, to be honest, the only drawback is its not 2:3 screen ratio. It recognizes my incredibly bad handwriting without any issue, and the only way to hand write in iOS is use the old and deprecated and not anymore in Apple Store, MyScript keyboard.
And I stop here, I don’t want to troll more here, but I have an incredible large list of negative (and completely absurd Apple way of doing) things related to this “new” Apple.
I think they want more money. They want to get the same income level as when the good iPhone times and are scratching the end of the user pockets… or trying it, because currently I’m using Firefox and Chrome in my aThings.
Windows’ architecture might be more open than the one of macOS these days and Microsoft cares more about compatibility, that’s for sure. But the user interface (different appearance of apps, redundant preferences etc.) or maintenance (e.g. installing software/drivers) are still inferior, IMHO. Not to mention all the malware. I have to admin the gaming computer of my kids and it’s a torture each time even though I developed Windows software many years ago
