!Iris browser

It’s a top browser, but not all pages works properly. Did somebody know why?

Micky

Probably because it’s alpha and RISC OS. For me, the most annoying thing of the current build is that it doesn’t do Ctrl-V (paste).

Iris is still officially Beta not Alpha, True sometimes Ctrl-V does not always work. Paul, I don’t know which version you are using. I think the general version available is 1.027

Andrew Rawnsley on Wednesday nights WROCC Club meeting was saying they had hoped to have a general release shortly, but its been delayed due to some urgent upgrade work I think it was to upgrade to the latest WebKit version which has more security fixes from memory. His talk will be on YouTube soon.

Micky asked why some pages do not work properly, this depends on what the issue is. Video files do not work, some issues are caused by the User Agent used by default, you can get some sites (Argos) was certainly one them where changing to a different user agent in Iris allowed the site to be access. Cloudflare does not seem to like Iris under certain conditions.

ROD (RISC OS Developments) are aware of all these issues, but you need to remember it’s a one man programming Iris, not a large team.

Unfortunately we are back in a near web monoculture, and if you aren’t using Chrome (or a derivative such as Edge) web sites aren’t guaranteed to work. We managed to shake off the previous monoculture of Internet Explorer being required by the majority of sites, and for a while Chrome, Firefox and Safari had a significant market share, and web developers had to test on a range of browsers. Now things are tested on Chrome and Apple’s webkit engine which is used by all IOS browsers, and anything else they aren’t interested in.

Iris is based on webkit rather than a completely proprietary engine, so that is a good start, but RISC OS being so different to any of the other platforms it is developed for, means there are going to be unique compatibility challenges, leading to missing features, bugs and usability issues.

This explains a lot. I use several browsers because some pages works with this browser and other pages with another browser.

Micky

I use several browsers

My phone has both Firefox and Chrome.
At least on Android one has a choice…

Risc OS, Windows, Android. What is wrong here?

Very clever answer.

Micky

I use Firefox & Safari on Macs. I’ve not come across dysfunctional websites in ages.

Don’t use a phone for internet access. Screen far too small to be any use at all.

Now things are tested on Chrome and Apple’s webkit engine which is used by all IOS browsers, and anything else they aren’t interested in.

Rumour has it that there’s going to be an iOS version of Chrome soon. The very thought terrifies me, because why would developers test on anything else?

I’ve not come across dysfunctional websites in ages.

Let’s see… Banks where the login redirects endlessly to the login page (hello CMB!), pages where inclusions such as payment processing ends up as an empty space (and, as a consequence, empties your panier regardless of whether or not the payment succeeded).

Or my all time personal favourite – those sites that redirect you to a full page claiming that the site works with Chrome and you can download it here (do they get paid to pull that crap?).
Oddly enough, if you screw around with the headers to make the browser identify as Chrome (or Safari), the site in question works just fine.

because why would developers test on anything else?

Thanks to Google, we’re already there. Might as well dust off those “Best viewed in Internet Explorer 3” logos…

Screen far too small to be any use at all.

While there are regional differences (Europe and Canada still prefer desktop browsing (something like 51% vs 49%), the US prefers mobile browsing (~53% vs 47%), and Indians browse on mobile (~75% vs 25%)… ¹), one thing is clear – the mobile to desktop usage is “about half and half” globally and mobile use is growing.

As such, any site these days that doesn’t attempt to make itself ² work on a mobile device is not a site worth bothering about ³. In 2023 with browsers and scripting powerful enough to make a functional word processor… there’s no excuse for a site to not work on a mobile device. We left WAP behind long ago, there’s a good chance that your dinky little smartphone can easily outperform a decade old PC.

¹ Values aggregated from three randomly chosen sites that said similar but different things.

² Even my blog attempts to be mobile friendly… ;)

³ Special dispensation for ROOL as this forum predates the widespread use of mobile browsers and I don’t imagine anybody fancies rummaging in the internals to retrofit such a thing.

Latest Android SPhone Chrome seems to be missing the top right hand bit of the sprite for this page.

Let’s see… Banks where the login redirects endlessly to the login page (hello CMB!), pages where inclusions such as payment processing ends up as an empty space (and, as a consequence, empties your panier regardless of whether or not the payment succeeded).

I use Santander, Nationwide & Yorkshire Building Society. All three websites work just fine with both Safari and Firefox. I mostly use Firefox, so I don’t know whether all the other online sites I use work with Safari or not, but I’ve not hit that problem anywhere, and I make a lot of online purchases from quite a wide variety of sites.

Maybe none of the sites I use work on phones. As long as they keep working on the desktop, I’ll never notice.

We left WAP behind long ago, there’s a good chance that your dinky little smartphone can easily outperform a decade old PC.

No doubt. But it’s got a screen I’d need to carry a microscope to read. Hell, the 15" screen on the laptop I’m sitting at right now is horribly tiny…can’t even get the whole of a post on here on screen…

Even my blog attempts to be mobile friendly… ;)

Most of my website does, too. How well I don’t know, obviously – I test it in stupid little windows but whether that’s good enough I don’t know. I’ve had no new feedback on that issue since making appropriate changes.

if you screw around with the headers to make the browser identify as Chrome (or Safari), the site in question works just fine.

That’s my experience also, at least some of the time. Makes you wonder how thoroughly the sites in question (usually banks) are actually interrogating the browser: “Oh, it says it’s Chrome, that’s fine then.”

True sometimes Ctrl-V doesnot always work. Paul, I don?t know which version you are using. I think the general version available is 1.027

The version that I currently use is 1.028 (from May 2023), but Ctrl-V only works in the URL field, while it fails everywhere else. Since the menu doesn’t have an Edit function either, I have to type the citation above myself. Not a great deal perhaps, but certainly annoying.
(Having said that, Iris still looks very promising.)

When comes the next version? Last update was 17.04.2023.

Micky