HN Explorer

Ask HN: Why isn't anybody talking about Safari disabling canvas

4 points by atum47 ↗ HN
As a JavaScript developer I rely heavily on Canvas for my apps and games. Canvas is great. But unfortunately you can fingerprint a user with it (and with a lot of other information from the client), so because of that Safari disabled Canvas all together (if your device is configured to prevent cross site tracking). I don't think that's the right way of doing it, because a lot of important things on the web rely on Canvas. My main issue with this is that I didn't find information of any kind informing the user about this update. Now I have a lot of users giving me bad reviews on my apps because they can't use it on safari and they think it's my fault. I think Safari should at least notify they users - "this update disable canvas to prevent cross site tracking, you can re enable it by doing this..."

2 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 10.5 ms ] thread
zeestar
How many users would see "this update disables canvas" and know what the consequences of that are?

Apple doesn't care that it disabled canvas. :/ Canvas is too cross-platform for mālī tastes.

atum47
yeah I know, but think about it: if you're going to disable something that directly affects your users you had to come up with something. a warning, an opt out...

I read about learning platform that uses canvas as part of the video player and they users got affected.