
Safari no longer supported by Spotify - diegolo
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Linux-Windows-Web-Player/Safari-No-Longer-Supported/td-p/1975103
======
fpgaminer
Here's my guess as to what happened.

A couple months ago, Spotify switched their web player from using Flash to
using HTML5 + DRM (the "standardized" web DRM).

At least, that was the case for Chrome and Firefox, which I noticed because I
exclusively use the Spotify web player.

But I guess Safari doesn't support web DRM via the Widevine CDM. So they must
have kept the Flash based web player around for Safari.

And, indeed, Flash would only be needed for Safari. Chrome and Firefox support
web DRM on Windows, Linux, and AFAIK MacOS too.

Now, supporting both a Flash based web player and an HTML5 based web player is
a lot of engineering. I'll bet at some point they decided they didn't want to
do that. The only reason they still had the Flash player was to support Safari
and Safari only has 2% market share. On top of that, I'll bet most of their
customers use the desktop app. So of the 2% of Safari users, how many are
using the Spotify web player?

So they dropped their Flash based player, and thus had to also drop support
for Safari.

I think it's a fairly reasonable move. Flash is dying; they couldn't keep
their player on it, so they _had_ to move to HTML5. Since they have to use DRM
at the behest of the RIAA, web DRM thus becomes their only choice.

I doubt the story is much better for alternatives. Even if any of the other
music subscription platforms are still using Flash, that's unlikely to
continue for long.

I don't blame Safari for not implementing web DRM. That leaves only one party
left to point the finger at; the RIAA. If you need someone to blame, blame
them.

~~~
Xoros
So if I get it correct, Apple stated years ago that Flash wouldn't be support
anymore on their products (then others followed).

So Spotify, due to the end of Flash player moved to HTML5 player.

And then the only browser which need a flash player is Apple Safari ?

Oh, the irony :-)

~~~
egwynn
I guess it’s ironic if you ignore the DRM part. Apple took two hardline
positions on web tech and not everyone is playing by both of these rules. It
kinda looks like a temporary lapse on the part of Spotify while they go
through a transition, though. The other major players (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu,
Pandora, etc.) all seem to have abandoned Flash without abandoning Safari.

~~~
kennywinker
Netflix stopped working for me with Safari about a year ago, when I have an
external monitor plugged in. It complains about some display drm nonsense, I
guess because my external monitor could be a recording device? Either way,
keep chrome around and up to date just for watching netflix and it does not
make me happy.

~~~
ShinyCyril
Netflix HTML5 player refuses to run on older CPUs in Safari. I have a 2009 Mac
Pro with a copy of Firefox installed just so I can watch Netflix.

------
brunosutic
Is this an engineering error or an intentional move from Spotify as a company?

I use Safari as my day-to-day browser (I switched from Chrome 2 years back)
and I'm a satisfied user. I'd be less happy if companies started dropping
Safari support.

~~~
franciscop
As a web developer, I am sorry to tell you but Safari (and old Android
browsers) are becoming the new Internet Explorer. Unsupported new features for
long time and buggy behaviour makes developer's life harder, so it's normal
those are the first ones to be dropped.

~~~
mschuster91
position:relative and percentage values in top combined, for example, are
broken - and the devtools are massively behind Chrome. Not to mention the UX
that it does not show you the full URL in the address bar.

Guess the only thing keeping people on Safari is that it is deeply integrated
into OS X and has battery life advantages over Chrome/FF.

~~~
RubberSoul
Showing the full URL is a checkbox away in the preferences. It's listed under
"Advanced" as "Show full website address".

~~~
laveur
Thanks I didn't even realize I could change this. And I would add that most
people outside of developers (of any kind) probably don't care.

~~~
mschuster91
> And I would add that most people outside of developers (of any kind)
> probably don't care.

Showing the full URL can save you from phishing attempts, though - when you
see cryptic crap, <script> or similar stuff in a page URL, you know something
is fishy.

------
floatingatoll
Spotify reported most recently $300mil in annual advertising revenue.

In 2011 they were caught using 'supercookies' that can be persisted even when
the user clears their cookies in the browser.

It is entirely possible they're refusing to support Safari because of the
privacy changes Apple made, changes that specifically defeat the kind of
tracking Spotify has previously been known to use.

------
PascLeRasc
Personally it would take a lot to get me to stop using Spotify. I really like
their desktop app and they're pretty open to modifications like Statusfy [1],
Shpotify [2], and RES embedded playing. Their UI is so much easier on the eyes
and mind than Google Play Music or Apple Music, and I'm very thankful that
they do Linux builds when others like Google Drive can't be bothered.

[1]
[https://github.com/paulyoung/Statusfy](https://github.com/paulyoung/Statusfy)
[2]
[https://github.com/hnarayanan/shpotify](https://github.com/hnarayanan/shpotify)

~~~
brycehamrick
This 100%. My primary interface for navigating Spotify is via Alfred [1] and
the macOS Notification Center [2].

[1] [https://github.com/citelao/Spotify-for-
Alfred](https://github.com/citelao/Spotify-for-Alfred) [2] [https://spotify-
notifications.citruspi.io/](https://spotify-notifications.citruspi.io/)

------
ericabiz
Not just Spotify--Facebook (Business) too.

My primary browser is Chrome, but I decided I wanted to no longer be logged in
on Facebook in Chrome and having my usage tracked. So I used Facebook only in
Safari.

Unfortunately if you visit business.facebook.com in Safari, it tells you it's
an unsupported browser. You can't set up Facebook ad campaigns or even check
your business messages in Safari at all. :(

If anyone from Facebook is reading this, the iOS Facebook Pages app is also
broken. Notifications of new messages to your page don't work after you put a
page in Business Manager in Facebook. It's hugely frustrating.

~~~
kitsunesoba
Have you tried user agent spoofing in Safari for "Chrome only" sites? I do
that and more often than not, these sites are fully functional under Safari.

------
gerad
I don't understand how people are discounting Safari as unused when probably
about half of all web traffic comes from iphone/iPad these days, which only
allows the WebKit rendering engine.

~~~
chimeracoder
> I don't understand how people are discounting Safari as unused when probably
> about half of all web traffic comes from iphone/iPad these days, which only
> allows the WebKit rendering engine.

This is referring specifically to desktop Safari. Spotify already has an iOS
app.

~~~
ricardobeat
They also have a desktop app, so same reasoning applies.

~~~
ad133
From what I gather, it's not the same case here.

Safari is now unsupported because Spotify deprecated their Flash website in
favour of HTML5 + Widevine. Safari doesn't support Widevine, so can't use the
new player. However, Safari on iOS never supported Flash so the old version of
the Spotify player wouldn't have worked either.

------
TekMol
What is a good Spotify alternative if I don't want to deal with DRM at all?

I don't care if it has a gazillion bands and trillions of songs. Or if the big
stars with million dollar marketing budget are on it.

~~~
PascLeRasc
Bandcamp is very good if you don't mind managing media yourself. Nicer for the
artists too.

~~~
TekMol
Nice, thanks! As for managing: I don't want to manage anything. I just want to
click around and listen to music.

------
protomyth
Later on in the comments a user says "Also Firefox ESR v.45.8 (extended
support release) is no longer supported."

------
INTPenis
I switched to Google Play a long time ago and never looked back.

* 50,000 of your own tracks can be uploaded to their cloud and listened to on all your devices.

* Casting

* Essentially all the same artists as on Spotify.

* Use with your all powerful google account.

~~~
coldtea
And dropped at any time when Google is bored with it.

------
chenshuiluke
I'm honestly still bitter about the fact that Spotify is not supported in
Jamaica. Thank God for Deezer.

------
darth_mastah
From web dev perspective Safari is becoming new IE6. CSS3 written to spec,
working fine on anything else including IE11 tends to fail on Safari. I'm sure
I will get a lot of hate from Apple fun boys and girls, but that has been my
and my colleagues' experience recently.

~~~
ChrisLTD
There are edge cases with every browser, but the current situation with non-
Chrome browsers is nothing compared to what it was like supporting IE6.

------
blfr
_In other words, Safari users have no choice but to switch browsers or use the
desktop app._

I understand that/why OP is unhappy but that is a pretty decent choice they
offer here.

------
wwwhatcrack
Safari is the new ie

------
kisstheblade
Safari is a horrible browser, no reason to use it. I hope all sites break on
it.

------
X86BSD
Good riddance. I got so tired of my Spotify account being hacked that this
last time recently I just said enough and moved to Apple Music. I liked
spotify's interface better but their security sucks and they can't seem to
stop user accounts getting hacked. I think their decision to break support
with Safari is a bad move for them, but better for the user. Move to another
service.

------
amelius
Browsers are becoming too complex; this causes problems not only with
compatibility but also with security. We should strip down the functionality
of the browser to the bare essentials, e.g. something like WASM. Everything
else can be implemented in the browser's user-space.

------
StevePerkins
I hear the "Safari is the new IE" catchphrase a lot these days. But serious
answers only please, does anyone know WHY Apple has let its browser go
stagnant?

Is this a deliberate strategic decision (i.e. to drive Apple users toward
native apps?). Or pure Hanlon's razor?

~~~
matwood
> does anyone know WHY Apple has let its browser go stagnant?

First, prove Apple has let it stagnate. Safari continues to improve with every
release. The latest tech preview scores a 459 on the html5 test. The last
released version scored a 419. It's still behind the other major browsers, but
stagnating implies not improving which is clearly not the case.

It might be a better question to ask why hasn't Safari implemented whatever
certain feature you want to use, i.e. service workers.

~~~
et2o
I just got a 409 on Safari 10.1.2 (12603.3.8)

~~~
coldtea
Parent does say "The latest tech preview", notice?

~~~
et2o
Parent does say "the last released version," notice?

~~~
coldtea
That's for 10.2 (the next release version, which is not, er, released yet) as
opposed to the Tech Preview. They list it here:

[https://html5test.com/results/desktop.html](https://html5test.com/results/desktop.html)

