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Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

theguardian.com

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Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#101

Post by capableweb »

FreqSep wrote: post #99
skohan wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Access to NFC is a huge one. This has a ton of use-cases in for instance IoT and smart home, and Apple limiting access prevents a lot of innovation in that space which might compete with their offering. Another example is Apple's privileged access to your wifi credentials. Basically this means if you want to share wifi access via your app, as you might want to do in setting up an IoT device, this is only possible if…

Are IoT and Smart Home actually *that* huge?

Bypassing if it is or not, how could we ever know how big it is if Apple is stopping anyone from even trying?

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#102

Post by jeroenhd »

throwaway4good wrote: post #12

What are you going to do about it? A symbolic fine? There are no alternatives.

Apple has budget to the requirement for allowing alternative payment methods in dating apps for the Dutch market following a lawsuit and racking up a noncompliance fine they'll now need to pay anyway.

These regulatory bodies can and often do have an effect on large corporations if the punishment for ignoring them is set high enough.

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#103

Post by zahma »

neximo64 wrote: post #25

It's interesting to hear Apple always talk about the level playing field they've tried to create. From within the company i think they really believe they've got a level playing field. But then Apple has apps that can do much more than everyone else has access to, in ways that have nothing to do with security or privacy. - Apps access to NFC (e.g Apple Pay vs you being able to make your own nfc card) - Inability to h…

Doesn’t NFC work just fine for most third parties? I have various cards that all work for payment, including a third party credit card (ie. not Apple Pay), mass transit pass, a student card which has payment functionality in addition to key card access to doors. I guess Apple still has final say-so, so an individual can’t create an NFC for her home, or is this possible now? Then again, when it comes to zero-knowledge, do you really want Apple knowing when you open and close your doors? From a privacy perspective this is a double-edged sword.

The browser for me is still an issue. I know the question is more broad, but if Firefox could run natively on iOS, I’d feel substantially better about Apple’s promise to be more privacy-oriented. I don’t expect their platform to have zero telemetry, but it is larger projects like this that speak volumes to me because that indicates they at least entertain the notion of privacy for people who care enough to try to opt out of tracking (versus the many many individuals who are unaware or don’t care).

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#104

Post by skohan »

FreqSep wrote: post #99
skohan wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Access to NFC is a huge one. This has a ton of use-cases in for instance IoT and smart home, and Apple limiting access prevents a lot of innovation in that space which might compete with their offering. Another example is Apple's privileged access to your wifi credentials. Basically this means if you want to share wifi access via your app, as you might want to do in setting up an IoT device, this is only possible if…

Are IoT and Smart Home actually *that* huge?

It's a massive example of how Apple inserts themselves as a toll collector on an entire industry which they are largely unrelated to.

Let me pose it to you this way: if you are developing an IoT product, the only way to have a UX competitive with Apple's own offerings is to pay them a toll on every device you sell. In return, you get a couple dozen bytes of data Apple prevents other apps from accessing.

Does that sound like anti-trust regulation is operating as it should?

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#105

Post by jeroenhd »

scarface74 wrote: post #32
capableweb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On iOS, it is about the browser, as Apple is acting anti-competitive by not allowing any other browser engines but their own. Browser makers can't compete with Safari by making a faster browser for example, because they won't be able to deploy it on iOS device. All applications go through the App Store, and the App Store forbids any browser engines not made by Apple. Regarding the app stores, it seems like lawmakers…

Does that include consoles and smart TVs?

If definitely should in my opinion, though legislation seems to fall behind there because the tight grip on hardware has been there for decades now.

Although, I don't see any technical reason why Google wouldn't be able to put Chrome on Xbox and PlayStation. Nintendo is very browser averse (probably because every time they stick a browser in something it's full of holes and leads to jailbreaks).

Hopefully, the Steam Deck will open people's eyes at what could be. So far its sales don't seem to be dropping off.

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#106

Post by Thlom »

jeroenhd wrote: post #98
MthN wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This website works only in Chrome" or "Please download chrome to continue" might become common occurrence on Safari iOS forcing people to stick to Chrome on iOS

Haven't seen any of those on Android so far, so I don't see why they would appear for iOS. Hell, I've barely even seen websites do that on desktop (Microsoft Teams being a notable problematic web app here) and I'm on Linux+Firefox. The only real exceptions so far have been applications that choose not to support Firefox because of its abysmal market share. It's often easy to find working alternatives for those, thoug…

I've been using Safari privately almost exclusively for 15 years. Most everything works OK, but I keep Chrome around mainly because Unifi web management doesn't work in Safari (it might work now, it's been a while since I tested).

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#107

Post by duncanc4 »

TekMol wrote: post #33

Is there a mobile browser for iOS that supports uBlock Origin? On my Laptop, I get no YouTube ads. It seems uBlock Origin removes them. On my iPad, I get YouTube ads in an unbearable frequency. It seems there is no solution for this? How is the situation on Android?

Use Yattee, it blocks ads and improves your privacy.

I have a developer account and just resign their ipas to install it. Looks like you could install it via TestFlight as well.

https://github.com/yattee/yattee

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#108

Post by daviddever23box »

tgv wrote: post #61
nixass wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's literally crap and lacks features. See Firefox on Android, compare it to iOS and update your post

That's an absurd statement. I have an Android tablet, and Firefox on that is definitely less agreeable than on iOS. The way it handles tabs, searches, private windows, and data settings, are all inferior on Android. It does have more extensions.

The only thing I need from Firefox on iOS is the ability to sync bookmarks and browser history, while providing some degree of sandboxing from the usual intrusions. What I DON’T need is multiple (versions of) sub-par browser engines, which this effort doesn’t seem to address: give me singletons of Gecko, Blink, and Webkit, each optimized for the platform in question.

Even then, from a technical perspective, I’m not so certain that there’s ANY benefit to the user; I’d rather see some headway made on wasm3 support than to let Brussels or London dictate architectural considerations.

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#109

Post by Thlom »

adrr wrote: post #90
agust wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extremely unlikely: browsers are not banned to use their own engine on macOS, and yet Safari is dominant there with around 60% market share. The fact that people think that tells a lot about the quality of Safari: "if people could use the real Chrome, they would all ditch Safari right away". That may lead you to wonder why Safari is so bad, considering the infinite funds Apple has? Perhaps is it because Apple has bee…

What percentage of that 60% is because safari is the only browser on IOS? I use safari on Mac because it has all more passwords as 90% of my web browsing is on my phone. With auto generated passwords it forces me to use safari.

You can use 1Password or other password managers. At least 1password works like a charm on both mac and iPhone across browsers just as good as keychain.

Re: Apple and Google’s mobile browser ‘stranglehold’ may face UK investigation

#110

Post by 7steps2much »

hbko wrote: post #84
infinityio wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A third aspect is actually very helpful to developers - you can count on 100% of the APIs you intent to use being available on the system's web browser, creating in-app experiences significantly easier (and cheaper) to develop. This would still be true in the case where external web browsers were allowed - you can still rely on Webkit being available on all phones, but if you need access to APIs not provided by app…

Not if the user chooses a different default browser. I doubt all the Chromium clones would evenly support "normal" iOS integrations, and the ability to (privately) deal with, for example, universal links, App Clips, or even that banner offering a website visitor to use the native app. I understand the sentiment for wanting to use custom features on desktop, but a phone needs to be much more reliable than this - you c…

> or even that banner offering a website visitor to use the native app.

This is something that works just fine for me over on Android, in Firefox mobile. Actually, i assume that the mobile browsers would offer all of these capabilities, assuming apple allows access to, and documents their apis appropriately.

Why is it that we somehow defend apple having proprietary/exclusive Apis that nobody else has as good? It's essentially the same game as it was with internet explorer.

I think if apple just opened up their eco system the other browsers would support these features before long, or app developers would include them in their apps instead of relying on browsers.

It's not like apple is the only one with capable engineers, they just stop everyone else from using their stuff to the fullest

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