121–130 of 167 posts
For the foreseeable future the only companies that may foster alternatives to the Apple / Google duopoly are Chinese ones. And there is absolutely no way they will be allowed to gain foldhold in the west.
Not really. Firefox and Brave are two great alternatives that suffer due to not being the default browser on most systems, unlike the current duopoly.
On Android I can install Firefox, Edge, other versions of these browsers from f-droid, and many other browsers, all with their own engines. On iPhones, afaik, you can only get Safari, or other browsers that are just a thin wrapper around Safari. That is a huge difference and I hope they know that.
The harsh truth is that you need a properly executed competitor to both iOS and Android. Unfortunately from the open-source and free-software world, there are just too many failures or potentials never being 'realised'.
We saw Firefox OS being cheered all over the place here as an alternative to the mobile device duopoly and it turned out to be a failure due to little to no usage. The same thing with the promising Ubuntu OS and now again we have low usage with the plethora of Linux-based phones. So it seems that the market just does not care, and Mozilla and others are still unable to bring in something viable to compete against the big two.
It is not 'early days' anymore and it may even be almost too late, unless massive amounts of funding gets poured into an alternative. The same thing is happening with smartwatches with Apple again having a 5+ year lead. We've all waited for Mozilla, Servo and others to become useful and they have all underperformed.
I am struggling to get my arms round this I mean, it's not actually about the browser, but let's ignore that. Companies that sell phones choose to install a particular OS. Apple's choice is obvious, for others (99.9%) it's a version of Android. The vast majority of those choose to use Google's ecosystem with its Playstore. Much as I can understand the sentiment, I can't see how it equates to a stranglehold. If others…
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…
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…
> Inability to have non WKWebView type browsers. Safari can do the one it wants, which is Apples choice. This is primarily for privacy and security reasons. One wouldn't want a funny casino app, or the likes of Google or Facebook to hijack people's web access. Another aspect is the user experience - a piece of web content will render exactly the same way anywhere on the system. There is no need for people to be conce…
So we don't buy this as an excuse when government use it to justify searching your house without probable cause or silencing dissent.
But when a private company uses same excuse, somehow are we cool with it?
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?
An investigation that will lead nowhere seeing as there is no alternative. This is what happens when the tech press is cheered on for laughing off anyone that dares to compete with iOS and Android. Yes, I'm still very bitter about the demise of WindowsPhone and PalmOS. Had they been championed a little more the mobile OS landscape would have been much more vibrant and exciting.
PalmOS was a painfully out of date design by the time it got stuck on phones. No amount of regulation was going to solve the clusterfuck of Palm and PalmSource. Nor was regulation going to make Cobalt actually ship and work as advertised.
Regulation also wasn't going to stop Microsoft from screwing up Windows Mobile. After the iPhone's release the WinMo 6.x development was an obvious dead end for licensees. Android was just a better response to iOS than WinMo. Microsoft then knifed the platform moving to 7 giving licensees even less reason to use it. Regulation wasn't going to make companies license a dead end platform.
An OS landscape isn't vibrant or exciting when established players just stop meaningful development or just have a shit vision. Apple showed the multitouch and a soft keyboard could be practical on a mobile device. Palm and Microsoft were stuck iterating a design from 1995. No regulation was going to fix their lack of imagination.
I always want to set Startpage as the default search engine in Safari. But it is impossible unless Apple adds it. Hopefully regulators somehow will make Apple more open in the near future.
[0] https://blog.mojeek.com/2022/05/gatekeepers-of-the-western-w...
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The issue is that the dominant engine developer uses their market position to push their competitors out of the market or to define their own web standards. The former is what happened with IE in the late 1990's. The latter is what is happening with the Blink and V8 engines today. As for 100% compatibility, most people will regard unexpected results as bugs or hindrances then switch to a compatible browser. You may b…
If Apple were forced to allow Chrome on iOS, Chrome's influence would grow even stronger. So why do you think that's an argument against wrappers around Safari?
What I predict would happen is that Apple starts investing heavily in WebKit to compete and Firefox would have a compelling offering there like it does on Android.
Most people would stick with Safari because is is the default and they wouldn't even mostly be aware that it now may be worth switching due to say uBlock Origin. Safari would continue to serve them just fine.
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> Inability to have non WKWebView type browsers. Safari can do the one it wants, which is Apples choice. This is primarily for privacy and security reasons. One wouldn't want a funny casino app, or the likes of Google or Facebook to hijack people's web access. Another aspect is the user experience - a piece of web content will render exactly the same way anywhere on the system. There is no need for people to be conce…
> This is primarily for privacy and security reasons So we don't buy this as an excuse when government use it to justify searching your house without probable cause or silencing dissent. But when a private company uses same excuse, somehow are we cool with it?
At this time there is but one of the FAANG(M) companies that has no commercial use for user data. This is Apple. You can see this reflected well in their products where we see hardware and software services that prioritise on-device processing + strict regulation for app developers not to abuse user trust.