Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple's claim is that it bans other browsers for security

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 593 posts

Re: Apple's claim is that it bans other browsers for security

#51

Post by cute_boi »

jpgvm wrote: post #37
MBCook wrote: post #14

I’m going to ignore the security angle and post my big fear. Chrome has dominance similar to IE at the height of its popularity. Whatever you think of their decisions, Apple is the only thing stopping a 90%+ Chrome web. (Note: not why they’re doing it, just a side effect) People keep arguing Apple is being anti-competitive. But no one seems to recon with the possible consequences of what they’re asking for. And I fea…

I don't think the IE comparison is apt. IE shipped on (almost) every machine, had a ton of lock in features like ActiveX, etc. MS actively abused their monopoly position to make it so preventing default installation of Netscape by OEMs, incentivising ISVs to ensure web based enterprise products shipped with "Works best in Internet Explorer" etc. Netscape lost market share to IE not because it lost users but because w…

Chrome is installed by default in android. The choice won't be preferred choice if website starts to put message like "Works best with Google Chrome".

Re: Apple's claim is that it bans other browsers for security

#52

Post by judge2020 »

bogwog wrote: post #42
xrisk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fwiw: the App Store also prohibits JITed code or in general code pulled in after app publishing. I guess the idea is that (at least in theory) that Apple sees all code that an app runs.

I suspect that has more to do with preventing an App Store competitor than security. Apps are completely sandboxed on iOS, and there's no way in hell Apple is auditing every app on the store in any meaningful way.

> A testing tool called Mercury runs through static and dynamic analysis processes, with the tool allowing Apple to see inside apps to check for hidden code or abuse, and there are other review tools that Apple has nicknamed "Magellan" and "Columbus." After automated testing, apps receive human oversight.

> Dynamic testing includes everything from battery usage to file system access and privacy requests to access device hardware like the camera and microphone, while static analysis checks app size, entitlements, in-app purchases, keywords, descriptions, and more.

> In 2015, Apple discussed acquiring SourceDNA, a company that made a tool to allow companies to see the code inside apps. Apple did end up purchasing the company and using its engineers to design a new tool for app oversight.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-rejected-approxim...

Re: Apple's claim is that it bans other browsers for security

#53

Post by mtomweb »

judge2020 wrote: post #36
mtomweb wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They allow Wechat and Alipay to pull in code after publishing (See Mini-Apps). Regardless there's no evidence that Safari would do a better job at protecting user's security than Firefox or Chrome/Edge.

Based on this video[0], it looks like "mini-apps" are just webviews, as everything is either .js, .css, or .wxml (html). Thus, anything that integrates with WeChat or system APIs is going through some API within the wechat binary itself which allows Apple's static analysis to inspect the API usage during App Store review. 0: https://youtu.be/cOm9XKga7l0

Ish. There's bridges to native functions and there are a lot of functions.

For example you can write a mini-app that connects to bluetooth. It's essentially loading dynamic code that bridges to native code.

Re: Apple's claim is that it bans other browsers for security

#54

Post by spideymans »

MBCook wrote: post #14

I’m going to ignore the security angle and post my big fear. Chrome has dominance similar to IE at the height of its popularity. Whatever you think of their decisions, Apple is the only thing stopping a 90%+ Chrome web. (Note: not why they’re doing it, just a side effect) People keep arguing Apple is being anti-competitive. But no one seems to recon with the possible consequences of what they’re asking for. And I fea…

Often times idealic and well-intentioned measure have negative consequences. Just look at how the EU's cookie banners have eroded the UX of the open web as an example.

Re: Apple's claim is that it bans other browsers for security

#55

Post by smoldesu »

cute_boi wrote: post #51
jpgvm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the IE comparison is apt. IE shipped on (almost) every machine, had a ton of lock in features like ActiveX, etc. MS actively abused their monopoly position to make it so preventing default installation of Netscape by OEMs, incentivising ISVs to ensure web based enterprise products shipped with "Works best in Internet Explorer" etc. Netscape lost market share to IE not because it lost users but because w…

Chrome is installed by default in android. The choice won't be preferred choice if website starts to put message like "Works best with Google Chrome".

Websites already have to do that, because Safari still lacks a number of web technologies that get picked up faster on Chrome and Firefox.

Re: Apple's claim is that it bans other browsers for security

#56

Post by nemothekid »

bad_good_guy wrote: post #50
MBCook wrote: post #14

I’m going to ignore the security angle and post my big fear. Chrome has dominance similar to IE at the height of its popularity. Whatever you think of their decisions, Apple is the only thing stopping a 90%+ Chrome web. (Note: not why they’re doing it, just a side effect) People keep arguing Apple is being anti-competitive. But no one seems to recon with the possible consequences of what they’re asking for. And I fea…

So, you are happy to have Apple provide no user choice, because you fear a future where there is no user choice?

No; my problem is when people are using the "open web" as a bludgeon to get Apple to allow Chrome on iOS. If you want Chrome on iOS, just say that. To pretend that there is open future of browser diversity once Chrome is allowed on iOS is underhanded.

Re: Apple's claim is that it bans other browsers for security

#57

Post by smoldesu »

mtomweb wrote: post #45
MBCook wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be 60% on MacOS but that’s a very tiny market. Overall Chrome is quite dominant. Numbers I found say on desktop Chrome is at 70%. Include the 7.75% for Edge (because it’s basically Chrome) and that’s almost 80%. FF at least exists and is similar to Safari. On mobile it’s at 65%. Safari is the only other browser above 5%. Chrome is dangerously close to total monopoly.

MacOS is the only market Safari actually competes in and has the same advantage by being the default. I would actually expect the most likely outcome is Apple would fight hard to build a better browser to stem any losses to other browsers. They'll have at least 2 years to do it, so they can catch up in that time with enough investment.

They definitely have the capital to make it happen. Every time I boot up Safari after a MacOS update, I'm consistently wowed by how little of their revenue actually goes in to making a comfortable, feature-complete browser. It's almost like you're using a different, nerfed internet with Safari, but maybe that's just me being angry that uBlock Origin doesn't work anymore.

Re: Apple's claim is that it bans other browsers for security

#58

Post by _kbh_ »

mtomweb wrote: post #9
iasay wrote: post #2

It depends how you look at it and this twitter post takes only one perspective. Mine is different. The security I'm interested in for my use case is that there is one egress point from the operating system as far as a browser goes. That means I don't have apps shipping their own browser engines to circumvent the system block lists and screen time whitelist controls. Also comparing CVE rates is pointless as that's exp…

OP here. The point of the post was not that Safari's security is bad (browser security in general is pretty excellent), the point is that Apple uses security as an excuse to block competition and has no evidence that it's browser is more secure than Firefox/Chrome/Edge etc. As for system block lists and screentime whitelist controls, that sounds like something any browser could plug-in to via a OS provided API. I'm i…

Should browsers that ship to iOS have to raise their security profile to be the same as safari in your scenarios?.(afaik no browsers have the same exploit mitigations that safari does on M1/iOS because nothing else has the hardware to support these mitigations).

Re: Apple's claim is that it bans other browsers for security

#59

Post by agust »

MBCook wrote: post #28
mtomweb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safari still has around 60% on MacoS and all the normal users believe that there is browser competition now. At best it's speculation, but we can compare that to the very real harms of Apple's browser ban. We've written about the harms in detail here: https://open-web-advocacy.org/files/OWA%20-%20Bringing%20Com...

It may be 60% on MacOS but that’s a very tiny market. Overall Chrome is quite dominant. Numbers I found say on desktop Chrome is at 70%. Include the 7.75% for Edge (because it’s basically Chrome) and that’s almost 80%. FF at least exists and is similar to Safari. On mobile it’s at 65%. Safari is the only other browser above 5%. Chrome is dangerously close to total monopoly.

The size of macOS market is not relevant for the point being made here. What matters is that macOS is very similar to iOS in that it is owned by Apple, Safari is available on it, and comes pre-installed. The only difference is that on macOS browser competition is not banned by Apple. Yet, Safari still has around 60% market share on macOS.

So there is a good chance that even if competition where allowed on iOS, Safari, which currently has more than 90% market share, would at the very least not fall down below 60%, preventing Chrome from becoming dominant. It is even more likely because most users on iOS actually believe they can install the real Chrome, so nothing will change in their eyes.

Re: Apple's claim is that it bans other browsers for security

#60

Post by Narretz »

MBCook wrote: post #14

I’m going to ignore the security angle and post my big fear. Chrome has dominance similar to IE at the height of its popularity. Whatever you think of their decisions, Apple is the only thing stopping a 90%+ Chrome web. (Note: not why they’re doing it, just a side effect) People keep arguing Apple is being anti-competitive. But no one seems to recon with the possible consequences of what they’re asking for. And I fea…

On the other hand, actual browser choice for iOS will force Apple into improving Safari at a faster rate. This is good competition.
Post reply on HN