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

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

#191

Post by thewebcount »

mtomweb wrote: post #155
freediver wrote: post #140

@dang The title is misleading. Apple is not banning other browsers (there are over 100+ browsers on iOS). Apple is restricting iOS browsers to using the WebKit rendering engine which is an entirely different matter. Edit: Apple is also not claiming what the title suggests (source would be needed), the author of the tweet seems to just interpret it this way.

It's not misleading. Firefox, Edge and Chrome have all been banned on iOS. Instead Apple has forced them to produce separate browsers around a locked WebView that they exclusively control. Mozilla, Microsoft and Google have all spoken out against the ban in regulatory submission, and browser engineers at each vendor consider it a ban. The REAL browsers have been banned.

> Firefox, Edge and Chrome have all been banned on iOS.

No they haven't! You can download each one here: [0], [1], [2]. They have been forbidden from using their own rendering engines. But they can still add all the chrome they want to the UI and do all their usual tracking like they do on the desktop.

[0]https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-browser/... [1]https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-edge-web-browser/id1... [2]https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome/id535886823

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

#192

Post by mtomweb »

CharlesW wrote: post #151
theturtletalks wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, people still had the decision to download Chrome even if it was advertised heavily. Apple forces Safari on all their iOS users since all the browsers have to use WebKit.

> Apple forces Safari on all their iOS users… Lots of people use non-Safari browsers on iOS (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Brave, DuckDuckGo), and iOS lets you choose your default browser. I know you know Safari WebKit, but 99.99% of users don't know or care about the plumbing.

All the real browsers have been banned. Ask any browser vendor. The rest are basically Safari skins.

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

#193

Post by CharlesW »

warning26 wrote: post #178
CharlesW wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox, Edge and Chrome have all been banned on iOS. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-private-safe-browser/i... https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-edge-web-browser/id1... https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome/id535886823 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brave-private-web-browser/id10... https://apps.apple.com/us/app/duckduckgo-privacy-browser/id6... https://apps.apple.com/us/app/opera-browser-fast-pri…

All of these are Safari skins. If you really want your Safari to look like Firefox then you're fine, but if you'd like to actually use Firefox you're out of luck.

That's like saying all DAWs are skins of CoreAudio. Also, it assumes that Firefox's only value is Gecko.

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

#194

Post by Melatonic »

lucasyvas wrote: post #95
MBCook wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The chips will fall as they will and we will all be left to deal with the aftermath The aftermath could be the complete death of the open web. Unwinding that may be nearly impossible. There needs to be a plan in place before Pandora’s box is opened.

The death of the open web as we currently know it could lead to an even better successor over time though. We just can't know if the current hill is worth dying on - it may be for future generations to solve. Short term, it's decidedly not good, but long term? How can we know? If the approach is so inherently flawed that this result is an inevitability, maybe it deserves to die and be replaced by something else.

Anything COULD happen - I think it is pretty clear people here have an understanding of what would happen

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

#195

Post by dcow »

nemothekid wrote: post #189
dcow wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole chrome fetish thing you've got is actually the issue. Everyone thinks "there is only Chrome" so in a sense we all deceive ourselves. I don't know a single person anymore who uses Chrome. Maybe you do but that's not really the point. If you don't want a Chrome hegemony then don't fool yourself into thinking there is one and don't proliferate that ideology. Tell your product people that NO, you're not going…

> I don't know a single person anymore who uses Chrome. I find this very hard to believe. Everyone you know uses Firefox?

And Safari and Brave and Edge (so some use Blink).

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

#196

Post by stale2002 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #127
freedomben wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. can you imagine if Microsoft had made it so that IE was the only browser you were allowed to install on Windows so you couldn't install Netscape even if you wanted to?

This would have been fine if Windows wasn't 95+% of desktop computer market share at the time. The regulatory argument was that Microsoft was abusing their desktop OS monopoly to give themselves an unfair advantage in another market (browsers). By contrast iOS is ~50% of mobile OS market share (in the US, I think it's less elsewhere). Hardly a monopoly. If using a different mobile browser is important to you, there's…

> Hardly a monopoly

The specific term here would be duopoly.

And a duopoly still has a large ability to engage in anti-competitive practices that harm the market.

50% of a market is with the realm where you can cause significant harm to competition.

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

#197

Post by Melatonic »

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…

Lets face it - IE always just sucked. A lot. Whereas Chrome does not. Here on HN we might rail on it mainly for ideological reasons but the user experience is pretty solid. This is coming from a Firefox user.

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

#198

Post by danShumway »

robertoandred wrote: post #120
smoldesu wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are plenty of ad blockers for Safari, not sure what nerfed experience you're referring to.

This has been debated to death, but there are no ad blockers on Safari that will work as well as uBlock Origin, because Safari doesn't have all of the APIs/hooks exposed that would be necessary to implement uBlock Origin's more advanced features.

It's the same problem that developers were talking about with Chrome's Manifest V3 -- to the point where popular adblockers for Safari like Adguard actually run outside of the browser so that they're not quite as limited as they otherwise would be by Safari's apis.

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

#199

Post by stjohnswarts »

mtomweb wrote: post #74
nemothekid wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OP here. That's actually incorrect. We started OWA with a group of primarily Safari first developers, in that iOS Safari is our primary target platform. We've had over a decade of major issues from rendering bugs, to lack of functionality to our apps breaking for months at a time waiting for a patch. The severe underfunding of Safari/webkit coupled with a ban on competition meant that it was never going to be viable…

Why do I care if developing in Safari is hard for developers? If iOS opens up to chrome, it's game over for any kind of competition in the mobile browser war. Google will take over web standards and the death of the old republic will be complete. Android is your answer if you don't want Safari.

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

#200

Post by mtomweb »

CharlesW wrote: post #193
warning26 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of these are Safari skins. If you really want your Safari to look like Firefox then you're fine, but if you'd like to actually use Firefox you're out of luck.

That's like saying all DAWs are skins of CoreAudio. Also, it assumes that Firefox's only value is Gecko.

Quote:

Mozilla believes that major platforms should be under an on-going duty to:

Stop practices that distort competition on the merits and inhibit consumer choice, such as: ● interfering with consumer selection of alternative browsers and use of those browsers to access the internet from links and queries on their devices; and ● dictating or controlling browser components, such as browser engines, which prevent consumers from accessing and using their preferred browser across all operating systems and devices.

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