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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

#251

Post by gunapologist99 »

nicce wrote: post #137
jacooper wrote: post #77

Apple claiming security as a reason for monopoly, how classic. The EU's digital markets act bans the only Safari lock on IOS, so this is gone whether apple likes it or not. (1 - sorry couldn't find a better source) Safari is the new IE, there is a difference between a monopoly while still being able to use a competing product (like chrome in other platfroms), and forcing Safari(WebKit) while hindering the web because…

> Safari is the new IE, there is a difference between a monopoly while still being able to use a competing product (like chrome in other platfroms), and forcing Safari(WebKit) while hindering the web because of Apples interests.(2-3) Ehm. Chrome is the new IE. Apple is using anti-competitive methods but its far far away from market domination. Microsoft is doing even more, by pushing so much Edge-only stuff. On iOS A…

> Apple is using anti-competitive methods but its far far away from market domination.

Apple Safari has, literally, 100% marketshare across the entire iPhone market. Its App Store also has 100% marketshare and enforces the Safari marketshare.

I have an iPhone 13 Pro Max. I love the hardware, but I'd love to install other browsers; why can't I? I'd also love to run real PWA's or run WebRTC without major issues. Why shouldn't I be able to do these things?

Apple enforces its own browser, which it carefully and deliberately hamstrings, in order to force web apps to not bypass the App Store, so Safari also enforces the App Store marketshare.

They're tightly tied together (so tight that the Windows-IE tying isn't even in the same galaxy) in order to enforce the other's marketshare. At least Microsoft allowed third party browsers and installing apps from other locations. This is tying on a completely different level.

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

#252

Post by scratcheee »

briandear wrote: post #218
echelon wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most desktop computer users are able to use Firefox Desktop-using software engineers can write software for desktop users in a ton of different ways. There's so much freedom and there exist multiple mechanisms and platforms to deploy your code. Desktop-using software engineers are not free to choose how to deploy software to mobile audiences. They've got to go through Apple to reach 50+% of the US market. Apple set…

> Apple sets unreasonable rules. How? As a user I’m able to do the things I want with reasonable guarantees of privacy and security. Most developers that release iOS software seem to be doing ok with those “unreasonable” rules. And the user benefits. If I wanted Android, I would have bought Android. I bought Apple specifically because I see value as a user to those unreasonable rules.

>Most developers that release iOS software seem to be doing ok with those “unreasonable” rules.

Surely given survivorship bias that means very little though?

If you did a survey today of living people you'd discover a 0% death rate, clearly humans are immortal.

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

#253

Post by noisem4ker »

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.

The nerfed experience of addons only specifying a significantly limited list of blocking rules, giving up being able to autonomously allow or deny each request with arbitrary parameters, surrogate scripts (replacing the original, tracking ones with privacy-friendly reimplementations) and cosmetically alter the webpage (e.g. fixing the layout with missing ads).

Partial source: https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/158

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

#254

Post by nneonneo »

cowtools wrote: post #70
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.

I want Firefox on iOS, and I want Tor Browser on iOS, and I want Lynx on iOS, and I want wget on iOS, and I want youtube-dl on iOS, and I want to run whatever the hell I damn well please on iOS. Underhanded? It's pretty clear that your stated goals don't align with your real goals here. Edit: I have a hard time putting into words why your arguments seem so deceptive to me. It is like whataboutism: the arguments you a…

As far as youtube-dl goes, you can run that on iOS via a Python interpreter such as Pythonista: https://gist.github.com/nneonneo/f6b2d659ba76542e7d27e13598a...

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

#255

Post by pdpi »

googlryas wrote: post #240
cute_boi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

No it isn't - that is a choice made by phone vendors to include it, but they are perfectly free to ship their phones with firefox, or opera, or no browser at all. The android OS has no knowledge of chrome and it doesn't get any special handling or abilities like iOS/Safari.

The Android OS has no knowledge of Chrome, but AIUI the licencing for Play Services basically forces you into installing it

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

#256

Post by entropicdrifter »

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.

Short term, the death of the open web will likely mean many real-world human deaths, because censorship by oppressive regimes becomes far simpler the fewer options people have (or are aware of) for methods to access the open web.

In my head the flowchart looks like this: Closed/censored web only -> People giving up hope/being caught trying to escape oppression -> increased human suffering and untimely death

I'll agree with what you're saying about long-term consequences, but you could argue the same thing about the death of nations/states, couldn't you? And how many times in history have nations collapsed without periods of wanton destruction and looting due to the power vacuum?

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

#257

Post by hnov »

amelius wrote: post #6

So they are saying that they can't make a secure sandbox? Why is running other applications somehow secure?

I think iOS makes use of NX bits such that for your vanilla app, the executable pages aren't writable and writable pages aren't executable. Historically, this resulted in WebViews not having JS JIT which severely impacted performance. Apple later came out with WKWebView which underneath the covers runs the browser engine as a standalone process which is able to write executable memory and thus able to JIT JS.

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

#258

Post by mikedelago »

marricks wrote: post #250
m-p-3 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, this denies me from using an actual Mozilla Firefox web browser on iOS. Imposing an artificial limit on iOS isn't how the web will move forward. > Whatever you think of their decisions, Apple is the only thing stopping a 90%+ Chrome web. I don't see Apple making any effort to diversify the browser ecosystem by making their browser available on other operating systems, so their inaction on other fro…

No one is using Firefox on mobile so it’s good for you, but not web on the whole. Also while an independent entity having a larger presence is better than Apple at least Apple having a large market share makes Google need to consider what happens in safari before they do something particularly shady with web standards

I use Firefox on Android, it works great.

Desktop-based extensions integrate pretty seamlessly, which I love

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

#259

Post by frumper »

agust wrote: post #122
MBCook wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The answer is competition There is no competition . There is only Chrome. This is what I was talking about. There will only be one result to opening iOS and it scares me. FF/Opera are too small. Edge is small and really just Chrome anyway. If we had a healthy browser market I’d be fine. But we don’t. Apple is, for the wrong reason, the only thing keeping us from total Chrome dominance. I want one of these “just ope…

Chrome is competition, and no, it's not alone: on the desktop market, where competition is not rigged as much as on mobile, Edge has 10% market share, and Firefox 7.5%. It's not insignificant. > I want one of these “just open iOS” calls to include the consequences of what they’re calling for and how they plan to deal with it. OWA has taken into account anti-competitive practices used by Google to gain browser market…

If you're taking the approach that iOS browsers are just re-skinned safari, then Edge doesn't count as it's own browser on desktop.

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

#260

Post by nneonneo »

agust wrote: post #122
MBCook wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The answer is competition There is no competition . There is only Chrome. This is what I was talking about. There will only be one result to opening iOS and it scares me. FF/Opera are too small. Edge is small and really just Chrome anyway. If we had a healthy browser market I’d be fine. But we don’t. Apple is, for the wrong reason, the only thing keeping us from total Chrome dominance. I want one of these “just ope…

Chrome is competition, and no, it's not alone: on the desktop market, where competition is not rigged as much as on mobile, Edge has 10% market share, and Firefox 7.5%. It's not insignificant. > I want one of these “just open iOS” calls to include the consequences of what they’re calling for and how they plan to deal with it. OWA has taken into account anti-competitive practices used by Google to gain browser market…

Those recommendations are weak sauce. Websites are going to say stuff like “works best in Chrome!” and Google is going to encourage that. Nothing in those recommendations, assuming they’re even adopted, will solve that.
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