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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

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 sh…

Do you understand that you are spouting conspiracy theory brain poison? Feel free to debate the end result. If you presume motive, you can be proven wrong.

> Do you understand that you are spouting conspiracy theory brain poison?

Why don't you actually refute the points they made instead? If it's so obviously "conspiracy theory brain poison"

Webkit quite literally has 100% market-share on the iOS platform, as no other browser engine is even allowed. Same goes for the App Store, 100% market-share.

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

#342
post #149
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…

> This is what I was talking about. There will only be one result to opening iOS and it scares me. Why? Does Apple not have the resources to build a competitive browser? Do they not have the motivation? Do they not have the engineering skills? Do they not have a large and extremely desirable user-base who prefer to stay as much as possible in Apple's ecosystem? Given all the advantages Apple has, how could it possibl…

> Does Apple not have the resources to build a competitive browser?…

They do. They did. It’s called Safari. That’s how we got here.

What they DON’T have is any care about Windows/Linux/Android users. Apple makes their browser to make their platform the way they like.

If you want Apple to provide the competitive alternate browser on other platforms you’re asking the wrong company.

> Given all the advantages Apple has, how could it possibly be true that they can only get users by literally banning all competition on their main platform?

Google pushes Chrome with the #1 OS in the world (Android). With the #1 site, google.com. And the #2, YouTube.com. And gmail. And Google Maps. Maybe Waze. Chrome OS. GSuite.

They have an INSANE amount of power to push people to Chrome and off other browsers.

I’m not arguing pro-Apple. I’m arguing anti-Google.

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

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IE wasn’t stopped with legislation. It continued to be bundled with Windows. It was eventually dethroned by Chrome.

One could argue the successful legal action against IE bundling stopped Microsoft from further entrenching it in Windows. With Edge in Windows 10/11 you can see the kind of nudges that Microsoft probably wanted to add all along.

And now this topic is full of people defending this exact entrenchment by dictat from Apple.

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

#344
My TV appliance does not support other browsers; must every appliance be open and support multiple competing browsers? Is there some rational boundary where the appliance can be shipped and just work as it was designed, and not have to support everybody's choice of software? If there exist too many limitations without work arounds, why buy it?

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

#345
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple Safari has, literally, 100% marketshare across the entire iPhone market. Its App Store also has 100% marketshare and enforces the Safari marketshare. And that’s the big difference between Safari dominance and IE at the time. Safari is only on iOS/iPadOS dominant not in the entire market like IE was

There was no mobile at the time .

It’s not about mobile or desktop, it’s about marketshare. So just all devices.

IE had a nearly 100 % percent marketshare and Safari is far away from 100 % marketshare.

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

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A semantic nitpick that is totally irrelevant. Most people on this website usually mean Gecko when they say they want to use Firefox.

Really? You mean people don't use Firefox because: - it protects what's important - you can "Personalize your experience with new colorways." - has Facebook Container - syncs across your devices Mozilla knows the actual engine isn't the deciding factor when trying to get people to change browsers. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

The colorways were an antifeature to me (seriously what's the point of introducing a feature when you're already planning to drop it 2 months later) and I'm still waiting for real containers on mobile (the fb one is useless to me as I don't use Facebook) but the other features yeah they're great

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

#347
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…

Actually that’s how the system is supposed to work: Let Chrome become a monopoly so that we can finally regulate it. The same thing happened with IE and we crossed that bridge when the time came. Apple needs to open up their ecosystem to other browsers. This is not a suitable excuse.

I would argue Chrome is already a de facto monopoly.

So why do we need to make things worse to make them better?

Let’s make them better (fix the Chrome issue) and then make them better again (the Safari issue) instead of the other way around.

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

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IEs biggest problem isn't market domination, its hindering the entire web, and pushing proprietary stuff. Safari is one of the worst browsers in terms of compatibility, like PWAs and notifications, they are unsupported on purpose to push developer to develop apps and give apple a cut. And when they do adopt new technologies, they are often super late like webp. Please die WebKit.

Safari supports everything in PWA (which is a non-existent thing, but a dozen standards in a trenchcoat) except notifications. By "compatibility" you mean "support all of the Chrome's no n-standards it pushes at breaking speed"?

> except notifications.

Which is THE single selling points that brings everyone to make 2 native apps instead of one URL. It hs been available on Android for a decade, and is still undetermined when it will actually land in iOS.

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

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not Apple's choice to make on whether or not Chrome becomes a browser monopoly - fighting anti-competitiveness with anti-competitiveness is not a solution. The chips will fall as they will and we will all be left to deal with the aftermath. That's the way it has to be.

> The chips will fall as they will This is how we end up with the death of uBlock origin (in a few months from now) on January 2023. Firefox has resisted this thus far but I am pretty sure Google will eventually twist their arms enough to either kill it, or at the very least _severely_ handicap it. Google is a threat to the open web, it needs to be heavily regulated and punished for all its despicable behaviors: from…

Correct me if I'm wrong but Safari already does, and long has done, the thing that people are objecting to Chrome changing: not allowing extensions to just hook into and pre-block requests, instead only allowing limited patterns to be set and matched against. uBlock Origin hasn't been available on Safari since it made this change several years ago.

So I don't know that seeing Safari as a bulwark against Chrome really makes sense here.

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

#350
post #211

I'm really confused. I actively use Firefox as my default browser on my iPhone running iOS 15.5. I don't think Apple has banned other browsers at all.

It's basically a skin for Apple WebKit because Apple doesn't allow browsers to use their own engine.

I guess the question becomes are Firefox and Safari (on iOS) the same browser, or different? I would still argue that Firefox is different (in the same way that Brave and Chrome are different), and that this title is misleading.
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