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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

#422

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…

Apple makes 100% of the OS options available to iDevices, and 100% of all devices that run iOS.

They also control 100% of the OSes that run iOS applications, and allow iOS purchases to be redeemed.

That sounds a lot like a monopoly to me.

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

#423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It won't, they want to push you to make an app no matter what.

I bet

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

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since when did having a trillion dollars guarantee success? So then your answer is that Apple's browser is significantly worse than competitors, and that users wouldn't use this much worse product if it were not for Apples anti-competitive behavior? > But to pretend this is about the "browser diversity > Just say you want Chrome I think most open web supporters would be a lot happier if Apple even simply allowed Fi…

> So then your answer is that Apple's browser is significantly worse than competitors, and that users wouldn't use this much worse product if it were not for Apples anti-competitive behavior? Yes. I hope it's exceedingly clear that I don't think Safari is God's gift to mankind. > Are you saying that all someone would have to do is argue for allowing just Firefox Yes. In fact they could be upfront and just say "just a…

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

#425
post #119

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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…

>I don't see Apple making any effort to diversify the browser ecosystem by making their browser available on other operating systems... What about Webkit?

Not sure average individual can take webkit source and turn it into a browser.

Forcing users to a prebuilt Webkit, that they cannot change is definitely not the same.

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

#426
post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not the same, because Safari is already a minority in the market compared to the Chrome behemoth.

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

#427
post #325

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So Safari and Chromium and Chromium. I'm not sure who the one here is deceiving themselves.

Chromium != Chrome. We're talking about some world where Google Chrome takes over everything not where Chromium derivatives compete with Google Chrome for browser market share based on features and merits. That latter outcome defeats the "chrome hegemony" which is what the person I initially responded to is complaining about.

Through this logic, iOS already allows firefox etc to run on its platform, if Firefox != Gecko.

except the issue here is the rendering engine and who controls in at the top level.

I don’t wanna live in the world we’re 90% of the Internet only supports chromium, yet everything from Edge to Opera use it now. Firefox and Safari the last holdouts keeping google from dominating all web standards.

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

#428

A few random thoughts: • There's a place for closed platforms if open ones are a reasonable choice. A closed platform must not be the only choice available to the customer, but it should be allowed to exist given a healthy market. It's hard to argue that iOS is a monopoly, and if so, than a browser engine and JS interpreter with access to the open web is a very powerful thing that the owner of the platform may deem t…

Don't you believe that the physical owner of a device should be entitled to complete control of the code that is executed in it? This goes beyond business models.

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

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to stats from GitHub, 12% of their traffic is from Firefox. 3x more than Safari. https://github.blog/2022-06-10-how-we-think-about-browsers/ Of course this is just part of the story. In every country it's different. In some EU countries Firefox is up to 20%. In UK it's almost non-existent. Local markets shape the browser support. If a few major websites are too lazy to support a browser properly, users will…

GitHub visitors are definitely not a representative sample of the web browsing public.

No post body was provided.

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

#430
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple/iOS is not the only mobile platform.

Apple and Google are 99% of the smartphone market. Together they set an unreasonable set of rules for mobile application development and distribution. They control search, advertising, and web technology, and there's little control individuals or other companies - even big ones - can exert against them. They both need to be stripped of their extraordinary powers so that user freedom and proper capitalistic competitio…

I detest many policies of both those companies, but neither company was created by the government. Are they not the result of "capitalistic competition?" Motorola and Blackberry shat the bed year after year, allowing the current situation to develop. Even while being called out on their incompetence by customers.

The companies who should be punished for anti-competitive behavior are the telecom companies. Not only do they restrict what devices can be activated on their networks, but they force Android users to wait months, years, or forever for them to dribble out a garbage-laden, proprietary version of the OS for every specific model of phone, one at a time.

And then there's the idiotic locking of phones; it's not just that it should be illegal, but it's also backward: U.S. phone companies lock the phones of people who are UNDER CONTRACT. Talk about stupid. These people are contractually obligated to keep paying, so who cares if they take their phones to another network? That's a net win for the phone company, since they're paying for NO service!

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