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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

#451

Post by philliphaydon »

elashri wrote: post #309
mtomweb wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user the harms are invisible to you. If you'd like to find out how it harms consumers, businesses, developers and the web, please read our regulatory submission "Bringing Competition to Walled Gardens": https://open-web-advocacy.org/files/OWA%20-%20Bringing%20Com...

Isn't the main argument is the user choice? if I as a user chose what the comment you are replying said, then what is the problem?

Sue user choice. But some times less choice is better. If every website prompts for push notifications my dad would end up throwing his phone out the window in anger if he started getting notifications because a website updated. My parents have no clue what they are doing on a phone. The less features the better.

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

#452

Post by easton »

lynguist wrote: post #443

I have a small question: Can I anyhow sideload the real Fifefox on iOS?

No, I'm guessing (outside of it costing dev time) it's because it would require the JIT private entitlement, making it not sideloadable by developers or with enterprise accounts.

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

#453

Post by bogwog »

Bud wrote: post #162
bogwog wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, if Apple's anti-competitive practices end and Chrome finally hits 90%+ market share, it would make it much harder for regulators to ignore Chrome's dominance and might lead to some actual change for once.

Let me see if I have this straight. Apple has a tiny slice of the overall market, but you are terribly, terribly offended, and so your proposed solution is for Chrome to get more than 90% market share, because that would be a better situation? And "change" would result? How? You don't say. What change? You don't even hint. This just isn't a serious stance, I'm sorry.

Lol @ the seething fanboyism in this comment.

You did apologize though, so I forgive you.

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

#454

Post by Spivak »

mtomweb wrote: post #192
CharlesW wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Again, users don’t really care about the plumbing.

Chrome went from WebKit to Blink.

Safari spiritually went from KHTML to WebKit.

IE went from Trident to EdgeHTML to Blink.

Opera went from Presto to Blink.

The identity of the browser is the chrome, ba dum tiss.

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

#455

Post by Spivak »

MBCook wrote: post #293
toast0 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safari for Windows did exist (it was supremely terrible, IMHO). Apple says 5.1.7 was the last version of that; if versioning matches the Mac OS builds, that was from 10 years ago.

I love Safari. I tried to use it. Garbage. As far as I’ve ever been able to tell it only existed to help people test the fake “apps” and their sites without buying an iPhone. As real apps were allowed and the iPhone became more popular (so devs had them for testing sites) that need went away. And so did Safari.

It’s wild to have such huge differences in experience, I bought my iPhone because I borrowed my friends and was shocked at how fast Safari was compared to mobile Chrome.

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

#456

Post by Spivak »

codedokode wrote: post #247
briandear wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average consumer doesn’t know the difference nor care. They want to open webpages and have them work.

There is a difference. Gecko might implement features that would allow sites to work and look better in Firefox (for example, smoother scrolling, better animations, new CSS/HTML/JS features and so on). But Apple doesn't allow other browser engines, and Firefox cannot use this as an advantage to compete with Safari. Also, if Apple allowed other browser engines with better support for new features, then web developers…

Apple wants to make sure that all websites work on their phones out of the box the horror.

Like take the alternative world where the first thing you have to do after setting up your iPhone is installing Chrome because developers found it less effort to just target Chrome. Are we better off?

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

#458

Post by Spivak »

nneonneo wrote: post #263
stale2002 wrote: post #206

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…

Apple can’t reasonably allow Gecko (Firefox’s engine) without also allowing Blink (Chrome’s engine). And we know which one is the 800lb gorilla here. I love and support Firefox, and I even use it on my iPhone (yes, it’s reskinned WebKit, but it syncs my stuff).

I mean why not? It would actually be a pretty cool move to make Firefox a 2nd party browser on iOS given special privilege.

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

#459

Post by dwaite »

The assumption people seem to make is that third party browsers will get the sort of system-privileged access that they have on desktops:

- Always-running daemons to perform internal bookkeeping tasks, provide network access, which are not reaped by lack of user focus or the needs of other applications

- Ability to download, generate and run arbitrary native code (for running Javascript and WebAssembly)

- Ability to register arbitrary URLs, see installed third-party applications and execute them arbitrarily

- Ability to modify the Home Screen to install additional applications (such as native-wrapped PWAs)

Without full system level access, Apple's store restrictions don't matter. You are not going to see resourcing to port Gecko or Blink to iOS if it means the javascript and webassembly engines are interpreted, push notifications only work when the browser is in the foreground, SPA applications can't be added to the Home Screen, etc.

And by full system access, I mean _more_ access than Safari currently has. After all, many of the features people complain about MobileSafari not shipping are features that are also not supported by the underlying OS.

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

#460

Post by Jcowell »

nemothekid wrote: post #275
stale2002 wrote: post #206

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…

Exactly. Let’s be very very clear here: the death of the open web will be not only because of Google and it’s internet multi-market dominance , but because of developers wanting to make their life easier, users and the future be dammed.
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