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Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

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Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#41

Post by KerrAvon »

smoldesu wrote: post #24
dont__panic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing that 20 years on, the USA has essentially given up on anti-trust tech regulation. Facebook acquired and repeatedly copied its closest competitors, no problem. Adobe buys up its competitors, no problem. Google aggressively pushes Chrome and fails to makes its own websites fully compatible with competitors, carry on. Apple refuses to give users the freedom to run their own apps on their purchased phones, no big…

My guess is that the government realized that FAANG makes for better bedfellows than sworn enemies. They can wave economic incentives in front of their face in exchange for international power beyond what other countries can offer. Having Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft under your thumb gives you control over ~80% of the internet and <95% of all PII. There is obviously a domestic interest in controlling that, so…

define "the government" -- who and what exactly is controlling this supposed policy?

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#42

Post by thriftwy »

bombcar wrote: post #9

Google Chrome is highly successful on Mac and Windows so it’s clear that Microsoft and apple aren’t forcing that hard. Mozilla is just not doing so hot.

Yandex Browser, a custom Chrome build, is doing very well both on desktop and mobile.

However, it has a slew of useful features tailored for its audience (perhaps reminding of "big apps" of Asia) while also leveraging all kinds of ways to get installs such as bundling, etc.

I'm just not sure what are the selling points of Mozilla Firefox in 2022. They discontinued their plugins to be like Google Chrome and enforce the same censorship as Google Chrome without being Google.

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#43

Post by g_p »

howinteresting wrote: post #38
dont__panic wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any chance that third party password managers like Bitwarden and 1Password will be able to implement add-ons and apps that replace this functionality, and that could open up migration paths? Or is the passkey future even worse than I feared?

I believe 1password will implement passkeys at some point in the future. However that doesn't take away from the concern that passkeys are designed from the ground up to ensure vendor lock-in (there almost certainly won't be a way to migrate passkeys from Apple's or Google's keychains to 1password). With passwords there is a clear, if insecure, fallback -- simply copy the password over. With passkeys, you're subject…

I agree - I think password managers will (soon enough) implement passkeys. As you say though, the current implementations deliver lock-in "by-design" (but with legitimate reason - you don't want to have an API that shares the AES-256 root key that decrypts passkey keyblobs!)

This could all be mitigated with a little bit of tooling (allowing an existing passkey to enrol a new passkey from another device), which would also help users of hardware tokens to potentially create a way to auto-enrol an off-site key.

I do believe WebAuthn is a good-faith attempt to get away from the pervasive problem of "use the same useless password everywhere", but it makes a range of compromises which (intentionally or otherwise) create a level of cryptographic vendor lock-in that I don't think many people have recognised yet.

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#45

Post by oarsinsync »

thewebcount wrote: post #26
dont__panic wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any chance that third party password managers like Bitwarden and 1Password will be able to implement add-ons and apps that replace this functionality, and that could open up migration paths? Or is the passkey future even worse than I feared?

This has existed for years. I use 1Password for all my passwords and it shows up as an option when entering or creating a password in any browser on iOS. Furthermore, all browser can access the keychain if the user authorizes it.

1Password doesn't perform WebAuthn logins, only password (and TOTP) based logins. The GP is talking about WebAuthn / FIDO2 logins.

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#46

Post by g_p »

thewebcount wrote: post #26
dont__panic wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any chance that third party password managers like Bitwarden and 1Password will be able to implement add-ons and apps that replace this functionality, and that could open up migration paths? Or is the passkey future even worse than I feared?

This has existed for years. I use 1Password for all my passwords and it shows up as an option when entering or creating a password in any browser on iOS. Furthermore, all browser can access the keychain if the user authorizes it.

Passkeys are a little different - at heart, you can export or write down (on paper, if it comes to it) your passwords, and then import them into another password manager if you choose to. If you want to move from the built-in keychain to 1Password, you can do an export/import operation, and have your passwords in 1Password.

You inherently can't copy-paste a passkey, since it's an asymmetric public/private keypair authentication. These keys are (usually) decrypted by a single symmetric key that you protect well. If you allow that key to be exported, you're back to "one password for every website"!

When this is done on a hardware-protected security engine (which doesn't permit any extraction of the key), it's arguably quite secure, but you don't then have any migration path.

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#47

Post by anonymousab »

andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #27

Does Firefox have a future? I'm writing this from Firefox, having used it ever since the days when Firefox releases used to have launch parties, and tabs was the revolutionary killer feature. Let me rephrase the question: does Gecko/Spidermonkey have a future? I think it's clear the Firefox branding will live on, since it is Mozilla's crown jewel. But in today's landscape, you can target WebKit (Apple) and V8/Blink (…

It seems all but inevitable. Regardless of the technical feasibility of keeping your own browser engine going, much of the missions of the foundation and overall company do not really depend on having a truly separate browser at all.

If anything, it is an albatross around the necks of the groups and management that care more about the 'mission' of an open web and the advocacy and other programs that are largely unrelated to the Firefox browser, and certainly don't require the browser to be its own thing rather than a chromium fork.

For the short and medium term goals, a browser is just another tool and vehicle for pushing their vision for the future of the web... But it's an extremely expensive and difficult tool with comparatively little short and medium term importance. So why keep it? You don't need a 'real' browser to put up surveys or blog posts, or to attend or run conferences, or to join web working groups or participate in RFCs. Not having to pay for almost any engineers or teams for something the rest of the foundation could categorize as a pyrrhic project? That would be simply wonderful, I'm sure.

Vasselization simply makes more sense in the foreseeable future.

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#48

Post by BeefySwain »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #34
somenameforme wrote: post #15

Without commenting on the claims, it's interesting to consider how times have changed. Microsoft originally lost an antitrust lawsuit [1] over little more than tying Internet Explorer into their OS and not readily including alternatives. They not only lost that case, but the initial judgement was that the company was to be broken up. Microsoft started spending dramatically more money on "lobbying" following that. [1]…

Microsoft got smacked because they weren't playing ball with Washington politics, they weren't bribing enough congressmen nor capitalizing on their market dominance to make themselves strategically useful to national interests. Since then, big tech companies have known to grease the gears and befriend power brokers in Washington. They now contribute to political campaigns, and have made themselves useful to the defen…

While this does align with my beliefs and biases, do you have any proof or evidence to point to that was the case? Specifically that the antitrust suit was due (in whole or in part) to Microsoft not engaging with politics, and that the result has been a trend towards big tech playing ball, and hence future antitrust being unlikely?

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#49

Post by agluszak »

lol768 wrote: post #25
neogodless wrote: post #7

It drives me nuts that a fresh install of Android apps defaults them all to "in-app" browsing instead of my default browser. And you have to go to each app and turn it off in a different place. Wish I could just override all of them and "open every web page in My. Default. Browser. "

If apps are written correctly, they can use the Custom Tabs protocol with your default browser (which can be Firefox, as it has support). You'll get the same embedded browser experience, support for add-ons and ability to pop out the site into a separate 'window'/activity. Of course, many apps don't properly do this and end up hardcoding references to Chrome...

> Of course, many apps don't properly do this and end up hardcoding references to Chrome...

I think what OP is referring to is this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32415470

Re: Mozilla claims Apple, Google and Microsoft force users to use default browsers

#50

Post by philipov »

ThatMedicIsASpy wrote: post #16
arnvald wrote: post #3

They're right, recently I've installed some Windows update for my parents and I had to reject like 5 suggested changes - installing Office trial, switching default browser to Edge yet again, and more. But this goes way beyond the browsers - I've never explicitly installed Keychain on my iphone and yet it shows as an option next to 1password every time I fill in a password field. Google calendar asks me to install an…

Go to Settings (Win+I) -> System -> Notifications & actions [ ] Show me the Windows welcome experience after updates ... [ ] Suggest ways I can finish setting up my device ... [ ] Get tips, tricks, ...

what's the corresponding setting on an iphone? I have the same permanent notification because I refused to use icloud.
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