Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December • Hacker News Board

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#141

Post by lxgr » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 3:16 PM UTC

thewebguyd wrote: post #121

yupyupyups wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and as we all know that'll be the end of the world. I'll enjoy seeing all the accounts on MacRumors clawing their eyes out when that happens. It would be naive to think that Apple isn't funding sites and narratives on the internet to serve their economic interests. One of the most outlandish one being that freedom to use your phone however you want would necessarily compromise security and privacy for everyone. It's…

> One of the most outlandish one being that freedom to use your phone however you want would necessarily compromise security and privacy for everyone. I suppose in a round-a-bout way, it could, more specifically around iMessage, which is Apple's baby in the US and a big part of their lock in effect for US users. Right now, you can reasonably assume that using iMessage with another iPhone user that both ends are reaso…

> Right now, you can reasonably assume that using iMessage with another iPhone user that both ends are reasonably secure and private.

I'd disagree, given that many people have iCloud Backup enabled, which (at least without "Advanced Data Protection") uses encryption keys available to Apple and includes all iMessage and SMS messages.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#142

Post by close04 » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 3:16 PM UTC

nuker wrote: post #124

zakki wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple must provide opt-in or opt-out for the lockdown.

Then Facebook will grant its app all permission entitlements, and will direct all users to opt-out lockdown for the app to work.

Fair enough, and then your iOS should just report the list of permissions the app demanded, maybe even compare to the AppStore version, and then let people make their choice. It doesn't have to be a "one click" easy way to make mistakes. Most users won't bother to go through 3 extra steps to install the "alternative" app if they aren't missing anything in the regular one.

The OS should anyway sandbox everything, and be as isolated as possible from any app running on top of it. That's the real security, everything else is mostly privacy - as in it's not really a security issue that the FB app siphons all the data I allowed it to access.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#143

Post by charcircuit » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 3:16 PM UTC

lucasban wrote: post #71

charcircuit wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue that you bringing up was more of an issue of Microsoft thinking they were finished with the web and the lack of automatic updates. It was not due to lack of diversity of engines, but of market share of a single product. This is very different from having the dominant browser engine invested in the success of the web with automatic updates to ensure that the web platform is able to advance and not stagnate.

As a counterpoint, this does make it so that one group has disproportionate power over what features make it into that engine, or how they are implemented. What if their incentives change over time and are no longer aligned with what we might consider the success of the web?

Then it can be forked because it's open source.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#144

Post by overfeed » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 3:18 PM UTC

radiofreeeuropa wrote: post #134

overfeed wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox is overall a fine browser. Still has 2% marketshare Firefox used to have a 25-30% share before Mozilla shat the bed by neglecting it while treating Firefox like a money-piñata to fund a series of dead-end, copy-cat projects in their big-tech cosplay era. Blaming Chrome for Firefox and Safari being shit (as reflected by the percentage of users who voluntarily use the respective browsers) removes their culpab…

Chrome did that three ways: 1) performing better and crashing less than mainstream alternatives (just IE and Firefox, then) on non-Mac platforms (so, most desktop computers) for a good long while; 2) aggressive advertising to trick people who don't actually give a shit what browser they're running (or even know) into downloading it because "google said it would make my gmail work better" or "I dunno, google just told…

I forgot how often individual webpages could take down your entire browser! On Chrome, it'd just crash the perpetrator tab. Chrome was also fast - really, really fast. Even if one was "tricked" into using it, you wouldn't want to go back to using other browsers - they put in the work.

> One of three major factors involved actually being good, and I'd bet the other two factors overwhelm that one

Counterpoint: Microsoft Edge on Windows has the same 2 factors going for it, but failing to replicate Chrome's ascendancy. Edge and Windows pleading with you to not install Chrome is kinda sad.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#145

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 3:20 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #133

pton_xd wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is your argument that Safari is not a good browser? https://ios404.com/ Safari is missing many performance and device-related features that would allow you to create a compelling web application and bypass the App store. I tried once, you run into the most unexpected roadblocks and come to the conclusion "I have to release this as an App." Well... guess why.

About half that list is marketing for why I use Safari instead of something else on my laptop.

[deleted]

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#146

Post by radiofreeeuropa » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 3:20 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #107

arvinsim wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safari being the least common denominator is promoting the monoculture of Chrome. If Safari were more competitive, more people would use it.

I disagree. Safari is safer to use than Chrome, because Chrome implements antifeatures at a breakneck pace which introduce tracking and security vulnerabilities. Choosing not to implement a feature is as important or more than implementing one. I'm not a Mac user, but I wish I had Safari on desktop as an option today.

> I'm not a Mac user, but I wish I had Safari on desktop as an option today.

Webkit browsers do exist on other platforms. They're far and away the best-performing sorts of actually-usable (in terms of supported Web features and ability to render real pages in the wild—sure, lynx works, but...) browsers on low-end machines, should you have to use one, to the point that they may be viable on a machine that's otherwise basically incapable of using the modern Web at all (which confirms for me that there's some fundamental, deep-down plumbing reasons behind why Safari's so much better on battery life than Firefox or Chrome-based browsers)

None of them are Safari and I can't vouch for how they are as daily drivers long-term, but it's nice to have one semi-up-to-date engine around that still kinda works on bad hardware (and by "bad" I mean still several times stronger than my workhorse many-tabs-browsing multi-tasking machine circa 2003—you'd be amazed how strong a machine has to be these days before trying to use the Web at-all normally in Chrome or Firefox is anything but terribly painful).

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#147

Post by nuker » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 3:21 PM UTC

close04 wrote: post #142

nuker wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then Facebook will grant its app all permission entitlements, and will direct all users to opt-out lockdown for the app to work.

Fair enough, and then your iOS should just report the list of permissions the app demanded, maybe even compare to the AppStore version, and then let people make their choice. It doesn't have to be a "one click" easy way to make mistakes. Most users won't bother to go through 3 extra steps to install the "alternative" app if they aren't missing anything in the regular one. The OS should anyway sandbox everything, and…

> and then let people make their choice.

Some apps are de-facto unavoidable, like Facebook, Whatsapp and X.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#148

Post by AlexandrB » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 3:22 PM UTC

radiofreeeuropa wrote: post #134

overfeed wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox is overall a fine browser. Still has 2% marketshare Firefox used to have a 25-30% share before Mozilla shat the bed by neglecting it while treating Firefox like a money-piñata to fund a series of dead-end, copy-cat projects in their big-tech cosplay era. Blaming Chrome for Firefox and Safari being shit (as reflected by the percentage of users who voluntarily use the respective browsers) removes their culpab…

Chrome did that three ways: 1) performing better and crashing less than mainstream alternatives (just IE and Firefox, then) on non-Mac platforms (so, most desktop computers) for a good long while; 2) aggressive advertising to trick people who don't actually give a shit what browser they're running (or even know) into downloading it because "google said it would make my gmail work better" or "I dunno, google just told…

Many people have memory-holed Chrome's malware-grade tactics like including an installer in unrelated sourceforge downloads and now think that Chrome won strictly on its merits.

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#149

Post by Hamuko » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 3:24 PM UTC

nuker wrote: post #124

zakki wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple must provide opt-in or opt-out for the lockdown.

Then Facebook will grant its app all permission entitlements, and will direct all users to opt-out lockdown for the app to work.

You should probably not use Facebook then.

How is it that the answer to an American megacorp trying to hoover all of your personal data is to try to get another American megacorp to add universal barricades to your device?

Re: Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

#150

Post by Hamuko » Wed, Aug 06, 2025, 3:25 PM UTC

nuker wrote: post #147

close04 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, and then your iOS should just report the list of permissions the app demanded, maybe even compare to the AppStore version, and then let people make their choice. It doesn't have to be a "one click" easy way to make mistakes. Most users won't bother to go through 3 extra steps to install the "alternative" app if they aren't missing anything in the regular one. The OS should anyway sandbox everything, and…

> and then let people make their choice. Some apps are de-facto unavoidable, like Facebook, Whatsapp and X.

The only one of those on my phone is X and it's definitely avoidable.