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Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

open-web-advocacy.org

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

#311

Post by const_cast »

nuker wrote: post #100
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…

> ... freedom to use your phone however you want I want to use my phone locked down hard and apps reviewed by Apple. I sleep better with things as they are. I suspect 99% of normal users are in the same boat.

... In which case literally nothing changes for you. You can keep using safari.

I don't know what it is with this recent redefining of freedom to mean "the freedom to restrict others freedoms".

Even if 99.9999% of users want to only use safari, ever, you don't need to only allow safari. There's no gun to your head making you download Firefox.

Want to use a locked down browser? That's totally fine, that's always been allowed.

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

#312

Post by const_cast »

radiofreeeuropa wrote: post #176
pornel wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a grain of truth to it — Apple has learned from Microsoft's history that making the whole browser shitty is too obvious and annoys users. Apple was smart enough to keep user-visible parts of the browser in a good shape, while also dragging their feet on all the Web platform features that could endanger the App Store cash cow.

I don't want web apps on my phone (or, in an ideal world, anywhere else) so that's also a good thing. If they're not viable, it forces developers to make real apps or else just make a web page instead of whatever awful-UX nonsense they were planning.

90% of real apps are 95% web views. Let go ahead and be for real. Even on desktop most apps are Electron these days.

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

#313

Post by xedrac »

frevib wrote: post #265
two-sandwich wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FF with uBO was the killer app that kept me on android. If Apple let me run that, I'd have bought into it years ago. Have you considered messages.google.com? I think you need to use Google's messages app (not the Samsung messager or equivalent) but it does as you describe and supports RCS.

uBlock Origin for iOS was released yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44795825 If you are on another locale, search “ublock origin lite” with double quotes.

Still not as good as full fat ublock origin.

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

#314

Post by Arainach »

mvdtnz wrote: post #274
Arainach wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>freedom to use your phone however you want would necessarily compromise security and privacy for everyone. For a large enough definition of "everyone", it would. "Everyone" has a Meta app installed. We've seen them pull evil tricks over and over to suck up data 24/7 - most recently running a local server on Android that their websites could talk to to bypass anonymization - and the moment a crack appears in the wall…

> and the moment a crack appears in the walled garden Meta will say "go install the FB/Instagram app from our app store with no privacy policy reviews" People keep saying this, but how do you explain the years and years of Meta/Facebook operating on Android without ever doing this?

It hasn't been possible until very recently. The Epic case has still been going through the courts, so there's been no reason for Meta to show their hand before that's final.

They HAVE been finding every loophole, crack in the Play Store policies, or Android bug they can exploit to steal data.

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

#315

Post by fsflover »

jmb99 wrote: post #303
fsflover wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So iOS must allow web apps.

It does, doesn't it? Even if you stretch "web app" to mean "PWA" iOS supports them. And it definitely supports the literal definition of "web app" (i.e. loading a website in a browser that runs JS or whatever to perform its "app" functionality).

According to this discussion, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39563618, they don't behave in the same way or have all features.

E.g., For support, the Progressive Web Apps will still need to be built on WebKit, with all that entails.

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

#316

Post by mvdtnz »

Arainach wrote: post #314
mvdtnz wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the moment a crack appears in the walled garden Meta will say "go install the FB/Instagram app from our app store with no privacy policy reviews" People keep saying this, but how do you explain the years and years of Meta/Facebook operating on Android without ever doing this?

It hasn't been possible until very recently. The Epic case has still been going through the courts, so there's been no reason for Meta to show their hand before that's final. They HAVE been finding every loophole, crack in the Play Store policies, or Android bug they can exploit to steal data.

Alternative stores on Android have been possible since day one - there are several of them. That's not what the Epic case is about.

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

#317

Post by charcircuit »

troupo wrote: post #310
charcircuit wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Blink is an alternate engine to Webkit.

Fully controlled and developed by Google. So what would Firefox (or anyone) gain by Firefox ditching their engine and helping Google?

I was suggesting Mozilla could help with the development. Firefox gains an engine that has a lot of other engineering hours being invested into it that can fulfill their needs.

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

#318

Post by charcircuit »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #180
charcircuit wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The problem with forking Blink/Chromium is that in order to be able to counter Google, the organization maintaining the fork is going to need dev manpower on the order of Google’s to be able to keep up with upstream patches, which is prohibitively expensive for all but a handful of orgs (not to mention, skilled talent capable of working on web engines doesn’t grow on trees). Without that any fork that differs substan…

It does not take the same order of engineers for only integration. That is false as you can see by the existing integration teams for forks that exist. And I'm sure Mozilla is able to find talent capable of working on web engines.

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

#319

Post by immibis »

BaardFigur wrote: post #58

Hopefully EU can make the same requirements, and hopefully Firefox can port its engine to iOS

The EU did make these requirements, Apple ignored them, the EU made Apple pay a big fine, and Apple put out some token process for browser engine approval that's not actually possible to pass but looks to bureaucrats like it meets the requirements.

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

#320

Post by cosmic_cheese »

charcircuit wrote: post #318
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with forking Blink/Chromium is that in order to be able to counter Google, the organization maintaining the fork is going to need dev manpower on the order of Google’s to be able to keep up with upstream patches, which is prohibitively expensive for all but a handful of orgs (not to mention, skilled talent capable of working on web engines doesn’t grow on trees). Without that any fork that differs substan…

It does not take the same order of engineers for only integration. That is false as you can see by the existing integration teams for forks that exist. And I'm sure Mozilla is able to find talent capable of working on web engines.

There are no Blink forks with appreciably large differences yet, though. In the aftermath of Google turning “evil” and working against the better interests of the web in multiple ways, you’re looking at a fork with divergences as large or larger than those that prompted Google to fork Blink from WebKit, making integration of patches from mainline Blink a full time non-trivial job.

Personally I’d rather see Mozilla working on Gecko or maybe consider switching to Servo or something instead.

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