Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

open-web-advocacy.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 356 posts

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

#211

Post by didacusc »

skeezyboy wrote: post #189
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…

i take it you dont use desktops or laptops then?

Most people on desktops / laptops interact with these services via a web browser, which has very limited permissions on the system. Not sure how you could control that tightly on a fully open iOS.

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

#212

Post by trinix912 »

the_sleaze_ wrote: post #113
fkyoureadthedoc wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To increase their already tiny fraction of marketshare by another tiny fraction?

To be fair a tiny fraction of marketshare can represent a very attractive level of revenue depending on the market

We thought the same when the Slovenian government passed a law requiring Apple (among others) to translate their operating systems to Slovene. Apple was the outlier here, as Android, Windows, even various Linux distros had all been translated years ago. To the surprise of many, they complied, releasing a full translation of decent quality in a stunningly short time.

The market they'd otherwise lose access to would be roughly 2 million people. The Japanese population is over 60 times that. I don't think they want to risk losing that.

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

#213

Post by didacusc »

zakki wrote: post #104
nuker wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... 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.

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

You can choose between a locked down system, iOS, and a free one, Android. No-one is forcing you to buy an Apple device.

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

#214

Post by skybrian »

resource_waste wrote: post #203
ygritte wrote: post #19

Looks like Japan learned from the malicious compliance shenanigans Apple is pulling with the EU. I hope Apple gets served some substantial fines that really hurt when they try to pull the same shit there. And I say, "when", not "if".

But I like the walled prison where I can't screw up and make choices for myself. I appreciate that Apple makes it so I can't accidentally give my coordinates and have some Monarch track me and murder me or leak my noods. +4500 upvoots (I always thought it was suspicious that the anti-apple headline had +30k upvoots on reddit, but the top comment was pro-apple with significantly less. Its almost like they paid an exte…

You’re thinking like an end user and not like someone who has provide tech support for others. One of the best things I did to make my life easier was getting mom a Chromebook.

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

#215

Post by nuker »

frankvdwaal wrote: post #196
nuker wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... 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.

What you want is not relevant, because you have no choice. Apple depriving you of that choice may not inconvenience you, but you are still being deprived of that freedom in the first place. I suspect 100% of iPhone users are in the same boat.

> What you want is not relevant, because you have no choice.

You got this backwards. I chose Apple because of the choices they made and it suited me.

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

#216

Post by close04 »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #156
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…

I think the real issue is that without enforcement measures, apps by bad actors like Facebook have free rein to find holes in the sandbox and similar. Even in the event that iOS allows choice of App Store globally, it might not be the worst thing to let them keep a kill switch on automatic distribution of individual apps (which once flipped off, users would need to sideload the app in question) so when some third par…

Then Apple can just work harder on securing the OS. When desktop OS security is discussed does anyone ever seriously float the idea that maybe we should only allow MS, Apple, or Linus approved apps to run on the OS to avoid hackers having free rein to find holes?

The market for sideloading apps is anyway much smaller than the whole mobile market because most people can’t be bothered to do it. The ones determined to install that shady flashlight app they downloaded from the internet will just as well give their banking credentials to any app that asks for them.

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

#217

Post by overfeed »

fkyoureadthedoc wrote: post #199
overfeed wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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: Microsof…

Edge (and basically every other browser besides Safari and Firefox) is a chromium fork though, so even though it only has like a 5% market share, it's still bumping up the engine's overall market share.

My point was that Chrome didn't win on marketing alone (as disproved by Edge dismal numbers). That said: browser marketshare metrics breakout the "brand" and not just the engine: for a long time, Chrome's rendering engine was downstream of Safari's WebKit before being forked outright as Blink.

That Microsoft abandoned Trident for a Chromium fork speaks volumes on the amount of innovation and engineering effort Google poured into Chrome/Chromium - I don't understand how it can be controversial to suggest that Chromium wins on its merits. The gaggle of browsers opted to fork Chromium rather than WebKit or Gecko because Chromium is best-in-class.

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

#218

Post by mathiaspoint »

sneak wrote: post #209
mathiaspoint wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn't instrument apps when they review them. That burden is already there, they've just convinced you otherwise.

I think it depends on the app and the entitlements. I would assume apps that request entitlements for system-level VPN apis are scrutinized more than calculators.

All they do either way is poke at the GUI and maybe watch the HTTP requests.

The real goal of the review process is to maintain control over the UX, not prevent malware. If you want to see a review process that stops malware read a Linux distribution mailing list.

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

#219

Post by two-sandwich »

duffyjp wrote: post #201

Everybody is talking about Chrome, but I tell ya what I have that disabled on my Android in favor of Firefox. Firefox on mobile with full-fat uBlock Origin is the closest thing to parity with desktop web access you can get. I don't just block ads, I block elements on sites I don't care about with :has-text RegEx rules. You can't do that on Chrome even on desktop anymore. I'm this close to swapping to the Android as m…

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.

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

#220

Post by soraminazuki »

close04 wrote: post #194
nuker wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They absolutely are not. No more than alcohol or tobacco addiction are de-facto unavoidable. And the people who are absolutely addicted to those platforms will always have the option of the web page no matter what you do to the app.

Ah yes, like "alcohol or tobacco," communicating with people is an addiction that must be stopped. Participating in society is a choice. /s
Post reply on HN