221–230 of 394 posts
That you for your ongoing work Open Web Advocacy.
Relatedly, all Google apps (e.g. Maps) on iOS try very hard to push Chrome on you (even though iOS Chrome still has to use WebKit). When you click an external link, they present you the options of Chrome, Google (the search app), or Safari. This happens even if you don't have Chrome/Google installed, so they take you to the App Store instead of opening the webpage. If you choose Safari, it still doesn't open Safari,…
Even if you get past the roadblocks Apple has put in place, it’s not beer and skittles for browser makers in the EU. The CRA, which is now in effect, lists browsers as class I important products. Technical documentation, design documentation, user documentation, security conformance testing, a declared support period at the time of download, software bill of materials, the legal obligation to respond to and make all…
Surely that's the point - a collusive oligopoly making end runs around the "free market". Just look at all the other replies, rich with apologia.
Honestly those barriers they complain about are not so high. I don’t believe any major browser vendor is deterred by this.
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As usual this is a panicked overreaction. No, startups won't be fined out of existence by the iron fist of regulators who despise innovation. > (93) In relation to microenterprises and small enterprises, in order to ensure proportionality, it is appropriate to alleviate administrative costs without affecting the level of cybersecurity protection [...] It is therefore appropriate for the Commission to establish a simp…
I have two comments: First, I believe that you are correct in that small enterprises are not going to be fined out of existence (unless they continually fail to adhere to CRA requirements). The issue is that if you want to make a browser in the EU, you have to be extremely serious about it. Second, you are quoting from the section of the act that the EU uses to lay out their reasoning, justification, and thought proc…
Why is this a problem?
No, really; why is it a bad thing that if you want to create a complete new browser, you have to actually be serious and committed to it?
A web browser is a pretty significant piece of software, and it sits between you and the entire web. You do your banking through it. You access your email through it. You book flights through it.
If the browser is badly constructed or malicious, any of these very vital functions can fail in unpredictable ways, be compromised by unknown third parties, or even be deliberately intercepted by the browser itself.
Here in the US, and especially for tech people like us, we're used to thinking of software as a complete free-for-all: anyone can make anything they want, and anyone must be allowed to make anything they want! That's what Freedom means!
But that kind of freedom can have pretty serious consequences if it's treated without respect or abused. Frankly, I'm glad to see the EU starting to put some genuine safeguards in place for the people who have to use the software we make, to ensure that we can't just foist off crap on them and when they get their identity stolen because of our negligence, just say "lol too bad, Not Guaranteed Fit For Any Purpose, deal with it".
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Google has an incentive to make everything work through the web. Safari has the incentive to gatekeep the app store revenue, which is why PWAs are a joke on iOS. Google also has bad incentives (Android, ads) but Safari is the IE6 of modern web.
Chrome is the IE6 of the modern Web. Devs are building hacky sites that only work in Chrome. It's the browser we're FORCED to have installed for the occasional shitty flight or hotel booking that doesn't work in Firefox.
IE flat out refused to implement features that were agreed upon by standards bodies. They pushed for VML development and ignored SVG. They ignored CSS3 in favor of their DirectX filters. Chrome does indeed put experimental features out there AFTER they support the standards. Firefox also has agreed to a set of web standards and is simply behind on implementation.
Having lived(as a developer) through IE4 - IE9, I reserve that title of "the new IE" for the worst offenders.
I wonder why they should make iOS specific engines. To be honest only two things come to my mind: Shortcuts Integration and WebExtensions. Currently Orion is trying to bring extensions but I think there is a lot to be done for that to be considered operational and if that proves to work, then only remains Shortcuts which only lets you inject JS, or say get the content of a page from a "Safari" web page (while I think…
This Apple policy is the only thing stopping chrome from having a full monopoly, and we should be careful trying to remove it
Monopolies are made illegal because they limit consumer choice and the role of competition in the free market, distorting incentives. The status quo has all of the problems of a monopoly. Doing this or not doing this won't change that. But it will remove another barrier to consumers being able to do what they want.
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And this is why the EU's GDP versus the US is now only 65% and shrinking. The regulations are about beating US companies into compliance, sometimes with righteous motives; but there's no forethought on how a domestic EU startup might be able to comply, or how a startup would convince investors to take the gamble.
Yeah, because EU software companies were totally destroying the American software industry before the last decade… The EU’s relatively shrinking GDP has much more to do with their populations growing older and their population size stabilizing, and the relatively tiny amount of migration, than EU digital laws, most of which have been replicated throughout the world. Additionally, the EU has always had weak financial…
In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44553811 I pointed out that in the past a lot (former) successful German software were simply bought out by US-American software companies.
Relatedly, all Google apps (e.g. Maps) on iOS try very hard to push Chrome on you (even though iOS Chrome still has to use WebKit). When you click an external link, they present you the options of Chrome, Google (the search app), or Safari. This happens even if you don't have Chrome/Google installed, so they take you to the App Store instead of opening the webpage. If you choose Safari, it still doesn't open Safari,…
In the same way, Apple is equally difficult about forcing the use of Apple Maps. If you receive an address in an iMessage, clicking/long-holding will always open in Apple Maps. There is no way to share to Google Maps (it doesn't appear in the list), and the default setting to use Google Maps doesn't affect iMessage. You have to copy the address, switch to Google Maps, paste it in, and search. I would much prefer clic…