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

Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

open-web-advocacy.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 394 posts

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#231

Post by gpm »

stockresearcher wrote: post #201
dns_snek wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The issue is that if you want to make a browser in the EU, you have to be extremely serious about it.

The current browser vendors have made the web so complex that this is already the case regardless of what laws do or do not impose. It's simply too large a project to implement one for any non-serious project to succeed (as evidenced by the fact that we haven't got a new browser since... Chrome. Microsoft edge sort of I guess but that project was abandoned and they moved to chrome).

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#232

Post by SoftTalker »

semiquaver wrote: post #153

> Safari is the highest margin product Apple has ever made, accounts for 14-16% of Apple’s annual operating profit Does anyone know what this means? Safari is built in to the OS, how exactly would you measure its margin? Are they just talking about the Google search deal?

Safari is the default browser and they don't support ad blocking very well. It's easily the worst web browsing experience of any platform I've used in the last 5 years.

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#233

Post by gruez »

lucideer wrote: post #217
pxeger1 wrote: post #113

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,…

> This happens even if you don't have Chrome/Google installed, so they take you to the App Store instead of opening the webpage. Curious which Android flavour this is on. I'm running stock Android & I've found: 1. Chrome app can be set to "Disabled", but cannot be entirely uninstalled 2. When modifying any system settings that involve choosing defaults from a list of apps that could include Chrome, Chrome still appea…

>>Relatedly, all Google apps (e.g. Maps) on iOS

>Curious which Android flavour this is on

emphasis mine

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#234

Post by SoftTalker »

kosinus wrote: post #75
stavros wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but approximately zero people have ever said "this website doesn't work on Firefox, so I won't use this website". They say "this website doesn't work on Firefox, so I won't use Firefox".

I think that is true when you initially switch and are still comparing browsers, but I certainly no longer check if something broken happens to work in Chrome. Stuff may equally be broken by my adblocker. Too lazy to debug someone else's work.

I can't remember the last time I encountered a site that didn't work in Firefox. Very rarely I need to disable uBlock for a site, but not for anything mainstream such as my bank, utilities, online shopping.

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#235

Post by charcircuit »

swores wrote: post #171
nikanj wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safari has a minuscule team and brings in the Google money

I think it's a bit misleading to call Safari a "high margin product" based on that logic, considering they could have made even more profit by not making it at all and just charge Google the exact same money to let them ship Chrome as the default iOS browser... (I mean an actual Chrome browser, not the Chrome skin of a WebKit browser that Google currently has to settle for.) I'm not saying I'd prefer that scenario, j…

If a supermarket has their own store brand products it's fair to say that those products have a profit margin, even if the store could replace their spot on the shelf with a product of someone else.

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#236

Post by danaris »

MangoToupe wrote: post #58
giingyui wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s actually the opposite, no? If it’s about security it makes sense they choose to compromise the security of their platform only where they are forced to.

Security for who against what threat? It's hard to make the case this is possibly in the users' interest. This is about securing the phone in Apple's interest against the desires of the user.

> It's hard to make the case this is possibly in the users' interest.

Not in the least.

If anyone who wants can make a complete browser for iOS, then, for instance, Meta could come out with their own Facebook™ Browser that does extra super duper tracking on them and everyone they interact with online.

Or Russia/China/Trump/Obama/whoever you hate most could make their own browser that inserts propaganda into websites, redirects you away from sites that are critical of them, etc.

Or straight-up criminals could make browsers that steal your credit card info.

And a) Apple would be put in the position of having to do comprehensive testing on all these browsers to make sure they did not do these things, even in unusual situations, and b) do you actually trust Apple's App Review system to catch it all? 'Cause I like Apple, and I sure as hell don't. Especially in cases like the latter, where they could create a dozen profiles and have each one submit a dozen slightly different versions of their compromised browser (eg, one that's Skibidi Toilet themed, one that's got scantily-clad women (just PG enough that Apple won't ban them for that) framing the pages, one each themed for the MCU movies...)

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#237

Post by bitpush »

pxeger1 wrote: post #113

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,…

I admire your skill in bringing up, and distracting everyone with Google in a post about Apple's shenanigans. No love lost for Google, but wasnt expecting to read about Google as a top comment on Apple thread.

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#238

Post by hbn »

MangoToupe wrote: post #58
giingyui wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s actually the opposite, no? If it’s about security it makes sense they choose to compromise the security of their platform only where they are forced to.

Security for who against what threat? It's hard to make the case this is possibly in the users' interest. This is about securing the phone in Apple's interest against the desires of the user.

As an iOS and web user, it is my desire that Apple doesn't allow other browser engines because immediately Google and other web devs will start pushing webapps that only work with mobile Chrome and we'll all be forced to install a Chromium browser to use certain websites, it becomes default and users will think "Safari sucks now, a bunch of websites don't work with it," finally ending Google's last bit of real competition in the browser space: Safari with its terrifying 17% marketshare.

That's not even getting into the resources/battery life aspect.

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#239

Post by xcrjm »

agust wrote: post #96
pmkary wrote: post #93

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…

Browser engines define the capabilities of web apps and websites. When they don't support APIs or have bugs, they impact negatively web software. Apple's WebKit is renowned to be lagging behind, refusing to implement crucial features and being rigged with bugs, hence limiting the capabilities and quality of web apps, and effectively preventing them to compete with native apps. Getting other browser engines on iOS wou…

To be fair to Apple, as a user of Safari, I mostly agree with their feature omissions. Web developers have shown near limitless capacity for abusing new platform features and Apple has provided sound explanations for why they won't implement eg. web bluetooth. On the other hand as a web developer I have definitely suffered my fair share of Safari's incompatibilities (however I find myself in these situations less and less these days).

Re: Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

#240

Post by swores »

charcircuit wrote: post #235
swores wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a bit misleading to call Safari a "high margin product" based on that logic, considering they could have made even more profit by not making it at all and just charge Google the exact same money to let them ship Chrome as the default iOS browser... (I mean an actual Chrome browser, not the Chrome skin of a WebKit browser that Google currently has to settle for.) I'm not saying I'd prefer that scenario, j…

If a supermarket has their own store brand products it's fair to say that those products have a profit margin, even if the store could replace their spot on the shelf with a product of someone else.

Sure, but if they get to keep $x per item for both own brand and other brand products, but have zero expenses for other brand products vs. having to pay to create/ship/etc. the own brand versions, you wouldn't talk about what great profit margins the own brand products have.

Plus, in this store nobody is buying any of the items, the only revenue is from the Nestlé sign above the door, which they'd earn even if they threw all of their own brand products into the bin rather than letting customers have them. So it's not an exact analogy...

Post reply on HN