Mozilla and their friends at Google want that Apple opens up iOS and let them bring their bloatware browsers to iOS. Complaint is legit but Firefox and Chrome are not the best choice for users although Firefox on mobile is actually good unlike Firefox for Desktop.
Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)
301–310 of 349 posts
Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Apple is now the worst offender in forcing you to use your computing the device only the way they want you to. This is wrong. Google is the worst offender; Apple is an under-appreciated hero. I have to use some web pages- for taxes and public services, for my banks and so on. Those pages don’t work in Firefox and the only reason they work in Safari is because people don’t have a choice on Apple devices. Of course t…
>Google is the worst offender How the issue you're raising has anything to do with Google? Google hasn't forced those devs to not care about Firefox.
> How the issue you're raising has anything to do with Google?
Because Google benefits from this and not me.
I think you would have to be stupidly naive to believe this legislative lobby happened without their help.
> Google hasn't forced those devs to not care about Firefox.
The only people who know that are Google and those devs, not me and not you.
But Apple did force those devs to care about Safari, and the things that work in both Safari and Chrome usually work in Firefox, so if you care at all about browser choice, you should be very afraid of this: As soon as my bank can tell me to install Chrome in order to pay my bills instead of doing any more work supporting Safari (and by extension Firefox), you better believe they will.
Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dunno... the way it feels on the other side is that y'all think people are too dumb to not hurt themselves with hammers--which is true!!--and so, rather than trust that people who are afraid of hammers will simply avoid using a hammer they should be actively prevented from even owning a hammer, or even letting their friend or a hired carpenter use a hammer to help them, which is kind of overkill.
Relying on people not being dumb doesn't work out in practice. There's lots of stuff you're not allowed to do because we figured out the average person can't do it without endangering others.
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Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh maybe I should have checked before replying. I don't think this is too hard for someone who wants a direct APK https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/releases Perhaps the complaint is that they are not releasing to competing stores like Amazon? I would find it hard to believe that legit Firefox builds are not already on Fdroid
It's not the same as clicking on a direct APK download link as WhatsApp does on their website. You download and install, that's it. Here, first get into Github, browse between beta releases, OK, is this one? Now, should I get arm64 or armeabi? Definitely not a simple process, and of course not suitable at all for non technical users.
That's fair, thanks for the example!
Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
They pretty much all re-implement OpenGL since they needed WebGL/WebGL2 to work reliably across platforms, some of which don't even ship OpenGL at all. SPDY/QUIC/HTTP3 re-implement a lot of the OS level socket stuff in the browser. Hardware interfaces for USB, Bluetooth, and Serial are exposed to avoid needing device specific drivers for many things. It has the ability to be the compositor, window manager, and displa…
But OpenGL is not part of the OS, or is it? (asking sincerely, no idea) I thought Vulcan is for Linux, Metal for Mac and Direct3D is for Windows. Quic still relies on UDP, just like many other non-TCP protocols that are built by vendors for all sorts of applications.
OpenGL isn't really any different than Direct3D/Vulkan/Metal from the OS perspective. Shoot until recent times it was the only option on some platforms and if you wanted to use the GPU it was the only way on them.
QUIC uses UDP but not in a "it's relying on UDP" way as much as "layering UDP allowed it to go through middleware boxes" way. The developers of QUIC would have liked QUIC to not depend on UDP, and the protocol works fine that way, but then it wouldn't have went through home routers or corporate firewalls very well. Regardless a lot which used to be done in the OS TCP stack is now handled by the browser application. This is similar to how some other apps have used UDP but that doesn't take away from that fact.
Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am honestly glad that the EU forces vendors to put the customer first. I won't be sad if they force opening of the walled garden that is the iOS app store.
> customers first > opening of walled garden Yeah, I wonder how secure those customers would be when any kind of third party app store can just show up and start releasing data stealing, virus-infested apps, with no oversight? The idea that allowing a wild west of things because "freedom" is somehow better for the end customer is very shortsighted. I've never had to assist anybody in my family who has an iPhone, that…
It's not like anyone from the EU forces you to install "data stealing, virus-infested apps". If you don't like alternative app stores or side-loading, then just don't use those.
Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
> nor am I familiar with any browser reimplementing any feature of the underlying OS. Well QUIC is replacing TCP for many HTTP connections now, and that’s implemented entirely in the browser. The OS provides the datagram layer but at this point it’s semantics. The bulk of the protocol is in the browser.
Yes, Quic still relies on UDP. So that's like many other non-TCP protocols that are built by vendors on top of UDP for all sorts of applications. It still uses the OS layer for UDP, which is what many other applications do.
I disagree. UDP is stateless, all the heavy lifting for the connection oriented protocol is being done in the browser. It is literally replacing the kernels TCP stack, a service the operating system has supplied for decades.
The question was, has a browser has taken anything over from the OS, and the answer is - in this case - yes. It still uses the OS to control access to the network, but the role of the OS in HTTP has been significantly reduced.
Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You mean Google will deliver a better browser than what currently iOS users have to the point that iOS users will decide to move away from the default No, I mean that Google will use their search monopoly, along with their dominant position across other product areas to undercut the market share of any competing browser. Any merit Chrome has is dwarfed by the strength of Google’s ability to push it on users. I have…
"I don’t like Apple’s approach. But I’m also concerned about the prospect of a Blink-only future." It's the web's destiny anyway. Its design lacks modularity to such a huge degree that a monopoly open source implementation is inevitable. There's no deep reason that has to be bad, Blink is open source and can be forked. In some ways it's not really clear what benefit the duplication between WebKit, Blink and Gecko bri…
> It's the web's destiny anyway.
I hope that you're wrong! Google already has a tremendous amount of influence, and a Blink monoculture would give them near complete control of the future of the web. (And I think Google have been poor stewards of the web. But that's an entirely different conversation.)
Blink being open source is better than the alternative. Internet Explorer achieving total dominance would have been even worse. But it doesn't buy you that much. Under a monoculture, your fork of Blink could never deviate from the original meaningfully because sites wouldn't be built to standards, they would be built to work on Blink.
Google not being able to unilaterally dictate web standards is a good thing. For example, I'm glad we have WASM and not Google Native Client.
Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
But OpenGL is not part of the OS, or is it? (asking sincerely, no idea) I thought Vulcan is for Linux, Metal for Mac and Direct3D is for Windows. Quic still relies on UDP, just like many other non-TCP protocols that are built by vendors for all sorts of applications.
OpenGL isn't really any different than Direct3D/Vulkan/Metal from the OS perspective. Shoot until recent times it was the only option on some platforms and if you wanted to use the GPU it was the only way on them. QUIC uses UDP but not in a "it's relying on UDP" way as much as "layering UDP allowed it to go through middleware boxes" way. The developers of QUIC would have liked QUIC to not depend on UDP, and the proto…
I see. You're saying if they could build OS functions into the browser and not break compatibility with the outside world they would have done that, which means that they're vested in the idea that the browser is the new OS, or can minimize the OS to just the extremely basic no-value-add utilitarian functions. That makes sense why people are concerned or baffled. Thanks.
Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, Quic still relies on UDP. So that's like many other non-TCP protocols that are built by vendors on top of UDP for all sorts of applications. It still uses the OS layer for UDP, which is what many other applications do.
I disagree. UDP is stateless, all the heavy lifting for the connection oriented protocol is being done in the browser. It is literally replacing the kernels TCP stack, a service the operating system has supplied for decades. The question was, has a browser has taken anything over from the OS, and the answer is - in this case - yes. It still uses the OS to control access to the network, but the role of the OS in HTTP…
What's the difference between Quic using UDP and SRT using UDP: https://www.haivision.com/products/srt-secure-reliable-trans...
?
I understand from the other comment in this thread that Google is OK with building an OS within the browser and minimizing the role of the OS, but I do not think Quic is a great example unless and until you consider, as the other commenter did, that it could work without UDP and they used UDP only because the routers and other network hardware required it. So, I understand overall, just knit picking on this particular form of the argument.