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

open-web-advocacy.org

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

#381

Post by bigbadfeline »

account42 wrote: post #374
dmitrygr wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously suggesting that becoming more regulated like bridge/building builders is GOOD for software? You sure you are ready to freeze all innovation forever? Cause there is a well documented inverse relationship between regulation and innovation. (Small teams cannot afford compliance officers and other such dross. Big ones do move fast, and, without competition from the smells, do not need to)

For software used by regular people who do not know anything about software and shouldn't have to, used to manage their banking, do their taxes and other things that they need to be able to do online these days? Yes.

>For software used by regular people who do not know anything about software and shouldn't have to... Yes (aka kill the makers with regulations)"

That doesn't make sense. Even the big browser makers have beta-versions clearly marked as experimental. If someone is so dumb that they don't understand simple warnings and disclaimers, that's their problem and nobody else's.

"Don't use if dumb" is the only warning that regulators need to require. The regulator should pay to the maker for all other compliance measures, otherwise regulations become only a source of oppressive power and picking winners and losers. "Only" because they do not increase software security in any meaningful way.

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

#382

Post by krzyk »

paisawalla wrote: post #304
hungmung wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can somebody tell me if this applies to FOSS browsers?

Someone will need to establish an entity to bring a distributable version of that browser to an app store, and in doing so, taking on the compliance liability.

Doesn't Firefox already have it? Or the requirements for Apple store different from Google in EU?

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

#383

Post by syndeo »

hbn wrote: post #238
MangoToupe wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 compet…

This. Exactly this.

As a web dev, I happen to love some of the tech advancements in Chromium, and as a nerd, I'd be thrilled to see it on iOS, just for the fun technical novelty of it all. But allowing it on iOS will downright kill WebKit, as web devs will just code for Chrome (as they already do). The floodgates will be opened.

As a user, I value battery life, smooth performance, and system integration (technically and visually). It's great to use an Apple browser on an Apple OS, just as it is nice to use Chrome on Android—everything fits together.

Gosh, I miss the pre-Blink days when WebKit was able to benefit from Chromium, but alas…

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

#384

Post by syndeo »

rgovostes wrote: post #373
agust wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The likely outcome of alternate, capable browser engines coming to iOS will be to push Apple to invest in Safari so it can compete with them and not loose all of its market share. Otherwise, yes it's likely web apps will prompt their user to use a browser with a capable engine on iOS if they exist. Nothing to configure, install and use. Users will then be able to use capable web apps that take up a tenth of the stora…

On my Mac, Google Chrome takes 1.8 GB. I would be pretty sore if I had to download that on cellular while trying to hail a cab in a foreign country because the app requires something like the Battery Status API in order to extract a surcharge because my battery is at 2%.

An invisible low battery surcharge… That's diabolical… don't give _them_ ideas!!

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

#385

Post by Terretta »

ThatMedicIsASpy wrote: post #11
TheDong wrote: post #4

I agree with the point about non-EU web developers. As long as people in the US can't test their web app on "firefox for iOS" without first buying a plane ticket to the EU and getting an EU sim card, all eu-only browser engines on iOS will be second-class citizens. I think the next logical extension is that actually limiting general public use across the entire world makes apple less compliant with the DMA. Mozilla w…

What a load of BS. How can I test my website on safari without owning Apple hardware? I can't so I don't.

> How can I test my website on safari without owning Apple hardware?

Arduously?

Check this very surprising thing out:

https://github.com/WebKitForWindows/WebKitRequirements/relea...

This is how Playwright has a webkit engine. An old discussion:

https://schepp.dev/posts/running-webkit-on-windows/

And this visual engine rendering compare tool leverages it:

https://github.com/niutech/splitbrowser

Separately, not sure if/when this will be a real thing for Linux:

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/03/kag-orion-web-browser-co...

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

#386

Post by ziml77 »

syndeo wrote: post #384
rgovostes wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my Mac, Google Chrome takes 1.8 GB. I would be pretty sore if I had to download that on cellular while trying to hail a cab in a foreign country because the app requires something like the Battery Status API in order to extract a surcharge because my battery is at 2%.

An invisible low battery surcharge… That's diabolical… don't give _them_ ideas!!

People were accusing Uber of this 10 years ago. It's not a secret concept. And while it seems Uber has never actually done this, it wouldn't surprise me if there are companies out there who do.

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

#387

Post by jajuuka »

p0w3n3d wrote: post #166

First of all. We must not agree that all the market will be taken by one engine (i.e. Chromium) Sadly there's no incentive for this, of course we have Firefox (still, right?) but it may perish because of underfunding for example. We used to have opera, IE, those engines are lost. So what I think about the EU directive is that it basically allows one company (Google) take over the whole market. Because what we have to…

I don't understand the fear of Chromium. What benefit is it to developers to have to run through three different engines to make sure their site conforms to all three? Users will naturally collect around one option and make it the most popular anyway. If Apple can only maintain relevance by preventing users choice and freedom, why is that worth keeping?

Even though all those browsers use the blink engine they are dramatically different experiences, features and support.

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

#388

Post by jajuuka »

hbn wrote: post #238
MangoToupe wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 compet…

So to protect an artificially inflated browser engine you're willing to remove user choice and freedom to prevent a competitor from doing well? Microsoft was learned this was illegal many years ago. When the US government went after monopolies and didn't cosign them.

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

#389

Post by Jyaif »

croemer wrote: post #371
Jyaif wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same reason I choose 500k, it's an approximation.

Given that Stack overflow has 500 employees, I'd say Safari requires 500 people rather than 100.

FWIW 119 unique @apple addresses appear in Webkit.git in the last year.

( `git log --since="1 year ago" --pretty="%cn " | grep "apple" | sort -u | wc -l` )

Of course there's more to Safari than just Webkit, and there's more than just committers. So yes, the number may be close to 500 in total.

Assuming a generous 500k cost per employee, we reach 250 million USD, which is less than 2% of what they get for Safari.

Safari is essentially pure profit.

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

#390

Post by ziotom78 »

jlokier wrote: post #270
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,…

Several comments point out this doesn't happen on Android. I'm using Android, with my default browser set to Firefox Focus, and I found: - Every few months, the default browser gets reset to Chrome. I don't know this has happened until I realise I'm looking at something in Chrome. Then I look at the default browser setting, see it changed to Chrome (without my consent, and as far as I know, no notification), and I ch…

This might depend on the brand of the smartphone, as I am a regular Firefox user and I never experienced any unwanted change in the default browser of my Huawei P20 and Samsung A52 phones.
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