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Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

theguardian.com

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Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#61

Post by saagarjha »

marcthe12 wrote: post #53
capableweb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess would be that it's policy-enforced and what Apple really has problems with is not browsers as a concept (dynamically loading and rendering data) but rather the execution engine that websites usually use (JavaScript) and seeing that as a too-large-to-review area where they want to avoid having vulnerabilities in applications published on App Store. Or it's a anti-competitive move disguised as a "avoid vulnera…

Apple uses no Turing complete policy. So you also can't bundle a python or ruby interpreter in iOS. Its still anti-competitive but in a different area which is language and api. They are basically trying to push devs to use their native OS apis. PWA are also screwed up in Safari for a reason.

> So you also can't bundle a python or ruby interpreter in iOS.

You can if it’s for educational purposes.

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#62

Post by toxik »

marcthe12 wrote: post #53
capableweb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess would be that it's policy-enforced and what Apple really has problems with is not browsers as a concept (dynamically loading and rendering data) but rather the execution engine that websites usually use (JavaScript) and seeing that as a too-large-to-review area where they want to avoid having vulnerabilities in applications published on App Store. Or it's a anti-competitive move disguised as a "avoid vulnera…

Apple uses no Turing complete policy. So you also can't bundle a python or ruby interpreter in iOS. Its still anti-competitive but in a different area which is language and api. They are basically trying to push devs to use their native OS apis. PWA are also screwed up in Safari for a reason.

That’s surely absurdly difficult to test, and provably impossible to prove the negative (i.e. my app is not Turing complete.) Is a calculator app not Turing complete? What about Google Sheets?

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#63

Post by saagarjha »

extropy wrote: post #40
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

interesting. But I can’t help but think by that logic Facebook should be too large to review.

Facebook does have code that dynamically compiles arbitrary input to machine code. That's the part Apple is not allowing in third party apps.

> Facebook does have code that dynamically compiles arbitrary input to machine code.

Not outside of JavaScriptCore they don’t.

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#64

Post by beokop »

marcthe12 wrote: post #53
capableweb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess would be that it's policy-enforced and what Apple really has problems with is not browsers as a concept (dynamically loading and rendering data) but rather the execution engine that websites usually use (JavaScript) and seeing that as a too-large-to-review area where they want to avoid having vulnerabilities in applications published on App Store. Or it's a anti-competitive move disguised as a "avoid vulnera…

Apple uses no Turing complete policy. So you also can't bundle a python or ruby interpreter in iOS. Its still anti-competitive but in a different area which is language and api. They are basically trying to push devs to use their native OS apis. PWA are also screwed up in Safari for a reason.

Pythonista is a full(-ish) offline Python IDE and has been on the App Store for years.

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#65

Post by Longhanks »

marcthe12 wrote: post #53
capableweb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess would be that it's policy-enforced and what Apple really has problems with is not browsers as a concept (dynamically loading and rendering data) but rather the execution engine that websites usually use (JavaScript) and seeing that as a too-large-to-review area where they want to avoid having vulnerabilities in applications published on App Store. Or it's a anti-competitive move disguised as a "avoid vulnera…

Apple uses no Turing complete policy. So you also can't bundle a python or ruby interpreter in iOS. Its still anti-competitive but in a different area which is language and api. They are basically trying to push devs to use their native OS apis. PWA are also screwed up in Safari for a reason.

This is not true. There is for example the Pythonista IDE for iOS, which ships a full Python interpreter. https://omz-software.com/pythonista/

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#66

Post by dessant »

marcthe12 wrote: post #53
capableweb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess would be that it's policy-enforced and what Apple really has problems with is not browsers as a concept (dynamically loading and rendering data) but rather the execution engine that websites usually use (JavaScript) and seeing that as a too-large-to-review area where they want to avoid having vulnerabilities in applications published on App Store. Or it's a anti-competitive move disguised as a "avoid vulnera…

Apple uses no Turing complete policy. So you also can't bundle a python or ruby interpreter in iOS. Its still anti-competitive but in a different area which is language and api. They are basically trying to push devs to use their native OS apis. PWA are also screwed up in Safari for a reason.

Kivy bundles Python in iOS apps, and the apps are accepted on the App Store. Do you have a link for this policy?

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#67

Post by saagarjha »

radarsat1 wrote: post #18
johnsea wrote: post #7

The article once more reiterates the fact that Apple doesn't allow other browser engines. You cannot even fight, there is no future ;-) on iOS.

How is it technically enforced though, I am curious. I mean, if I wrote an application that downloaded text files and rendered the text to the screen, I am sure that would be possible. If I wanted to add images to draw next to the text I am sure it is feasible. So how can one technically prohibit doing that? Implementation-wise, how is a web browser really that different from e.g. a video game? Or is it only policy-e…

Web content must be rendered through WebKit as per the App Store Review Guidelines (https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/). This is supposed to be enforced by App Store Review by inspection. In addition to this, there are technical reasons why your “browser” will be inferior to Apple’s web view performance-wise, mainly having to do with apps that generate code dynamically in-process needing entitlements that prevent submission to the review process.

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#68

Post by danilocesar »

toxik wrote: post #62
marcthe12 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple uses no Turing complete policy. So you also can't bundle a python or ruby interpreter in iOS. Its still anti-competitive but in a different area which is language and api. They are basically trying to push devs to use their native OS apis. PWA are also screwed up in Safari for a reason.

That’s surely absurdly difficult to test, and provably impossible to prove the negative (i.e. my app is not Turing complete.) Is a calculator app not Turing complete? What about Google Sheets?

As long as it uses Apple's WebView, it's OK. This was the case for Firefox, they had to ditch Gecko in favor of using Apple's webview for iOS.

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#69

Post by saagarjha »

dessant wrote: post #66
marcthe12 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple uses no Turing complete policy. So you also can't bundle a python or ruby interpreter in iOS. Its still anti-competitive but in a different area which is language and api. They are basically trying to push devs to use their native OS apis. PWA are also screwed up in Safari for a reason.

Kivy bundles Python in iOS apps, and the apps are accepted on the App Store. Do you have a link for this policy?

That likely falls under the “educational” exemption: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#sof...

Re: Firefox’s Fight for the Future of the Web

#70

Post by ppfrc »

jeltz wrote: post #38
phatfish wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they get shouted down whenever they try to monetise independently, can't have it both ways. Either more users start donating $5-10 a month (seems worth it to me given the time I spend with their product) or they take the Google money and deal with the conflict of interest best they can. A Shuttelworth style billionaire benefactor would work as well, but I doubt one will come from the tech community as Firefox is…

The reason that they get shouted down is because every time they have tried to make money in other ways it has been done in shady ways. Like giving away the browsing data of their German users to Cliqz (would probably have been illegal post-GDPR) or running guerilla marketing for Mr Robot in Shield Studies (which reduces the trust from people who enabled Shield to help Mozilla with studies). Almost nobody complains a…

You can't call yourself a champion of privacy and then sell the browsing history of your users to a marketing company. It simply doesn't work that way.
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