[HN Gopher] Apple considering dropping requirement for iPhone we...
___________________________________________________________________
Apple considering dropping requirement for iPhone web browsers to
use WebKit
Author : alwillis
Score : 332 points
Date : 2022-12-14 17:05 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macrumors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macrumors.com)
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I don't understand the "considering" part. Don't they _have_ to
| do this, at least in the EU, to comply with the Digital Markets
| Act?
| mtomweb wrote:
| Yes. They are being compelled to do it.
|
| Considering makes it sound like this is a deliberate Apple PR
| leak
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| This is just signaling. They're trying to hold off the EU
| legislating the hell out of them.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| I really don't want this
| nickthegreek wrote:
| This would be great. I don't want to install another app store or
| sideload much if that big change comes next year as I am a fan of
| the walled garden. My one worry was web browsing as I would
| prefer a firefox/ublock setup on my iphone.
| ouid wrote:
| >"I am a fan of the walled garden".
|
| How on earth does this jibe with the rest of your comment?
|
| You immediately assert a fear that the removal of the walled
| garden would prevent you from doing a thing that the walled
| garden _explicitly prevents_.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| I trust Apple to do a decent job at protecting me (and more
| importantly, my less tech minded friends) more than a 3rd
| party app store. I dont mind using webkit, but I do recognize
| that its a shit move by Apple to not allow other rendering
| engines in the store. Just not a shitty enough for me to go
| F-Droid and micromanage my phone.
|
| I will not install a 3rd party app store if Apple allowed it
|
| I would sideload a browser from an official repository.
|
| But if apple loosened the webkit restriction, I could get my
| preferred browser without sideloading or using 3rd party
| appstore.
|
| Does that clear up any confusion?
| smoldesu wrote:
| You don't even need a third-party app to get a virus on
| iPhone. As long as you're signed in with your Apple ID,
| you're vulnerable to Pegasus and a number of other decoder-
| based payloads that can crash, manipulate or create an
| entire VM inside your iPhone.
|
| Worrying about the contents of an Open-Source binary is
| small-fries, my friend.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Guess we should just all throw away our phones then...
| smoldesu wrote:
| Alternatively, just have realistic expectations of the
| devices you own. Everything you have is vulnerable to
| exploits and social engineering. Apple can't save you
| from that any more than Google, Microsoft, or even the
| Open Source community can. Apple pretending that they're
| poised to solve these problems is an illusion, and one
| you probably shouldn't argue in favor of.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| What strawman are you fighting? What expectation did I
| say that isn't realistic? I did not state that I was
| against Apple allowing 3rd party appstores or against
| sideloading. I said that I prefer to use the offical app
| store, and I am happy that Apple is loosening the
| restrictions around 3rd party browser engines as I did
| not agree with it.
|
| Maybe I am misinterpreting your argument? I feel like you
| stated that since state actors can hack my phone, I
| should stop worrying about security.
|
| The appstore limited Facebooks ability to collect
| information on me. This is a fact.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I object to the line
|
| > I trust Apple to do a decent job at protecting me [...]
| more than a 3rd party app store.
|
| Arguing over App Store security borders on hypocrisy when
| there are gaping-wide exploits in the default iOS
| ecosystem.
|
| Also, this bit:
|
| > more importantly, my less tech minded friends
|
| If your friends can't be trusted to use the internet
| without direct supervision, maybe they shouldn't have
| access to Safari, YouTube, Twitter or an iPhone either.
| It's a hard argument to strongman when the iPhone has a
| web browser packed in.
| tarboreus wrote:
| Pretty impressive how Apple has hypnotized so many
| objectively intelligent people.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| I wish people were better at understanding how comments
| like this make them come across. Like... it's never
| feasible that _people just disagree with you_. It's that
| they've been hoodwinked, brainwashed, or hypnotised.
| tarboreus wrote:
| If the shoe fits.
|
| The big one right now is people saying they really like
| the walled garden, so they won't install a new app store.
| OK, sure, maybe I don't, either, because I'm lazy, but is
| it something to be proud of?
|
| I think hypnotized is really the right word with Apple.
| There's a shininess to Apple, and one stares at them all
| day. People identify with them, follow their trivial
| moves, and defend them, even in the same breath where
| their doing something wrong or nakedly self-interested .
|
| So, yeah, hypnotized. I'm being figurative, and I think
| it's appropriate. Feel free to disagree.
| pessimizer wrote:
| There's nothing wrong with liking Apple's app store. I
| don't use Apple products, have never willingly used Apple
| products, and will not be using Apple products in the
| future, but this is crossing into Apple derangement
| syndrome.
|
| I just don't want Apple purchasers to be trapped in a
| manipulative relationship with the company for the life
| of the product, and I want developers to have alternative
| ways of reaching the customers who want their products.
| I'm not interested in making Apple users do anything they
| don't want to do, and I don't understand what you get out
| of insulting the people who enjoy the way Apple runs
| things.
|
| Is your sole aim to make Apple users defensive of the
| company? Because that's all this sort of talk is
| achieving.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| How am I hypnotized? I'm not even arguing against 3rd party
| app stores right to exist, nor am I arguing against the
| ability to sideload.
|
| Is it impossible to believe that some people want to able
| to go into a curated store of items and not a free for all
| where shady individuals could take advantage of people?
| I'll let you know right now that there is ZERO reason for
| my mother to install a 3rd party app store. And I believe
| that to be true for the majority of users.
| Terretta wrote:
| Consider Kagi Orion browser with Ublock Origin on iOS today:
|
| https://browser.kagi.com/
|
| Or, consider 1Blocker for Safari (or Adblock Pro for Safari,
| DNS, and network blocking).
| Kiro wrote:
| This is massive news for mobile web game developers. It's
| currently suicide to try to support iOS Safari.
|
| It's actually really sad that you make something that should be
| cross-platform by default but breaks because iOS Safari lacks
| support for the most basic things.
|
| You make something that works identical on Android Chrome and
| Firefox at 60fps but as soon as you try it on iPhone you're
| bombarded with glitches and problems that you don't even know
| where to start. If you want to make a cross-platform mobile game
| you're currently forced to go native.
| skrowl wrote:
| Great news! Now what about
|
| - No alternative launchers / home apps
|
| - Real filesystem access / real file browser apps
|
| - No emulators
|
| - No compilers / code interpreters etc
|
| - No adult apps
|
| - Multiple accounts / users on a device
|
| - Plug it in to any computer and use it as a USB drive
|
| - Act as a USB host
| [deleted]
| msoad wrote:
| Chrome on iOS will allow Service Workers drain your battery in
| the background. It's gonna be great!
| taylorius wrote:
| I'm not used to cheering on the EU - but if Chrome is no longer
| restricted to Webkit, they could enable WebXR integration - which
| would be jolly nice.
| roody15 wrote:
| Looks like they are trying to stay ahead of incoming EU action.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I disagree. The EU is already forcing them through the DMA and
| the writing was on the wall the second alternative app stores
| were even an option. If Google wasn't going to get Chrome into
| the app store, they'd get it into Google Play for iOS.
|
| Staying ahead of EU action would've involved appeasing the
| antitrust worries when the DMA was still taking shape. Google
| has done so in small ways by redesigning Android's package
| installer APIs to make alternative app stores more feasible.
|
| Of course there are no popular app stores outside of open
| source and piracy circles because there's usually little to
| gain in using them on Android. Amazon's app store is available
| as a normal download, though I don't think they've marketed
| that enough for it to be any kind of success.
| pedrocr wrote:
| I wonder if Apple would have ended up better off if they had made
| iOS devices friendly to third-party OSs. Maybe a nice homebrew
| culture would have emerged and LineageOS would have a nice set of
| images to install and all the geeks would have been satisfied. I
| know I would. But most users wouldn't bother, and it would be an
| all-or-nothing choice. Meanwhile they'd have quite a bit more
| ability to argue for their walled garden in the OS to regulators.
| It might still not have worked but they would have had a much
| better chance I think. For most users this is a much better
| outcome though and maybe someday Google will let me buy a Pixel
| phone...
| philistine wrote:
| It is indeed a shame that no alternative OS is available for
| iPhone. With how long its taking to get Macs to boot Linux
| without caveats though, one can understand why it never
| happened.
|
| Hopefully, the ability to select an OS upon boot will come to
| iPhone someday.
| acdha wrote:
| I have really mixed feelings about this. From an open source and
| general fairness perspective, I would really like to have a true
| Firefox on iOS but I'm also cognizant of the fact that iOS'
| browser restriction is basically the only reason why "web" is not
| a synonym for "whatever the Google Chrome team chooses to ship".
|
| It feels like this would be best if paired with some regulatory
| pressure banning cross-promotion of Chrome on Google properties
| and requiring Google to actually do QA rather than accidentally
| breaking YouTube, Gmail, Google Cloud, etc. for users other
| browsers. For all of the "Safari is the new IE6" memes posted, I
| have far more frequently encountered cases where a Google web
| application is doing something which only works in Chrome but
| there is no technical why it could not work just as well in any
| other modern browser engine.
| kevingadd wrote:
| I think if Firefox had been allowed onto the iOS store much
| earlier (they had ports done and working at multiple points in
| history) it might have helped them fight off Chrome and slow
| the growth of the Chromium monopoly, but at this point it's not
| clear to me how you fix it. I'd still be happy to be able to
| use Firefox on an iPhone but Firefox's days as a usable browser
| are numbered in general, so at some point I'd be stuck going
| back to Safari on that device.
|
| I increasingly have to open up Edge to do basic stuff because
| people have stopped testing on anything other than Chrome and
| the set of Chrome-only APIs out there to use is constantly
| expanding.
| ginko wrote:
| Couldn't Apple just have had a "no Chrome" policy. No one cares
| about that browser but I'd really like to have Firefox.
| cpcallen wrote:
| I have mixed feelings too, but for slightly different reasons:
| AFAICT Chrome is a power grab in the literal sense that (on
| macOS) it drains my battery a lot faster than Safari does, for
| equivalent use. Not great, but bearable on a laptop; on a
| phone, however, that's a critical issue. So at least in that
| respect it has been in the users' best interests to oblige
| developers to use the most power-efficient browser engine.
| trap_goes_hot wrote:
| Chrome is basically a keylogger for Google. There is an
| argument to be made that AV/Malware software should fingerprint
| it as such.
| bioemerl wrote:
| Safari doesn't help the web be diverse, it just cripples the
| webs ability to compete with apps.
|
| When is the last time you said "I will choose to use safari" or
| seen apple pushing the bounds of what the web can do?
| sefrost wrote:
| The "peeking" you can do with the trackpad on a Mac when
| navigating backwards and forwards between pages is a must
| have for me in a browser. It's so nice in Safari, I use it
| hundreds of times a day. It's painful for me when I use other
| browsers that don't have this feature.
| ask_b123 wrote:
| Similarly, the "peeking" you can do with Look Up on URLs.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I do this with my Magic Trackpad on Linux as well, it's
| very nice.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Wait, how are you getting that on Linux?
| smoldesu wrote:
| If you're running Firefox with native Wayland support,
| multitouch trackpad gestures are working now.
|
| Edit: I also found a Chrome extension that adds it:
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/swipe-
| back/mkkcgaj...
| threeseed wrote:
| Many Mac users choose to use Safari because it is by far the
| most efficient browser.
| bioemerl wrote:
| I'm very skeptical this is due to safari and not Microsoft
| style monopolistic behavior by baking the browser into the
| OS so it's always loaded.
| threeseed wrote:
| No it's simply due to priorities.
|
| Apple has always placed privacy and efficiency over new
| features.
| smoldesu wrote:
| ...but part of it is _also_ that WebKit is baked-in to
| MacOS, and gets it 's always-on processes reused by the
| browser when you launch it.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Processes? No.
|
| Various parts of MacOS use the WebKit libraries for
| rendering, but that's a library, not processes.
| smoldesu wrote:
| You're correct, but the assumption that MacOS reuses
| system resources to run Safari still stands. It's not
| necessarily bad, it's just what the earlier comment
| suggested.
| lilyball wrote:
| No they aren't. There's no central webkitd or anything
| like that. WebKit is a framework, not a background
| daemon. If you quit all apps that use WebKit, then no
| associated processes will exist anymore. If you look in
| Activity Monitor all the web content processes are
| parented to launchd(1), but if you ask launchd about it,
| it'll tell you that the "responsible pid" for each web
| content process is the WebKit-enabled application that
| spawned it. And if you quit the application, all the
| associated web content processes shut down.
| smoldesu wrote:
| So, quit all of the WebKit apps and then check to see if
| WebKit libraries are still loaded. I posted instructions
| further down the thread, it's not hard to see for
| yourself.
| lilyball wrote:
| If I quit all WebKit apps then by definition I've quit
| everything that loads the libraries.
|
| You also seem to be very confused as to the difference
| between a library and a process, given what you've been
| saying. Having a bunch of apps using WebKit as a
| framework does not confer any kind of advantage on these
| apps. If I have an app using WebKit, and you have an app
| using WebKit, they don't affect each other in the
| slightest. The only way they would is if they were
| reusing shared web content processes and so didn't have
| to wait for those to launch, except a) I imagine
| launching a web content process is pretty quick, and b)
| they don't share web content processes so it doesn't
| matter.
| smoldesu wrote:
| So, do it. See what happens; WebKit is still loaded via
| MacOS because it's used to render UI elements that are
| considered part of the system. Unless you've modified the
| way default apps run on MacOS, WebKit should be loaded
| into memory from the moment you boot MacOS to the moment
| you shut it down.
| lilyball wrote:
| The overhead of mapping the files on disk into memory is
| pretty minimal. The framework still has to be initialized
| anew for every application. About the only benefit I can
| think of is WebKit might be in the dyld shared cache
| (assuming that includes frameworks that can be updated
| independently of the system), and that just means it
| would bypass some of the dyld setup, but if so that would
| just have a minor effect on the launch time of the
| application.
|
| Also if I actually do that right now I see a bunch of
| WebContent processes, the apps themselves and then there
| are a handful of daemons that have InfoPlist.strings open
| from WebKit (from the iOSSupport subsystem) but that's
| just a localization file and I don't know what it's doing
| there but it appears to be completely irrelevant (the
| daemons do not have anything else from WebKit loaded).
|
| AFAIK macOS does not use WebKit to render UI. iOS has
| been known to use WebKit for text rendering in the past,
| but I'm not sure if it even still does that, and that was
| presumably in-process anyway. And even if it did that
| still wouldn't matter as far as applications' own use of
| web rendering engines is concerned.
| aequitas wrote:
| > and gets it's always-on processes reused by the browser
| when you launch it
|
| Which is a moot point on macOS, since you hardly ever
| close the browser application. You just close the windows
| and the application stays activated in the Dock.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| The speed with which it launches isn't what anyone here
| means when they claim Safari is more efficient. They mean
| it's far more power-efficient and doesn't harm
| responsiveness and performance consistency on the rest of
| your system (i.e. programs that aren't the browser) as
| much as Chrome or FF do.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| macOS WebKit browsers that ship their own custom build of
| WebKit rather than using the system version (like Orion)
| are just as efficient as Safari is.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I found this held on a weak Chromebox I'd stuck Void on a
| while back, too. Dual-core Celeron, no hyperthreading,
| 2GB memory. Webkit-based browsers were the only ones that
| approached usability on that device.
| threeseed wrote:
| Which processes ? It's not like there is a webkitd and
| everything is done via RPC.
| [deleted]
| smoldesu wrote:
| On iOS, Cocoa uses WebKit to render text, and everything
| UIKit-based on MacOS gets rendered with dynamically-
| linked WebKit as well. It's safe to say that if your Mac
| is on, WebKit is probably running.
| threeseed wrote:
| There is a big difference between a dynamically-linked
| library and a constantly running process.
|
| I am on a Mac right now. There are no running webkit,
| webkitd etc processes despite me writing this in Safari.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Run this:
|
| `lsof | grep webkit`
|
| You'll need to run that as the user handling WebKit
| processes, so sudo might be required.
| nwienert wrote:
| No process there (Ventura, ran with sudo).
|
| And like everyone has said that would only affect startup
| time. Safari does absolutely blow away Chrome at startup
| time, but it also is more performant in basically every
| other way: battery, memory, runtime, window resize, tab
| open/close/re-open, forward/back, paint, layout...
|
| The UI also is more minimal making well built sites feel
| much more native than Chrome (on Mac and iOS), especially
| combined with all the performance.
|
| Chrome feels like a dinosaur.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| How does this prove that Safari gets an inherent
| performance advantage over Chrome? I guess on startup
| there could be a slight difference if the library is
| already loaded in memory.
| andrekandre wrote:
| > On iOS, Cocoa uses WebKit to render text, and
| everything UIKit-based on MacOS
|
| you are saying that nstextview and friends are rendered
| with webkit?
| [deleted]
| ezfe wrote:
| macOS does very little to favor Safari. It provides
| identical resistance to changing defaults _to_ Safari as
| it does changing defaults _from_ Safari.
| apaprocki wrote:
| Yes. I have used every way to consume the web since text-
| only was preferred in early lynx days and finding gopher
| resources was the norm. NSCA Mosaic, Netscape Navigator,
| all IE versions, Firefox, Chrome when it first appeared. I
| want nothing more to only use Safari / OS WebKit on all my
| devices. If this winds up going through, I will actively
| delete all applications that switch off WebKit. To each
| their own...
| mgkimsal wrote:
| I choose it every single day. I have chrome, Firefox, edge
| and safari at my disposal. Safari is my day to day for most
| regular usage. For tech/dev work, Firefox and Chrome are
| usually in flight at the same time.
|
| EDIT: "Safari doesn't help the web be diverse"
|
| Not sure what you mean by that. Safari existing _is_
| diversity, but like FF /mozilla was an antidote to the IE
| years on Windows.
| meowtimemania wrote:
| Why do you chose safari?
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| It's fast, good with memory, and does everything I need
| from it.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Doesn't seriously harm performance of the rest of my
| system the way a many-tabs Chrome or Firefox tends to.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I choose Safari because it's the default, and as a user I
| can no longer really tell the difference between the
| major browsers. Gone are the days when I'd even think
| about downloading a different browser when I set up a
| computer. On Macs I use Safari, on Windows I use Edge. I
| don't see the benefit of going out of my way to install a
| different browser.
|
| I'm actually continually shocked at Chrome's market
| share. Is there any PC or laptop platform, besides
| Chromebooks, that ships Chrome as the default browser?
| Why is it that so many people took time out of their day
| to go download a different browser in 2022?
| layer8 wrote:
| Google is promoting Chrome left and right, and most users
| use at least Google Search, so are constantly exposed to
| the marketing.
|
| And most computer-savvy people who support less computer-
| savvy people "helpfully" install Chrome for them, because
| "everyone knows" it's the best browser.
|
| On Windows, it also doesn't help that Edge has the
| negative image of being associated with Microsoft
| telemetry, while Google still benefits from its former
| "don't be evil" image.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| mostly what others said already. for most day to day
| stuff, iCloud sync and whatnot is decent and works across
| devices. safari dev tools are... horrid imo, so chrome/ff
| for dev work, but general browsing, it's great.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| Fast, best battery life, better UI, the tab groups
| implementation is great. I like the approach to the
| extension store better.
| apaprocki wrote:
| Battery life, keychain, PIN numbers from iMessage,
| integration between desktop/mobile, it's not supported by
| ads/Google...
| ask_b123 wrote:
| I don't really use Safari (for the sole reason called
| uBlock Origin), but something really nice is that Look Up
| displays a scrollable preview of pages/links.
|
| I really miss that since it greatly reduced the amount of
| tabs I opened.
| aequitas wrote:
| Keychain is a big one for me. In the past, Chrome used to
| support Keychain for their passwords, which meant I could
| sync all my secrets on any browser on any of my devices.
| sodality2 wrote:
| > PIN numbers from iMessage
|
| This isn't actually a Safari feature but an iOS feature
| AFAIK.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I'm like 99% sure this works on desktop, too, if you've
| got iMessage configured.
| bobwaycott wrote:
| It does.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I use Safari and another WebKit-based browser (Orion) on
| macOS and iOS/iPadOS all the time, because neither Chrome or
| Firefox compares when it comes to battery consumption or
| feeling like a proper citizen of the OS it's running on.
|
| It's seriously frustrating how little regard is given to
| efficiency in both Blink and Gecko. It don't care if the
| engine supports WebBanana 2.0 if it's destroying battery
| life.
| alwillis wrote:
| > or seen apple pushing the bounds of what the web can do?
|
| I get that it's easy to attack Apple these days but anyone
| paying attention can _objectively_ see that Safari has been
| kicking ass this year. It 's easy to do the "whataboutism"
| thing and they're late on a few things... but if this is a
| sign of things to come for Safari (style queries and masonry
| grids are in the works, for example), this is a Good Thing
| for the web and should be treated as such.
|
| * first to implement (March) the most anticipated CSS feature
| that was thought to be impossible to implement for most of
| the past 20 years, the :has() parent selector [1]. It took
| Chrome until the end of August and it's still not enabled by
| default in Firefox because bugs
|
| * first to implement wide-gamut color support [1a](2020)
|
| * first to implement oklch and oklab (and a bunch more) color
| spaces [2]
|
| * first to implement the open Webauthn standard Passkeys a
| few months ago; Chrome 108 just announced support
|
| * support for all of the "hot" CSS features like Container
| Queries, Subgrid, new viewport units, AVIF image format and
| (as they say) "more" [3]
|
| * Mozilla, Google, Apple and Microsoft agreed to focus on the
| interoperability of 15 web features; WebKit currently passes
| 98.5% of the tests the companies have agreed to, leading the
| other companies [4].
|
| [1]: https://webkit.org/blog/13096/css-has-pseudo-class/
|
| [1a]: https://webkit.org/blog/10042/wide-gamut-color-in-css-
| with-d...
|
| [2]: https://evilmartians.com/chronicles/oklch-in-css-why-
| quit-rg...
|
| [3]: https://webkit.org/blog/13152/webkit-features-in-
| safari-16-0...
|
| [4]: https://webkit.org/blog/13591/webkit-features-in-
| safari-16-2...
| vehemenz wrote:
| Is "pushing the bounds of what the web can do" something we
| should value? Given the current direction of the web, a
| preference for Safari's relatively slow feature rollouts
| seems reasonable.
| bioemerl wrote:
| > Is "pushing the bounds of what the web can do" something
| we should value?
|
| Given that the alternative are app stores controlled by the
| device vendor, yes. Either we free our devices so that
| custom software is acceptable and common again or we make
| sure the web is the go to platform for everything.
| halostatue wrote:
| I don't want to _ever_ give websites access to USB, MIDI,
| or anything else like that.
|
| I'm unhappy that Apple implemented web notifications,
| personally. So much easier to never have to think about
| that garbage.
| qu4z-2 wrote:
| Let's do the former.
| vehemenz wrote:
| Okay, so why should we value the web as the "go to"
| platform instead of applications? We can do this until
| the cows go home.
|
| You are making claims about values here, and not everyone
| shares your values.
| bioemerl wrote:
| You can "do this until the cows go home", but that's
| about as valuable as repeating "why" every time someone
| answers a question.
|
| People generally value being able to do more stuff.
| Putting control into the hands of large central parties
| generally does not go well.
| halostatue wrote:
| Because you're _not_ answering the questions.
|
| You're providing tautological responses.
|
| You've been asked specific things about what features are
| missing from Safari / WebKit. You've replied with vague
| generalizations that don't hold to be true outside of the
| echo chamber of the Chrome Reality Distortion Field.
| mvanbaak wrote:
| > When is the last time you said "I will choose to use
| safari"
|
| Every single time I need a browser. On iPhone, iPad and
| MacBook.
|
| All reasons have been mentioned already, so will not repeat
| them here.
| acdha wrote:
| Multiple implementations help the web be diverse, and there
| is a long history of features becoming easier to use, more
| capable, or secure based on feedback from one of the browser
| teams other than the first to propose something.
|
| It's also not the case that any current browser is so bad
| that the web is better off without it. Anyone with web
| development experience has run into problems or limitations
| with every browser and depending on what you do you will have
| different assessments of which one is best at a given time.
| For example, on the Interop 2022 effort all three browser
| teams have been coordinating currently Safari is in the lead
| and that will continue to shift over time.
|
| https://wpt.fyi/interop-2022
|
| > When is the last time you said "I will choose to use
| safari" or seen apple pushing the bounds of what the web can
| do?
|
| Firefox and Safari are both noticeably faster and use less
| memory. If you care about that, or work on battery that's
| enough right there.
|
| Firefox and Safari don't have conflicts of interest
| preventing privacy improvements or ad blocking.
|
| I haven't used Chrome as my default browser since Firefox
| took the performance crown ~5 years ago but I've used all of
| them plenty as a web developer. The idea that Chrome is so
| far ahead that we should give up on the web having multiple
| implementations and just let Google run it is completely the
| opposite of my experience.
| bioemerl wrote:
| > It's also not the case that any current browser is so bad
| that the web is better off without it.
|
| But it is. Safari on IOS is either missing or badly
| implements every system that lets web apps compete with
| system apps.
|
| It's totally impossible to use something other than safari
| on IOS as well, which basically means apple is able to
| force a very significant amount of web traffic into their
| browser and basically lock out any feature the choose.
|
| That is bad for the web.
|
| Additionally, I think you're mistaken on the performance
| crown. Firefox made big gains years ago but chrome has
| always managed to perform better at most tasks despite
| those gains.
|
| Maybe if you were running really low on ram Firefox is the
| faster option? That's not your typical use case though.
|
| I use Firefox regardless. I way value their not crippling
| AdBlock over chrome and would encourage everyone to use it
| despite speed issues.
| vehemenz wrote:
| iOS Safari locking out features is not inherently good or
| bad.
|
| Yes, it holds back further adoption of cutting edge
| features that some developers would like but that the
| average person doesn't care about.
|
| However, it also holds back features that would increase
| the scope of what the web is, including more features
| that allow bad faith operators to track and monetize our
| data.
| acdha wrote:
| Can you be specific about what exact features you think
| are so critical that the web would be better off without
| Safari? For example, if you've already retracted the
| claim down to "letting iOS users use PWAs which use more
| app-like features" it's clearly not true because most
| people do not use PWAs at all, even on Android, and there
| are many PWAs which work just fine.
|
| > Additionally, I think you're mistaken on the
| performance crown. Firefox made big gains years ago but
| chrome has always managed to perform better at most tasks
| despite those gains.
|
| This always comes down to which specific things you
| benchmark. All I can say is that I use Chrome, Edge,
| Firefox, and Safari on macOS, iOS, and Windows and it's
| exceedingly uncommon for Chrome/Edge to feel faster but I
| do notice their memory impact on the rest of the system.
| For battery life, Safari is hands down the winner
| followed by Firefox and then, distantly, the Chromium
| browsers.
| bioemerl wrote:
| https://wpt.fyi/results/
| acdha wrote:
| So which specific features are that critical -- for
| example, do you think most app developers can't work
| without the battery status API (or that users don't have
| a vested privacy concern)? I ask because when you drill
| into things like that there are a lot of numbers which
| look big until you realize that there are something like
| 57 tests for a non-standard API which is not broadly used
| even on the browsers which do support it.
| bioemerl wrote:
| Every feature has the potential to jump out and be
| critical, even ones that don't appear to be.
|
| Every time I try to use Safari to create something that
| goes beyond "display text" it's a new adventure in bugs
| and unsupported features that work in the other browsers.
|
| It's not one of those things you can sit and name, it's a
| 90/10 issue, and the margins are critical even though
| they appear small.
|
| Bugs surrounding drag and drop is what lead me to abandon
| all hope of supporting the browser some months ago.
| alwillis wrote:
| > Every time I try to use Safari to create something that
| goes beyond "display text" it's a new adventure in bugs
| and unsupported features that work in the other browsers.
|
| Being hyperbolic doesn't help your case; it just looks
| like you're bashing WebKit because it's from Apple. And
| while you may have had a bad experience back in the day
| or don't like that Apple chooses not to implement
| esoteric or Chrome-only features, that doesn't mean that
| Safari sucks _now_.
|
| As I pointed out earlier in the thread [1], Apple has
| done a great job lately implementing features that they,
| Google, Mozilla and Microsoft have agreed should be
| implemented and interoperable and have W3C/WHATWG
| specifications.
|
| _Every_ browser has bugs; the bug trackers for WebKit,
| Mozilla and Google are public, so we can actually see
| what they are.
|
| Like the other browser makers, Apple publishes its bug
| fixes when a new version of WebKit is released.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991256
| acdha wrote:
| > Every time I try to use Safari to create something that
| goes beyond "display text" it's a new adventure in bugs
| and unsupported features that work in the other browsers.
|
| Do you have any examples which aren't so vague? The only
| times I've encountered this problem with other developers
| has been when they were using lots of Chrome-only
| features and put off testing in other browsers; when
| starting development in Firefox or Safari the most common
| case since around the early 2000s has been that
| everything works in the other two browsers with minimal
| effort.
| marvindanig wrote:
| precisely. and we see a lot of similar behavior from Chrome
| now as it helps them replace the good old search form with a
| url bar as the main driver of their ad dollars.
|
| this unsolvable battle is exactly why I opted for the Brave
| [1] browser. all the better if they're able to use alternate
| engine under the hood next.
|
| [1] https://brave.com/
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > When is the last time you said "I will choose to use
| safari"
|
| The last time I opened a Mac with a battery (i.e., today).
| MBCook wrote:
| Every day since it was first released. I left FF for it and
| never looked back.
|
| FF has massively improved since then, but Safari is my
| habit and I'm very happy with it.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I exclusively use Safari for better battery life and I trust
| their security more and anticipate I will be using Keychain
| for a long time.
| mhoad wrote:
| You should probably read the security section of any iOS
| release notes sometime. Great at security isn't the first
| thing that comes to mind for me.
|
| Here's the latest one for example:
| https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT213530
| theshrike79 wrote:
| So fixing security issues is ... bad?
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| If Chrome can update itself in the App Store without a
| reboot like it does on Android, and Safari continues to
| require an OS update, Safari security will continue to be
| worse.
| mhoad wrote:
| FFS... nobody said that. Nobody even implied that.
| acdha wrote:
| iOS release notes combine the OS, apps, and dependent
| libraries. If you compare to Chrome or Firefox on Windows
| or Android it's pretty hard to say that anyone has this
| solved other than to the extent that they're migrating to
| memory-safe languages. I think Chrome is a ahead on
| proactive mitigations but from a user's perspective it's
| basically a never-ending race to install updates since
| they all have high CVEs on a regular basis.
| brundolf wrote:
| I choose Safari as my primary browser on my personal MacBook,
| it's great
| dopidopHN wrote:
| At some point the battery usage on laptop was considerably
| better using safari. That's a plus.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I choose safari every day. It uses less power and it's an
| overall smoother and better integrated experience. It's also
| not constantly hounding me to sign into Google accounts.
|
| "Pushing the bounds of the web" specifically isn't a huge
| goal for me, I want to see the bounds of computing pushed.
| That doesn't have to be on the web. The web is Rube Golberg-
| esque enough as is. [edit] To be clear I'm not opposed to it,
| I'm neutral to it.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Battery life on my Macbook is better using Safari, so I
| choose to use it all the time. They've also been pulling
| ahead of Firefox on several occasions when implementing new
| CSS features.
| msoad wrote:
| I literally don't have Chrome on my Mac. Safari is faster and
| has less Google shoving their random product initiatives to
| me. I never have to log into Safari to do anything.
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| Lifetime windows user, just got a MacBook. I heard safari was
| better for battery life (haven't tested so can't confirm) so
| I thought I'd try it. It works fine for all my needs so why
| change?
|
| Side note, last pass on Mac is a pile of hot garbage. I wish
| I had never gotten my family onto it because switching is
| going to be a hassle.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > I would really like to have a true Firefox on iOS but I'm
| also cognizant of the fact that iOS' browser restriction is
| basically the only reason why "web" is not a synonym for
| "whatever the Google Chrome team chooses to ship".
|
| I feel like Firefox might actually regain marketshare if it can
| ship on iOS. Firefox on Android has a decent claim to be being
| better than Chrome at this point (largely because you can't run
| extensions on Chrome).
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > I feel like Firefox might actually regain marketshare if it
| can ship on iOS.
|
| Firefox is currently superior to Chrome on Android, yet the
| market share is abysmal and irrelevant. I don't see why
| swapping the browser engine would grow market share, other
| than wishful thinking.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| You have to consider that Chrome is the default on most
| Android distributions. A more apt analog would be FF's
| similarly poor market share on Windows or macOS.
| est31 wrote:
| Safari does support extensions on iOS:
| https://developer.apple.com/safari/extensions/
|
| So you can't innovate on _that_ , at least meaningfully. If
| you want the browser with best website support, then you'd go
| with Chrome. If you wanted your bookmarks from your desktop
| to be in sync with mobile bookmarks, then most likely you are
| going to install Chrome, because most likely you had Chrome
| on your desktop (as it is the most common desktop browser).
|
| Also, an apple policy change to lifts the restrictions for
| non-apple apps to not be extendable, is a different beast
| entirely from allowing custom web rendering engines.
| vlunkr wrote:
| > Safari does support extensions on iOS
|
| They have to come from the app store, which greatly reduces
| the number of plugins available compared to FF, and
| subjects them to the same strict policies as their apps.
| sodality2 wrote:
| > If you wanted your bookmarks from your desktop to be in
| sync with mobile bookmarks, then most likely you are going
| to install Chrome
|
| iOS+Chrome users already do this, it would just change iOS
| Chrome's backend rendering engine.
| rvz wrote:
| > I feel like Firefox might actually regain marketshare if it
| can ship on iOS. Firefox on Android has a decent claim to be
| being better than Chrome at this point (largely because you
| can't run extensions on Chrome).
|
| Let's start with the facts. Firefox market share has been
| chronically flat with little to no change for years, as the
| global mobile browser market share [0] has shown even with
| Android having browser choice for the user.
|
| Hence that, it also suggests that even if Apple did the same
| thing, it would just further cement Chrome's dominance on
| iOS. Firefox on mobile is shrinking into irrelevancy.
|
| [0] https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-
| share/mobile/world...
| Groxx wrote:
| Firefox has supported extensions on Android for several years
| now. The current state of support is a rather significant
| step down from where it used to be.
|
| Surprisingly, that's not enough to be competitive with the
| browser that's already installed on people's phones.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > I feel like Firefox might actually regain marketshare if it
| can ship on iOS. Firefox on Android has a decent claim to be
| being better than Chrome at this point (largely because you
| can't run extensions on Chrome).
|
| Firefox is _better_ than Chrome on Android, but it doesn 't
| have the market share to match.
| spijdar wrote:
| I know this probably won't be a popular opinion, but I have
| to disagree with this. I use Firefox on all my "general
| purpose" computing devices, but I only use Firefox on
| Android for recalling the passwords I have saved on my
| Firefox/Mozilla account.
|
| For any day-to-day browsing, I use Brave with the
| cryptocurrency bits turned off. I used the "Fennec" version
| of Firefox for Android for years, since my first smartphone
| in college, but by the time the GeckoView-based rewrite was
| released, I just got tired of the poor performance and
| reduced battery life compared to Chromium. Only one
| anecdote, but Firefox felt more jittery and made my phone
| much hotter than Chromium did.
|
| After the UI overhaul, where (IMO) they tried to copy a
| Chromium-style interface, I ran out of any non-ideological
| reasons to use it over Chromium-with-an-ad-blocker-built-
| in.
| dutchCourage wrote:
| Unfortunately I have a similar experience with FF on
| Android. A more jittery experience and a bigger batter
| drain than Chrome, even without any extensions installed.
|
| I'll plug my main mobile browser which is now Samsung's
| internet. I gave it a hesitant try after being
| disappointed by FF and I'm positively surprised. The UI
| customization options are even better than Firefox.
| [deleted]
| lzauz wrote:
| kernal wrote:
| So it's okay for Apple to have a monopoly on their OS, but we
| need to knee cap anyone that tries to challenge them with
| competing apps.
| acdha wrote:
| I hope you aren't trying to say that's what I wrote? My
| position is that if we're doing consumer choice, we should do
| it all the way: iOS is required to allow other browser
| engines (with any security requirements applied evenly);
| Google is not allowed to use unrelated business units to
| advertise Chrome in ways which Apple, Microsoft, or Mozilla
| cannot; and Google is required to test their applications in
| other browsers and promptly fix compatibility issues which
| are not due to a browser not implementing an approved
| W3C/WHATWG standard[1].
|
| 1. I mention "approved" because of things like the way
| YouTube used to be faster in Chrome because they shipped a
| draft of the Shadow DOM API and then took a long time
| updating to use the standard version which other browsers
| implemented, during which time those other browsers were
| served a slow polyfill instead. See
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17606027
| Qahlel wrote:
| Safari and Chrome have the exact same goals as they are
| maternal twins. They are both designed to monopolize their
| ecosystem and suppress the competition. Firefox is the odd one
| out.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > I'm also cognizant of the fact that iOS' browser restriction
| is basically the only reason why "web" is not a synonym for
| "whatever the Google Chrome team chooses to ship".
|
| May you explain this, because Google can't even ship their
| browser engine (Blink) on iOS and have to use WebKit. Why
| hasn't the world coalesced around WebKit?
| dblohm7 wrote:
| > Why hasn't the world coalesced around WebKit?
|
| iOS is not the entire ecosystem. Blink dominates everywhere
| else.
| acdha wrote:
| Look everywhere else: heavy promotion on some of the most
| popular web properties in the world (Google Search, Gmail,
| YouTube, etc.) has put Firefox into a death-spiral and
| Microsoft gave up on their own engine in favor of a Chrome
| derivative. There is little reason to believe that the same
| would not be true on iOS were it possible for Google to get
| users to switch.
|
| I think that matters because while Chrome has a number of
| great engineers, it's a single team at one company and the
| web should be bigger than that. We've seen many examples of a
| Google-proposed spec which became better with feedback from
| Mozilla or Apple engineers, and that makes the web healthier
| overall. One really interesting example here has been with
| tracking where every browser which Google does not control
| has a better privacy stance because none of those companies
| make their money by tracking people.
| cal85 wrote:
| I agree that iOS Safari's popularity is the only thing
| currently keeping the web an open market. But I'm not too
| concerned that this move will break that situation. Most iPhone
| users just use the stock browser and don't know or care what
| rendering engine it is. Maybe Chrome for iOS gets a bit better
| due to this change, attracting a few more users, but I can't
| see it changing the numbers much.
| acdha wrote:
| How'd that work for Microsoft Edge? Firefox usage tanked when
| Google started heavily promoting Chrome on search, Gmail,
| Youtube, Docs, etc. and I would be shocked if this went
| through and every Google app didn't start telling people that
| they should install Chrome or certain features were being
| held back for Chrome users.
| cal85 wrote:
| I'm confused, how does this move affect Google's ability to
| promote their own iOS Chrome app to Safari iOS users? They
| already have that ability.
| acdha wrote:
| Chrome on iOS uses the same WebKit engine as Safari.
| Right now, if someone at Google wants to ship a web API
| they need to work with Apple and, to a lesser extent,
| Mozilla to implement it. If they could tell people to use
| Blink on iOS, they'd have the ability to ship the update
| and blow off attempts to change the code in the
| standardization process or even standardize at all
| because 95% of their users would be running code which
| they can arbitrarily update.
| someNameIG wrote:
| Iirc on macOS Safari is still the most popular, with over
| 50% using it. It's no where near as dominant as Safari is
| on iOS but significantly more than Edge is on Windows.
|
| I like Safari too, so even with this change I'll keep using
| it on my Apple devices.
| dnissley wrote:
| It's really a stretch to call something that's literally the
| only option "popular". But I agree, rendering engine is not
| enough to move any real needle. New browsers need to be able
| to integrate features that ios doesn't support currently that
| require hooking into the operating system like PWAs.
| samtheprogram wrote:
| Missing from this conversation:
|
| - other browsers exist for iOS, and users seem not to care
| that much for the alternatives, but...
|
| - if other engines are permitted, then user-facing
| differentiators like extensions will make their way to
| competing browsers on iOS.
|
| Outside of PWAs, I can't think of many other features other
| than maybe arbitrary file upload that requires more hooks
| into the OS (as opposed to greater control of the browser
| engine). Genuinely interested in hearing/thinking of more,
| if you have any.
| ginko wrote:
| Safari is just a Webkit skin like Chrome is. The only
| independent browser is Firefox.
| ginko wrote:
| why the downvotes? Both Safari and Chrome are based on
| KHTML. There's literally no difference between them.
|
| They might have diverged technically but they're still both
| not really FOSS software.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Literally no difference is a wildly wrong and simplistic
| statement to make. There are vast differences.
| ginko wrote:
| They're both LGPL so they're not truly Free.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Safari is pretty much the worst browser in existence. Basic
| technology like webrtc is absolutely riddled with bugs. It's so
| bad that most video chat services don't even support it.
| blowski wrote:
| > It's [Safari] so bad that most video chat services don't
| even support it.
|
| Which ones? I've used Zoom, Meet, Teams, and Whereby in
| Safari with no problems. I've never encountered a video
| service _not_ work in it.
| acdha wrote:
| > It's so bad that most video chat services don't even
| support it.
|
| All of the major services support it and the only one which
| I've ever had problems with is Google's, which shockingly had
| issues with every browser other than Chrome. Do you have
| links to bug reports?
|
| I switched to Safari primarily a while back because it used
| the least battery and memory (Safari & Firefox were close,
| Chrome is a distant gluttonous third place). I've noticed
| very, very few cases where a compatibility issue forced me to
| switch browsers. As a web developer I use all three, of
| course, and using Chrome doesn't feel notably better so
| halving my energy usage is an easy trade.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Yeah you can find all the bugs here
|
| https://bugs.webkit.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=__open__&con
| t...
| acdha wrote:
| Which specific ones have you personally verified as
| preventing use? That's a public tracker where anyone on
| the internet can report something -- in many cases issues
| are duplicates, unreproducible, or specific to certain
| edge cases.
|
| I ask because that returns 351 issues but if you do the
| same search for Chrome you'll find 414. I would assume
| that you would agree that the correct interpretation of
| that is not that Chrome doesn't support WebRTC?
|
| https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list?q=compon
| ent...
|
| Since all of the major services work without issue in all
| mainstream browsers, I would argue that to a first
| approximation this is not an effective proxy metric.
| a4isms wrote:
| I find Chrome indispensable on OS X. Whenever I begin to
| wonder if my Macbook Air has fans or not, I start up Chrome
| and whoosh, it's like a Hawker Harrier performing a
| vertical take-off.
|
| At one point I was doing a lot of coding in a coffee shop.
| When testing my work in Safari, I could sit down and run on
| my Mac's batteries until I got tired of the coffee shop and
| headed home.
|
| With Chrome, I had to plug in immediately. I believe people
| who tell me Chrome has better bling and is faster, but
| Safari is fast enough for my purposes, and battery life is
| a far bigger factor for my browser choice than raw
| performance.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Sorry, trying to insinuate that WebRTC is basic technology
| just disqualifies your opinion. It has an enormous
| specification describing a privacy and security snakepit and
| definitely is not basic technology.
| selykg wrote:
| On Mac, Safari is the only browser to respect battery drain
| and preserve power in any real meaningful way. I'll take some
| bugs for that win. I use Chrome or Firefox and my battery
| noticeably dies faster.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I was just on Teams and Webex video calls using Safari.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Google Meet works fine in Safari too. Better even, since
| there it uses hardware accelerated video encoding unlike in
| Chrome.
| vehemenz wrote:
| So you think poor support for an optional technology is
| sufficient to call Safari the worst browser "in existence"?
|
| Let's work on that argument a bit more before posting
| hyperbole.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Well, two wrongs didn't make this a right. If Chrome _does_ use
| this as a power grab, then we should expect EU injunction
| again.
| acdha wrote:
| > Well, two wrongs didn't make this a right.
|
| That was basically my point?
|
| > If Chrome does use this as a power grab, then we should
| expect EU injunction again.
|
| Since this is behaviour Google is already doing and has been
| doing for a decade, it seems like the EU could just skip to
| the part of actually doing something.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Since this is behaviour Google is already doing
|
| How so? There are a number of features Apple dragged their
| feet on (WebRTC, push notifications, WebM support, AV1, the
| list goes on), it could be argued that Apple was
| intentionally stifling the capabilities of the browser to
| enforce the profitability of the App Store. I understand
| your concern, but Apple's failure to compete with Google is
| not Google's fault. Apple had a chance to make a browser
| that Chrome users switched to, but they didn't. Chrome's
| market share destroys every Webkit-based browser combined.
|
| Regulators can't see into the future. Thus-far, Chrome's
| behavior might be frustrating but totally fair game
| relative to the way Apple plays. Once Safari is competing
| on it's own merits, we'll see how things go and respond
| accordingly. If it's anything like the App Store, it'll
| take us ~8 years to observe the abuse and respond
| effectively.
| kfir wrote:
| merits != features
| smoldesu wrote:
| Apple better start catching up then, the EU is mandating
| a clash.
| Terretta wrote:
| Incidentally, many of these "features" came about from
| Google trying to create moats or cut out competitors.
| Further, Chrome is a dog on Apple Macs, cuts battery life
| to a fraction, plus brings a host of invasive and
| compromising behaviors.
|
| In general Google has made no attempt for their browser
| to be competitive on feature dimensions that matter to
| many Apple hardware buyers; their share remains driven by
| residual tech influencer group-think still left over from
| the IE wars more than the value of, say, WebM over x265.
| (See also Duck Trumotion and Widevine for more of
| Google's motivation.)
|
| The profitability motive is false, see Steam charging the
| same 30% despite e.g. Gog or Microsoft store. This is
| inconvenient for those making the argument Apple's fee is
| out of line.
|
| > _Chrome 's market share destroys every Webkit-based
| browser combined._
|
| Clearly they need more help with this. Glad EU is looking
| out for them.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Sounds like it sucks, then. If things are as bad as you
| say, then we have nothing to worry about because everyone
| will want to use Apple's browser. I'll let all the Linux
| guys know, and I'm certain they'll switch to WebKit right
| away.
|
| > The profitability motive is false, see Steam charging
| the same 30% despite e.g. Gog or Microsoft store.
|
| No, it's pretty substantial. The App Store made 80
| billion USD last year, which was one of their only
| businesses that approached hardware profitability.
| Ensuring that nobody can eschew Apple's software control
| is completely their directive. If Apple did become more
| like Steam (eg. had other software stores to compete
| with) things would be pretty fair I'd argue.
|
| > Clearly they need more help with this. Glad EU is
| looking out for them.
|
| Apparently Chrome is borderline-unusable on Apple
| products anyways, so Apple has nothing to worry about.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Normal users install the browser Google advertises at
| them constantly on all Google's websites, then complain
| that Apple sucks because their laptop's battery went from
| a reliably 12 hours of life to 7 hours and also the fans
| kick on all the time now, but they have no idea why
| that's happening unless they happen to bring this up with
| some computer nerd in their life and the nerd explains
| what's going on.
| smoldesu wrote:
| If normal users install everything that's advertised to
| them, then they shouldn't be trusted with a computer
| full-stop. Unfortunately, operating a computer needs to
| be a conscious decision.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > If normal users install everything that's advertised to
| them
|
| They 100% do. It's why software installation is as
| annoying as it is now. Did you do any tech support (even
| the unofficial kind) around the turn of the millennium,
| when computer ownership topped 50% (in the US) and
| Internet use was beginning to become widespread? It was a
| hellscape of unwanted shitware that users couldn't figure
| out how to get rid of, and viruses. More recently, I've
| seen normies install Chrome then wonder where their
| (Firefox, which they had because I'd installed it)
| bookmarks went and not know how to get them back (they
| didn't care _at all_ whether they were using FF or
| Chrome, but ended up with Chrome anyway because "google
| said they needed it" on one of those ubiquitous "hey,
| this site works better in Chrome" ads they put everywhere
| whether it's true or not) and I've seen one end up paying
| for OneDrive, and have it totally fuck up their
| workflows, despite not knowing what OneDrive even does.
|
| > then they shouldn't be trusted with a computer full-
| stop.
|
| That is no longer an option and there's no chance at all
| we're going back to a time when it was. I wish we would!
| But we're not.
| acdha wrote:
| > > Since this is behaviour Google is already doing
|
| > How so?
|
| Using a different browser on google.com or youtube.com
| has many times shown me ads claiming that the web is
| better using Chrome.
|
| Google Cloud's console frequently breaks for non-Chrome
| users.
|
| YouTube for many years used a non-standard API which only
| Chrome optimized instead of the standard one which all
| three implemented, which meant that video playback used
| far more CPU on other browsers.
|
| YouTube for many years favored WebM format at the expense
| of video quality and performance.
|
| Google Meet for years would drop sessions for Firefox or
| Safari. No other WebRTC service had problems with those
| browsers.
|
| > Chrome's market share destroys every Webkit-based
| browser combined.
|
| Yes, that's the point. Chrome would not have gotten so
| far ahead of Firefox and WebKit without both a huge
| financial push and heavy promotion on Google's most
| popular web properties.
| smoldesu wrote:
| So, Google builds around Chrome. That's fine. Apple has
| every right to implement those non-standard APIs that
| Google uses (Microsoft fought Oracle for that right), and
| they could feasibly hack in workarounds for all of these
| problems if they cared or had to compete with Chrome in
| the first place.
|
| We'll have to see where things go after Apple starts
| playing nice. I support legislation that restricts Chrome
| only if Apple doesn't stand to directly profit from it.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > I support legislation that restricts Chrome only if
| Apple doesn't stand to directly profit from it.
|
| Why would you connect how these two different companies
| should be treated? Sculpting regulation to attempt to
| engineer an outcome institutionalizing the current market
| balance between two oligarchs is just about the opposite
| of what I want any regulator doing.
| smoldesu wrote:
| You don't litigate Carnegie Steel before preventing
| Rockefeller from directly profiting off it. Monopoly-
| busting 101.
| acdha wrote:
| It's not that Google builds around Chrome as much as they
| use their control of things which are unrelated to Chrome
| to promote Chrome. Right now, Apple favors their browser
| on iOS and Google favors theirs everywhere. I fully
| support consumer choice so I think the right answer would
| be iOS supporting other browsers and Google not being
| allowed to promote their browser in unrelated apps. If
| Chrome is actually so much better, they don't need to
| interrupt a YouTube or Gmail user's session to tell them.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Then we're at something of an impasse. Apple also
| promotes their own browser on MacOS, so it's not like
| they're innocent of this too. Having more options is
| simply a greater priority than stopping $COMPANY from
| cross-promoting a browser.
| acdha wrote:
| You have to think about what happens next. Google pushing
| Chrome on users of their web apps has successfully put
| Firefox into what appears to be a fatal downward spiral,
| and has lead to more developers only supporting Chrome.
| Microsoft stopped trying to fight that and created Edge-
| on-Chromium. Safari on iOS has been the primary thing
| keeping web development from being Chrome development and
| if you care about the web or open standards you want to
| think about what happens if that changes.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Open Standards had their shot, Apple turned their back on
| them. It doesn't matter at this point what happens,
| because both companies have proven that they need
| government intervention to do the right thing.
|
| If Apple doesn't want to build a Chrome competitor, then
| that's not Google's fault. Both companies are refusing to
| give up their strangleholds, and should be prosecuted
| accordingly.
|
| First and foremost though, Apple needs to be litigated.
| The rights of the user should supercede the petty combat
| between browser developers.
| vehemenz wrote:
| It seems a bit strong to suggest the "rights of the user"
| are in question here, when no one is being forced to use
| an Apple phone. It's happening everywhere in this thread,
| and I'm a bit surprised why more people don't recognize
| that consumers already have rights and a choice. It's
| called Android.
| halostatue wrote:
| It is untrue that Apple turned their back on open
| standards. What is true is that Google has hijacked the
| standards body and has pushed things as "standards" that
| nobody except Google wants (WebUSB anyone?) and have
| significant _downsides_ for user security and privacy.
| WebKit has flat-out refused to implement standards that
| impose risks greater than their benefit. So has Firefox.
|
| It would help if you argued on the facts, not on your
| emotion.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > it could be argued that Apple was intentionally
| stifling the capabilities of the browser to enforce the
| profitability of the App Store
|
| Given the number of apps these days that are basically
| nothing more than thin shims around a mobile site,
| they're not doing a good job then, are they?
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's almost like there's a growing sense of adversity
| between app developers and Apple...
| flohofwoe wrote:
| It's not like the EU is turning a blind eye towards Google
| (e.g. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-62888137)
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _If Chrome does use this as a power grab, then we should
| expect EU injunction again._
|
| I'm not sure what the EU could do here; it's not like Chrome
| is coming pre-installed on iPhones or on Windows. Can the EU
| breakup Google?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > it's not like Chrome is coming pre-installed on iPhones
| or on Windows
|
| It comes pre-installed on Android; isn't that enough?
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| That already got in trouble them for requiring Android
| phone manufacturers to include it: https://ec.europa.eu/c
| ommission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_...
|
| Nowadays I believe Samsung at least has their own Samsung
| Browser, so that's already a large chunk of Android
| phones that don't have Chrome default.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It would almost be an exploitative situation, if they
| didn't let you freely choose which browser engine you
| run.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| One by one, the rumours indicate that Apple will be complying
| with each and every requirement under the EU Digital Markets Act.
| These include:
|
| * Install any software
|
| * Install any App Store and choose to make it default
|
| * Use third party payment providers and choose to make them
| default
|
| * Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default
|
| * Use any browser and browser engine and choose to make it
| default
|
| * Use any messaging app and choose to make it default
|
| * Make core messaging functionality interoperable. They lay out
| concrete examples like file transfer
|
| * Use existing hardware and software features without competitive
| prejudice. E.g. NFC
|
| * Not preference their services. This includes CTAs in settings
| to encourage users to subscribe to Gatekeeper services, and
| ranking their own services above others in selection and
| advertising portals
| mmanfrin wrote:
| > * Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default
|
| This would ironically make me come back to iOS. I use Android
| because google's voice system is _magnitudes_ better than Siri.
| drewg123 wrote:
| * Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default *
|
| I would so love to have Google Assistant rather than Siri on my
| iPhone. GA is so much better hands-free / eyes-free. Being able
| to say "OK Google ...." when driving, cooking, working out, etc
| and being able to get a decent answer is something I really
| miss from my Pixel days. It is so frustrating when Siri just
| says "here is what I found on the web"
| threeseed wrote:
| Hey Siri is a hardware feature:
| https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/hey-siri
|
| It's likely that third-party assistants will only be
| accessible via the side button.
| AstixAndBelix wrote:
| just like having _real_ access to NFC would mean that
| developers will have more access to the hardware, I believe
| the same will happen here. the ML hardware will be opened
| just enough to let developers choose their own verbal cue
| threeseed wrote:
| Apple is not giving real access to anything. They will be
| providing a friendly, abstracted API as they always have.
|
| And there is zero chance Apple will allow third parties
| to submit their own model since this part of the hardware
| has continuous access to the microphone.
| dave84 wrote:
| "Hey Siri, ask Google...", only slightly ridiculous.
| legulere wrote:
| The model seems to be replaceable though, it differs by
| language like described in the article you linked for
| instance.
| threeseed wrote:
| Replaceable with a signed firmware update. Not
| dynamically at runtime.
| likeabbas wrote:
| What about any music player? I want Spotify to be the default,
| dammit.
| shellac wrote:
| I only see the Apple Music app when I open it explicitly. Are
| there situations where a 'default' music app might appear?
| sofixa wrote:
| Even on macOS if i accidentally click on the play button of
| my keyboard without having anything to play (like an open
| YouTube tab somewhere) will open the Apple Music app which
| i have never used nor opened myself.
| RockRobotRock wrote:
| Asking Siri to play music on Spotify without having to say
| "on Spotify" every time.
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Yeah, Google Assistant lets you set a default music
| player or if you already have one open it'll try to use
| that one by default
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Why can't I set Plex then? It gives you like 4 options.
| It's interesting that Apple Music is a choice though. Can
| you choose YouTube Music on iPhone?
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| It definitely doesn't default to Apple Music for me.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| apaprocki wrote:
| I've found when talking to Apple-ecosystem users that they
| aren't even aware of how well Apple Music works. I'm aware
| there's certain integrations that might not be possible, or a
| random family member being on Android that would preclude its
| use, but it really does work great if you don't have any
| reason to stray from the ecosystem. Lots of people I talk to
| started using Spotify years ago and just never reevaluated.
| Similarly, people that only use iPhones and Macs and still
| use Dropbox. I'm sure someone has curated a list somewhere...
| Gareth321 wrote:
| Music isn't mentioned specifically but I believe any app is
| covered. Article 6:
|
| > 4. The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable the
| installation and effective use of third-party software
| applications or software application stores using, or
| interoperating with, its operating system and allow those
| software applications or software application stores to be
| accessed by means other than the relevant core platform
| services of that gatekeeper. The gatekeeper shall, where
| applicable, not prevent the downloaded third-party software
| applications or software application stores from prompting
| end users to decide whether they want to set that downloaded
| software application or software application store as their
| default. The gatekeeper shall technically enable end users
| who decide to set that downloaded software application or
| software application store as their default to carry out that
| change easily.
| threeseed wrote:
| Note that Apple will likely still:
|
| * Require apps to pay their commission similar to the
| Netherlands dating apps situation.
|
| * Only allow apps to be installed that have a valid
| certificate.
|
| * Require apps on their store to go through the approval
| process.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| You will be pleased to discover that the Digital Markets Act
| doesn't permit any of those.
|
| Edit: I'm not sure if the third point has been edited or I
| simply misread it, but the DMA would not prevent Apple from
| moderating their own App Store. It would prevent Apple from
| moderating apps on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.
| threeseed wrote:
| Please provide evidence of this.
|
| I especially love the idea that the DMA prevents Apple from
| moderating apps inside _their_ store.
|
| And no I didn't edit my comment. Feel free to provide
| evidence of the others.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| Sure!
|
| Just to be clear, I'm not stating that Apple won't be
| able to moderate apps on their _store_. I 'm stating that
| Apple won't be able to moderate apps on their _operating
| systems._
|
| The Gatekeeper must allow installation of applications
| (Article 4. S4):
|
| > The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable the
| installation and effective use of third-party software
| applications or software application stores using, or
| interoperating with, its operating system and allow those
| software applications or software application stores to
| be accessed by means other than the relevant core
| platform services of that gatekeeper. The gatekeeper
| shall, where applicable, not prevent the downloaded
| third-party software applications or software application
| stores from prompting end users to decide whether they
| want to set that downloaded software application or
| software application store as their default. The
| gatekeeper shall technically enable end users who decide
| to set that downloaded software application or software
| application store as their default to carry out that
| change easily.
|
| There is no wiggle room here. The Gatekeeper can't
| restrict installation of applications in any way,
| including by way of certificate requirements, approval
| processes, or fees.
|
| You can read the Act in full here: https://eur-
| lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/1925/oj
|
| If you're a legal geek like I am it's worth spending a
| few hours combing through it. I am thoroughly impressed
| with how meticulous they've been. It's easily the most
| comprehensive (and impressive) tech legislation in my
| lifetime.
| threeseed wrote:
| Did you even read that paragraph ?
|
| At no point does it say that Apple can't decide which
| apps are allowed to appear in their store.
|
| Only that they can't prevent third party stores.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Just to be clear, I'm not stating that Apple won't be
| able to moderate apps on their store.
| [deleted]
| chadlavi wrote:
| I truly don't know what the point of getting an iPhone is if
| you're going to change every single part of it. A lot of us buy
| them BECAUSE of the software, not despite it.
|
| Why do so many people want to force Apple to make them an
| Android phone?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| It would all be opt-in, so not much changing unless you want
| it to.
| jchw wrote:
| I don't get this logic. I've bought 4 iPhones and the biggest
| frustration I have is that I can't use real Firefox like I
| can on Android (particularly my favorite variant, Fennec
| F-Droid.) Not all iPhone users are the same. I'm not forcing
| you to side-load apps, or switch off Safari. What about this
| is so bad?
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| >I'm not forcing you to side-load apps,
|
| And no one is forcing you to buy an iPhone. Why don't you
| buy Android if you want to do all that stuff?
|
| I recently switched to an iPhone because I want everything
| to "just work" and not deal with the android crap- and I
| honestly couldn't be happier.
|
| >Not all iPhone users are the same
|
| Actually most of them are- they don't want to deal managing
| a device.. they just want something that works.
| indymike wrote:
| >I'm not forcing you to side-load apps, And no one is
| forcing you to buy an iPhone. Why don't you buy Android
| if you want to do all that stuff?
|
| This is turning something that should be a gradient into
| a zero-sum. Features like side load dot not make existing
| features stop working. Allowing other browsers doesn't
| make iPhone just not work.
|
| > they just want something that works.
|
| The reason people are interested in side loading apps and
| opening up iOS is there are quite a few people like me
| that drop $1000 on an iPhone, and it does not just work
| for me when it really should work better than a $100
| Android. The only difference seems to be anti-me features
| that protect Apple's monopoly on the app store.
| sushisource wrote:
| How is this a meaningful retort to the other commenter?
| They get to use FF on iOS, you get to keep using Safari
| and every other stock app. What exactly is the problem
| there besides what comes across as some weird form of
| "keep the dirty Android users away from my iPhone"?
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| > Actually most of them are- they don't want to deal
| managing a device.. they just want something that works.
|
| None of that will change.
| pwinnski wrote:
| This doesn't seem possible.
|
| Whatever changes Apple will have to make to support drop-
| in replacements for Siri, a complete elimination of
| certification requirements for Gatekeeper, and so on, as
| listed in this very thread, will absolutely disrupt the
| status quo and make things more complex.
|
| I hope that Apple will strive to make it so the defaults
| match the current reality, but just like soldered-in
| batteries mean more capacity without the need for
| connectors, so too do baked-in defaults mean more
| stability without the need to pluggability.
|
| It may not be the end of the world, but it is a pretty
| drastic change that people are dismissing as "allow
| alternate browser engines," when it's so much more than
| that.
| jchw wrote:
| It's true that there is nonzero engineering effort to
| make some of these things happen, but in my opinion, a
| lot of the problem is self-inflicted. I mean... Apple
| also eventually decided to support third-party keyboards.
| Was it a bit buggy? Absolutely. Did it obliterate quick
| type and make all typing buggy for all users? No. As far
| as I can guess, they actually special-cased third party
| keyboards. Fine by me. Probably fine by regulators as
| long as there's nothing malicious about it.
|
| Truth be told, I don't care about alternate voice
| assistants. That said, today, you can get almost all of
| Google Assistant on an iPhone just fine, the only thing
| it really can't do is well, respond to your voice
| passively and do things on the lock screen. Exactly how
| much power they're willing to expose I'm not sure, but it
| doesn't really seem like they have to give everyone
| access to the same internal APIs they use so as long as
| the APIs they provide give enough feature parity.
|
| I think the sky is not falling.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Great example: keyboards are definitely more complicated
| and fiddly since the introduction of multiple keyboards.
| Absolutely necessary to support multiple countries, but
| the tradeoff is real.
|
| The sky isn't falling by any means, but iOS is absolutely
| going to get more complicated as a result of these
| changes, even for people who stick with the defaults, as
| I likely will in most or all cases.
|
| And of course I wonder: will Apple be releasing Siri for
| Android? Presumably Google would be required to allow for
| it.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| There hasn't been anything stopping Apple from releasing
| Siri on Android. Amazon's Alexa already available on
| Google Play Store, and Samsung Bixby is on Samsung
| devices. I'm sure there's plenty of alternatives on
| Chinese phones that do not have Google too.
| jchw wrote:
| Well,
|
| Sometimes I don't like democrats. I don't like all
| policies backed by democratic candidates, and I
| definitely have problems with the DNC. However, that
| doesn't mean I want to vote Republican, or Green Party,
| or Libertarian.
|
| Please don't get caught up in taking the analogy to it's
| logical extreme (or read it literally, because it's not
| literal.) The point is that there is no perfect option on
| the market for me. I don't have a single criteria for the
| perfect smartphone. I don't just want a device that boots
| Firefox well.
|
| And in fact, Apple, much to the chagrin of those of us
| who hate Apple, makes some of the best computer and phone
| hardware on the planet. It's not even a contest, in some
| cases.
|
| Do you use a macOS computer by chance? Do you feel like
| the Asahi Linux effort is harming your ability to use and
| enjoy the Mac computer? Does it cause problems for you,
| or make things no longer "just work", when someone is
| allowed to install Firefox?
|
| > Why don't you buy Android if you want to do all that
| stuff?
|
| I do. They're not perfect either. Google Pixel phones are
| pretty good, but I doubt I need to expound upon the
| problems of them for you. You pretty much seem to get it
| given the next few lines. (Not trying to be condescending
| here.)
|
| > Actually most of them are- they don't want to deal
| managing a device.. they just want something that works.
|
| Most users of all mass-market devices are like this, be
| it Samsung Galaxy, Google Pixel or iPhone. It's not
| really to your point, though, because iPhone has bred
| perhaps one of the most interesting communities through
| people's sheer desires to break it apart and customize
| it. I'm sure you're aware of the rich history of
| jailbreaking iPhones; and while a small percent of users,
| (just like Android rooting,) those jailbreaks get
| nontrivial huge amounts of attention. It's basically
| international news when a new untethered jailbreak kit
| shows up, and undoubtedly millions of users use them.
|
| Apple may very well not want these users, but Apple wants
| to make the world's best phone. Well, you may not want
| the consumer you get, but that's the symmetry of this
| all. There's a give and a take.
| sidlls wrote:
| It does force Apple to change their software and likely
| hardware to accommodate these things, and the result is
| likely to be a lower quality product. My experience with
| Android phones makes me want to avoid that at all costs: I
| switched to iPhone a few years ago because I was fed up
| with the garbage quality of the hardware and software even
| in "top of the line" models. Android phones are inferior in
| every respect to iPhones. I don't want iPhones to become
| like Android phones.
| jchw wrote:
| But we're only asking for Apple to do what they do for
| macOS and Mac computers on iOS, essentially. Hate to seem
| dismissive but I really don't understand all of the fear,
| uncertainty and doubt around it.
| sidlls wrote:
| FUD accusations are just gaslighting at this point.
| Actual experience with real phones isn't FUD. Phones are
| not desktops: they're appliances. They don't need the
| same level of customizability or direct user control, and
| the quality falls substantially when those anti-features
| are added.
| jchw wrote:
| The reason for a "FUD accusation" is the lack of any
| reasonable explanation for how the experience would "fall
| off." The problem with Android would be exactly the same
| if you were constrained to Google Play Store. The
| difference between Android and iOS is not that one of
| them allows sideloading and alternate web browsers.
|
| (And also, I viscerally disagree that a smart phone is in
| any way, shape or form, an "appliance". Appliances exist
| to serve a specific purpose. The main differentiation
| between an appliance containing a computer, and a
| computer, is that the appliance's computer hardware and
| software exists to drive the main function of the
| appliance. Smart phones are being used as pocket
| computers. That's not an appliance.)
| chadlavi wrote:
| Serious question though: why do you use iPhones if you want
| to do Android stuff? Why did you switch over in the first
| place? It's my impression that the hardware for newer
| android phones is pretty much on par, no?
| jchw wrote:
| What is "Android stuff"? 99% of the time, I use my phone
| pretty much how anyone else uses a smartphone. The status
| quo today is that on Apple phones, you can't even view a
| WebM inside of Safari. Do you have any idea how often I'd
| come across a page that only had WebMs? Safari won't even
| tell you why it's broken, it will just sit there and not
| load the video silently.
|
| It's worse optically considering how big of a conflict of
| interest it is for them, and astounding considering that
| on macOS, a platform with browser choices, Apple has no
| issues supporting WebM. No battery life problems or
| anything.
|
| (On Android, I do definitely take advantage of being able
| to use Termux, and Yt-dlp, and actually manage files.
| That said: this is the exception. It's very useful, but
| not something I'd even consider absolutely necessary.)
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| > ... why do you use iPhones if you want to do Android
| stuff?
|
| Hardware.
|
| > It's my impression that the hardware for newer android
| phones is pretty much on par, no?
|
| eh.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| > why do you use iPhones if you want to do Android stuff?
|
| None of my friends are willing to download messaging apps
| so I need iMessage in order to have a semi decent text
| conversation with them.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| You don't have to change how you use your iPhone. You can
| keep all your same defaults.
| jamil7 wrote:
| The software you like isn't going anywhere and you don't have
| to change any of those defaults. The mac allows you to change
| defaults and install whatever you want and it's still a great
| platform.
| starik36 wrote:
| I think part of it, at least for me, is 99.9% of it is
| perfect, but I want to change this one small thing.
|
| For years, I had the jailbreak installed only for a single
| feature.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> Why do so many people want to force Apple to make them an
| Android phone?
|
| It's because they want to "Think Different" than the way
| Apple wants them to.
|
| It's your phone. Shouldn't you be able to run the software
| you want on it?
| mvanbaak wrote:
| as if that is possible on android phones. on most phones
| you cant even get stock android.
| xwkd wrote:
| I agree completely. Having a walled garden forces Apple to
| focus on the quality of their software if they wish to have a
| competitive product. (And their software, on the whole, is
| _good_ because they have control over their vertical
| integrations.) If you forcibly take away their incentive to
| compete, the appeal of the iPhone disappears. Every phone 's
| environment becomes a Bazaar; no more Cathedrals.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar
| jamil7 wrote:
| I feel it should be the opposite. If Apple is heading in
| the direction of more service revenue and is forced to
| compete on a level playing field with competitors like
| Spotify, for example, wouldn't this encourage them to
| improve Apple Music?
| xwkd wrote:
| I don't mean this to sound rude, but I don't know the
| answer: Are you a software developer? Being forced to
| depend on service revenue rather than the appeal of an
| integrated platform means that the quality of the
| integrated platform will decline. Sure, Apple Music as an
| individual piece of software in support of the service
| offering may improve, but what about the underlying
| Frameworks that support it? The money, in developer
| resources, has to be spent somewhere.
| nullwarp wrote:
| Yeah no kidding, I don't understand the parent comment at
| all. How does not allowing anyone to compete make it so
| you want to make your software better?
| nicoburns wrote:
| > A lot of us buy them BECAUSE of the software, not despite
| it.
|
| Well the built-in software will still be there. And if you
| have a use-case that it doesn't support then you'll have the
| option to install other software that does. Seems like a pure
| win from a user perspective.
| manzu wrote:
| if anything this won't hurt them, rather it will drive more
| users to apple devices.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| Great! Then everyone wins.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The goal wasn't hurting them in the first place, just
| ensuring that Apple plays fair on their own hardware. You may
| be totally correct with your second point, if Apple
| implements things well.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _just ensuring that Apple plays fair on their own
| hardware_
|
| As software, firmware, and hardware lines blur, it's a
| legacy concept that hardware and software must be divided.
|
| Incredible value comes from fluid and designer-driven
| remixing of the three according to usability,
| ruggedness/resilience, and security principles.
|
| The most useful appliances for Normals(tm) will be the ones
| that blend these best. This kind of ruling holds us back
| from the huge vertically integrated design investments that
| deliver ease of use and trust that end users want.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Well, good news. Apple can still blur the lines for you
| while unlocking the bootloader for me and letting normal
| users install software packages. You have yet to present
| an example of how the things I want conflict with the
| things you want.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Go read the discussion sections of any of the other
| 50,000 times this exact exchange has happened. There's
| plenty of explaining in those. It never seems to get
| through, but you could fill a 20-volume encyclopedia with
| those (incredibly repetitive) posts.
|
| TL;DR many Apple users like the way things are now, and
| don't want any amount of risk to that. The chief risk we
| see is that we'll no longer be able to get 100% of the
| software we want (or are forced to use) on iOS through
| the Apple app store, with all of Apple's protections and
| guarantees, or that Apple will have to reduce those
| protections and guarantees to keep such a splintering
| from happening. Yes, we're aware that Android hasn't seen
| much adoption of alternative stores, but Android also
| hasn't (delightfully) jammed a thumb in Facebook's eye
| over and over. Even a small chance of that coming to pass
| isn't worth it to us. We wish you'd all just go use
| Android or Linux phones or whatever and leave us alone.
| unity1001 wrote:
| > TL;DR many Apple users like the way things are now, and
| don't want any amount of risk to that
|
| And that's how it will be if you choose to use Apple's
| software sources. Its as simple as that.
|
| There is absolutely no argument for preventing other
| people from using something else.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > There is absolutely no argument for preventing other
| people from using something else.
|
| _There is though_. I 'm not going to post it _yet again_
| because it 's already in this thread multiple times, and
| in literally every other thread like this ever on this
| site.
|
| You might disagree with the argument, but you're flat-out
| wrong that it doesn't exist or can be trivially dismissed
| on factual grounds.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| >The chief risk we see is that we'll no longer be able to
| get 100% of the software we want (or are forced to use)
| on iOS through the Apple app store
|
| I don't think that's ever been the case. You've never
| been able to get an alternative browser on the Apple App
| Store or a streaming gaming app such as Xbox Cloud
| Gaming, or Geforce Now. Or currently I cannot get
| Fortnite
|
| These are all apps I want that are not available on the
| Apple App Store.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Then you're not part of that "we" :-)
|
| Which is fine, to be clear. It's just opinions and
| preferences.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Well, sucks for you. Europe wants Apple to compete with
| other software stores, and you'll be hard-pressed to
| defend Apple's stranglehold on software distribution.
|
| It's fine that you enjoy Apple's curation, they can still
| curate things for you under the new law. They just _also_
| need to provide competitive app distribution. Considering
| how many complaints I 've heard from devs vis-a-vis the
| App Store, I reckon some competition is exactly what
| Apple needs to put them in line.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > Well, sucks for you.
|
| Yes. So you get why some of us aren't thrilled about all
| this.
| codq wrote:
| I've long said that a USB-C iPhone with Google Assistant as
| default would be my dream phone.
|
| Santa EU seems to be bringing me the gift I've always wanted.
| ajkjk wrote:
| I think it will help some people use apple who were
| infinitely frustrated by this. But I'm sure Apple has done
| the calculation and benefits more than it hurts from being a
| total dick to its users, or they wouldn't be doing it.
| [deleted]
| irusensei wrote:
| If this happens I will forgive the EU for the cookie modals.
| unity1001 wrote:
| The screwed up cookie modals are not Eu's doing:
|
| Eu mandated that the users should be clearly told what would
| be tracked, they should be given an easy way to accept,
| reject, and choose which of them they accept.
|
| The corporations - mainly the US - chose to 'get around'
| these requirements in the undying US corporate tradition:
| Make it difficult for the user to reject cookies so they will
| have to give up and just accept. Most modals have only an
| 'accept' and 'choose' sections, and the 'choose' section
| includes a gigantic list of 'vendors' which you have to
| individually turn off one by one. So that you will give up
| and just click 'accept'. Some of them offer a 'reject all'
| button way at the bottom of of the list, after listing 30-40
| vendors. So basically its the usual corporate trickery to
| force user to do things they don't want to.
|
| However, this is illegal - Eu works on civil law, and civil
| law is a clear, well defined legal practice. If it says you
| have to do some specific thing, there isnt much 'interpret my
| way around it'. So, per that law, all the cookie modals that
| do not give the users an EASY way to reject cookies are in
| violation of that law. It absolutely does not matter zit if
| the user 'consents' to the terms. Mutual agreements and
| contract law overriding actual law is a trait of the
| Anglosaxon common law, not civil law. In civil law, it doesnt
| matter zit if the other party agreed to something illegal per
| law.
|
| Therefore, not only all these pesky modals that try to force
| you into accepting those ~80 cookies from a random website
| you visit are not Eu's doing, but also most of them are
| actually in violation of the GDPR law.
| f1refly wrote:
| The EU is innocent, they didn't force anyone to create cookie
| modals. You need to forgive the digital stalking businesses
| instead.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >* You need to forgive the digital stalking businesses
| instead.*
|
| Do we, though? I use "I don't care about cookies":
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/i-dont-care-
| about-... to deal with the mess.
| Flow wrote:
| I've not read much about the new law/requirements, but will
| these points apply to Xboxes and Playstations as well?
| Gareth321 wrote:
| I think there is a good chance it could be applied to
| Microsoft, if not Sony and Nintendo as well. At least, I see
| no reason it should not. They satisfy a lot of the
| requirements as Gatekeepers like market cap and revenue.
| echelon wrote:
| Good! And they'll still be top dog and make ludicrous money.
|
| Apple does not need to run the quasi government for 50% of US
| consumer Internet users, which is effectively what they were
| doing.
|
| This will free them up to focus on excellence and innovation.
| Gareth321 wrote:
| I fully agree. This isn't a doomsday scenario for anyone.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Looking forward to people installing a third party browser from a
| third party app store, loading it up with random malware-infested
| plugins, and then complaining that iPhones are slow.
|
| This was the thing that sank OG Firefox before Chrome came along.
| There was a plethora of garbage browser plugins everyone
| installed, and it tanked performance. Chrome wasn't _that_ much
| faster than FF, but on a fresh install and without any plugins it
| seemed screaming fast.
| Permik wrote:
| This policy change is actually just a direct consequence of the
| upcoming 2024 EU law that forces Apple to allow third party app
| stores for iOS devices. Because Apple can't control what
| applications get uploaded to the third party stores, like
| browsers that use a different web engine, then they try to lax
| the rules in their own store to desperately keep developers from
| jumping the ship.
| sidlls wrote:
| The kind of developers who'd "jump ship", especially for
| developing web apps, make the kinds of apps that I want to
| avoid anyway.
|
| Third party app stores will be a cesspool of malware and
| garbage, like they are on Android now.
| koshergweilo wrote:
| I don't understand, what's wrong with fdroid? Have you ever
| used Cydia?
| least wrote:
| F-Droid is an odd one. The apps aren't malware but in my
| experience most of the apps on it are pretty low quality in
| at least one area (especially in user interface and
| experience), but that's a problem prevalent in FOSS in
| general, not just F-Droid.
|
| I'd say the Google Play store is the one actually full of
| awful software a lot of which is actually malware. Part of
| this can be attributed to Google's loose requirements and
| the other perhaps Android's security model in general is
| too permissive. It's very easy to fuck up your Android
| phone in a way that you simply can't on iOS.
|
| I'm not terribly concerned about it since I think a lot of
| it comes down to how iOS and Android are designed, but it's
| not _not_ a concern.
| Terretta wrote:
| Does this EU law require Xbox to allow Apple to sell games on
| Xbox, or require Sony to support Xbox GamePass? What's the
| delta between a console and an appliance?
|
| Who is allowed to vertically integrate, and who isn't? Under
| what principle of free markets and user choice? Should users by
| forbidden from choosing true vertical integration as a design
| choice? Why?
|
| Why does Steam charge 30% if we think Apple having no
| competitors is why they charge 30%? Since you can sell anything
| for PC users anywhere, why don't developers jump from Steam's
| ship when options like Gog are available?
| indymike wrote:
| Developers do jump from Steam. Last I looked I can buy most
| games on multiple stores/platforms, and Steam is largely a
| choice the buyer makes.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > What's the delta between a console and an appliance?
|
| The delta is how large and important the mobile phone market
| is, and the fact that it is a centralized duopoly.
|
| It is perfectly fine to target legislation towards larger,
| more centralized, and more important markets.
|
| You are also engaging in whataboutism.
|
| Maybe there really are problems with the console market. But
| regardless of that, we should still take action on the much
| more important phone market.
| unity1001 wrote:
| > Who is allowed to vertically integrate, and who isn't?
| Under what principle of free markets and user choice?
|
| There is no 'free market' in any environment that is
| 'vertically integrated' by a handful of organizations. The
| very reason why we abolished feudal aristocracy and even went
| to the extent of doing revolutions and setting up guillotines
| was to get rid of that kind of environments - which its
| owners were totally unwilling to let go.
|
| Technological corporate feudalism is as bad as aristocratic
| feudalism of the yesteryear. They are both based on the
| concept of property ownership to start with, so they stem
| from the same concept of private tyrannies where a private
| tyrant can do whatever it want with what it 'owns' even if it
| dominates the lives of millions of people.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Apple could totally sell games on Xbox if they wanted:
| https://www.techrepublic.com/article/xbox-series-s-and-x-
| dev...
|
| They choose not to.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Who is allowed to vertically integrate, and who isn't?
| Under what principle of free markets and user choice? Should
| users by forbidden from choosing true vertical integration as
| a design choice? Why?
|
| Vertical integration related to the central communication
| system in society has been recognized as particularly
| problematic for quite some time.
| cmelbye wrote:
| > Apple can't control what applications get uploaded to the
| third party stores
|
| Is this actually true? I don't know how I would find the answer
| to this question without paying a team of lawyers to analyze
| the 40,000 word Digital Markets Act. However, my guess is that
| it's more nuanced.
|
| Structurally, I think the developer program will be unchanged.
| iOS will still require code signing using a certificate issued
| by Apple. It will also continue to have sandboxing and
| restrictions that prevent apps from using private APIs. Apple
| will continue to require developers to accept an agreement and
| reserve the right to revoke access in the event of a violation.
|
| As dictated by the DMA, legal agreements like the App Store
| guidelines will become more permissive and new public APIs will
| be introduced to support certain use cases that were previously
| reserved for Apple. But this does not mean Apple can't control
| their platform anymore.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| I'll believe it when I see it. This would be suicide for Safari
| as a relevant platform.
| clownabsuer wrote:
| Or, Apple could actually invest in Safari to make it better
| than the competition, instead of artificially making it the
| best browser on iThings. As one of the founder members of Open
| Web Advocacy (the group who have been briefing UK, EU, Japanese
| and Australian regulators) wrote, "But let's set out
| aspirations higher. Imagine a fantastic Safari on iOS, Mac,
| Android, Windows and Linux, giving Chrome a run for its money.
| If anyone can take on Google, Apple can. It has talented WebKit
| engineers, excellent Standards experts, a colossal marketing
| budget, and great brand recognition.
|
| If Apple allowed Safari to actually compete, it would be better
| for web developers, businesses, consumers, and for the health
| of the web. Come on, Apple, set Safari free!"
| https://brucelawson.co.uk/2021/set-safari-free/
| ZekeSulastin wrote:
| I thought a large part of the Chromium argument is that
| Google et al would be able to just put "use Chrome" banners
| on their site and provide a worse experience for other
| browsers.
| substation13 wrote:
| Now the Apple have announced side-loading for 2024, will we see a
| proper Firefox via side-load?
| kjksf wrote:
| Those rumors are not really providing new information.
|
| The EU law has passed. It's pretty clear that it requires Apple
| to do the things those reports say Apple is "considering" (allow
| truly alternative browsers, allow other app stores etc.).
|
| The law is taking effect soon. Apple has little choice but to
| comply.
|
| It would be news if Apple was considering not complying with EU
| law. Which would likely be suicidal but it's not like Apple
| wasn't jerking around South Korea and some european country with
| fake compliance.
|
| What I would like to know: will Apple give US a big middle finger
| by only implementing this in EU or globally.
|
| Again, I think excluding US from those changes would lead to
| blowback but Apple was so arrogant about those things in the past
| that I wouldn't consider that impossible.
| themagician wrote:
| It feels like Apple has actually been moving in this direction
| for a while now, it's just that you don't see it because all of
| the visible movement has been happening on the macOS side.
|
| The security model in macOS has changed dramatically since 2019
| with Catalina--so much so that the OS is basically
| unrecognizable to me from an admin level.
|
| It is likely that iOS is going to get the same Full Security,
| Reduced Security, and Permissive Security options as macOS. It
| seems like the only thing that Apple hasn't decided on yet is
| whether or not they will continue to allow signed, non-App
| Store apps under the default Full Security policy. I suspect
| they will not or that this is where iOS and macOS will diverge
| in terms of security policy, or that possibly one other
| category is created under Full Security that allows this. I
| would not be that surprised if the next version of macOS
| requires you to boot into the startup utility to set "App store
| and identified developers" as an option and further restricts
| what signed applications are allowed to do.
|
| Apple is going to go the extra mile and allow companies like
| Epic and Spotify to do whatever they want. But they don't have
| to sign their apps and let them do it under the default
| security policy. They can simply say, "You can ask your
| customers to switch their security policy to Reduced Security
| if they want to install unsigned apps." And then customers can
| decide if they'd rather play Fornite or use ApplePay.
| MBCook wrote:
| The information is that Apple is working to comply with it, not
| refuse and start a lawsuit.
|
| That was not a given.
| themadturk wrote:
| I don't dislike Safari at all. I just like Firefox more.
| mrpippy wrote:
| I don't fundamentally have a problem with Chrome or Firefox on
| iOS being able to use their own engine. They're responsible,
| competent organizations who will regularly update and maintain
| their browsers.
|
| What worries me is every app that's _not_ a dedicated browser
| suddenly including an entire browser engine (the way that every
| app on macOS /Windows now does). Apps will import one version of
| Chromium and then not update it for *years*, long past the point
| where it contains security holes and lacks support for new
| platform features.
|
| Steam on Win/Mac/Linux is still using Chromium 85! That's 2 years
| old, and it's a piece of software under active development.
|
| I know of an actively-developed Windows game using CEF 3!!
|
| In other words: do you want your favorite
| bank/airline/restaurant/government agency's app to be 100+ MB
| bigger and contain a growing number of vulnerabilities? I don't,
| and neither does Apple. If this goes ahead, I hope the App Store
| rules around it are thorough. Shipping a browser is a huge
| responsibility, one that most organizations are not prepared for.
| 0x0 wrote:
| And then people are going to complain about not getting JIT
| access is unfair advantage to safari, but then if they do get a
| JIT entitlement they are going to slack on patching
| vulnerabilities...
| jeroenhd wrote:
| The solution to this is simple, Apple needs to make their
| browser usable enough that people don't go to extremes such as
| packaging entire browsers with their code. In many cases
| Safari's Javascript engine will even beat Chromium's engine.
|
| Android allows any browser engine you like (even Webkit if
| someone would manage to compile it) and people don't generally
| do nonsense this on Android. I don't see why the situation
| would be any different here. The reason is simple: the web view
| API is easy to use, automatically updated, and backwards
| compatible.
|
| As another benefit, devices that have fallen out of support may
| receive updates for browsers, making them usable again.
| plastiquebeech wrote:
| Developers will package browsers in their code as a way to
| spy on users with fewer restrictions, not because Safari is
| unusable.
|
| That being said, I returned my first and last iPhone after
| realizing that Firefox on iOS couldn't run the NoScript
| extension.
|
| It is frankly shocking that Apple has managed to go this long
| while blatantly contravening the precedent set by United
| States v. Microsoft Corp., and I'm glad the EU is finally
| taking a stand on that front.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| > Developers will package browsers in their code as a way
| to spy on users with fewer restrictions, not because Safari
| is unusable.
|
| I've also seen developers cling to particular versions of
| Electron simply because their app is so brittle that its
| behavior on different versions of Chromium is not
| consistent or even breaks, which is frankly ridiculous. If
| it doesn't run on the latest version of Chrome _at minimum_
| it shouldn 't be shipped.
| mvanbaak wrote:
| > that people don't go to extremes such as packaging entire
| browsers with their code.
|
| The app dev will simply use framework X and because of that
| it includes some version of some browser engine.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| It would be really nice to get proper Firefox browser on
| iPhone/iPad. I like it a lot on Android.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| An important argument against third party browsers is the
| requirement of a third party JIT compiler for Javascript, which
| means Apple needs to allow a third party app to cause unsigned
| code to be run from other sources than a signed package.
| ecshafer wrote:
| Not being able to use firefox + ublock origin is the only
| negative of ios I have after moving from Android. That and a
| headphone jack, but that was impossible to find on Android also.
| mmmmmbop wrote:
| Yup. The absence of Firefox + [uBlock Origin + Dark Reader +
| Bypass Paywalls Clean] is the only thing stopping me from
| getting an iPad. I really hope these new rules apply to iPads
| as well.
| least wrote:
| Dark Reader is available as an extension for Safari on iOS
| and iPadOS, for what it's worth. I could see why these rules
| might not apply to iPads, but I don't think they would bother
| with maintaining that dichotomy for pretty much no benefit.
| toast0 wrote:
| > That and a headphone jack, but that was impossible to find on
| Android also.
|
| Maybe it's the part of the market I shop in, but headphone
| jacks on Android seemd to be disappearing only for one, maybe
| two cycles, and now they're back. I only owned one phone
| without one (and it _was_ annoying, so I won 't buy another
| phone without a jack). Although, I guess current Pixels are
| missing headphone jacks again?
| Terretta wrote:
| You can use Kagi Orion browser with Ublock Origin on iOS today.
|
| https://browser.kagi.com/
| bioemerl wrote:
| > That and a headphone jack, but that was impossible to find on
| Android also.
|
| Yep. Android decided to compete with apple. They're almost
| entirely worse at it and by competing by turning off all the
| features the once had they've just become a worse phone
| alternative that's cheaper and also lets you install custom
| apps.
|
| Apple allows custom apps and apps stores and that's the death
| of Android as far as I'm concerned.
| philistine wrote:
| Apple is chasing profits in the phone market, not raw sales.
| There will always be people who want Android, or price
| segments Apple is unable to enter. Anything below USD 500$,
| anything with technologies Apple does not have (headphone
| jack, under-the-screen fingerprint reader, etc.).
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > > That and a headphone jack, but that was impossible to
| find on Android also.
|
| There are plenty of Android smartphones, including from major
| manufacturers, that have 3.5mm jacks; they tend to not be
| flagships, because that's not where the demand for them is,
| but they aren't hard to find.
|
| > Android decided to compete with apple.
|
| "Android" is a large number of different manufacturers, many
| of which individually produce many more smartphone models
| targeting different market segments than Apple.
|
| > They're almost entirely worse at it and by competing by
| turning off all the features the once had they've just become
| a worse phone alternative that's cheaper and also lets you
| install custom apps
|
| I've never regreted leaving the iPhone ecosystem for Android,
| and I've pretty consistently been buying Samsung flagships,
| which aren't particularly cheaper than Apple. And sideloading
| or using alternate app stores isn't a huge part of that,
| though its nice to have the option.
| navs wrote:
| This better not lead to any "best viewed in chrome" banners. At
| this point the only reason some of my fellow engineers even test
| outside of Chrome is because of Mobile Safari.
| jacooper wrote:
| Wow, who would've thought regulatory pressure would do so much
| /s.
| smoldesu wrote:
| A great number of apologists and hand-wringers, that's who. Now
| we're here.
| shmerl wrote:
| Long overdue. Apple shouldn't be left off the hook for violating
| competition law for so long though. They should pay for it.
| vehemenz wrote:
| 1. Whether Apple is violating the law is up to the legal system
| to decide.
|
| 2. A lifting of the requirement is an implicit endorsement of a
| Chrome monopoly. This seems difficult to square with the intent
| of lifting the requirement.
| shmerl wrote:
| The legal system didn't decide anything because it's reactive
| (i.e. someone has to go after Apple for this to happen and
| Apple gladly use the fact that no one bothered enough). And
| in general competition law became so toothless that it's
| rarely applied even in such glaringly egregious cases.
|
| I don't really care what their motivation for lifting it is.
| They got away with it for too long causing a lot of very
| concrete anti-competitive damage to progress of the Web.
| vehemenz wrote:
| > They got away with it for too long causing a lot of very
| concrete anti-competitive damage to progress of the Web.
|
| How are you defining progress here? "Progress" is
| inherently value-laden.
|
| Are you defining it only in terms of developer convenience,
| with the goal of making the web like an operating system?
| Or are you defining the web's progress in terms of freely
| available information and as a document retrieval system?
| It has obviously regressed in the latter sense.
|
| Why isn't it just as reasonable to suggest that iOS Safari
| is the last bastion against the decline of the web?
| dljsjr wrote:
| I love Apple but I also know that in these situations where
| they're being forced to punch a whole in their walled garden that
| they'll usually just go about making the solution as shitty to
| use as possible.
|
| They might let other engines in, sure; but will they relax the
| restriction on their memory mapping entitlements to allow for
| optimizing JITs? Doubt it. Means you'll only be able to use
| alternative rendering engines that have JS interpreters with no
| optimizing JIT. Stuff like that.
| ouid wrote:
| dljsjr wrote:
| Okay, "I love Apple Products" then.
|
| I certainly don't love _any_ corporations.
| ouid wrote:
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Your ability to interpret the original intent of OPs
| comms is inherently limited.
|
| Keep that in mind.
| gxs wrote:
| I think this is over analyzing OPs comment.
|
| Similar to how people say "I hate so and so" in sports -
| there's no actual hatred or ill will towards the person
| (although there are some nutcases out there that mean it),
| it's just easier than making up some new vocabulary to
| describe or to preamble everything with padding.
|
| As the Sports Guy said, there's sports hate and regular hate.
|
| It does dawn on me the possibility that I'm also over
| analyzing your comment :)
| ratg13 wrote:
| If it means that I can stop accidentally swiping left and right
| on webpages, and leaving web pages where I have entered text
| without prompting me, it's unfortunately a solid trade off.
| freediver wrote:
| Even if the WebKit requirement is lifted, it is likely that it
| will take months if not years for any Blink/Gecko browsers to
| show up on iOS/iPadOS after the lift.
|
| The reason is the sheer complexity of building for a mobile OS
| with very deep native integrations, that was out of their reach
| for a decade. More likely scenario is that we will see browsers
| using forked versions of WebKit running to enable more features
| (yes that would make uBlock Origin possible on iOS for example).
| clownabsuer wrote:
| "it is likely that it will take months if not years for any
| Blink/Gecko browsers to show up on iOS/iPadOS after the lift."
| Mozilla demoed a Gecko browser on a jailbroken iPhone. They've
| done the work once. The combined heft of Google, Samsung and
| Microsoft could surely get Chrome running on iOS, given that
| Chrome was originally a fork of WebKit.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Er, I thought someone had already (like, years ago) written a
| version of Firefox for iOS that used Gecko, and the only
| problem was that they couldn't publish it in the app store?
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Is there really such a big difference between iOS and macOS?
| Sure, there are APIs that the browser can't access (or, rather,
| shouldn't access according to Apple) that are usable on macOS,
| but my understanding is that large swathes of the API is kept
| relatively compatible.
|
| Also remember that Chromium was WebKit based way back when, the
| Android API for the chromium web view still uses WebKit
| terminology as a result.
|
| If Google were to open a Google Play Store for iOS and put
| Chrome in there, I'd expect building the basic browser to take
| less than a month. The UI framework and designs are all there
| from their current Webkit version. Same with Firefox, though
| Mozilla has significantly fewer resources available.
| freediver wrote:
| I'd say yes there is especially if you are trying to optimize
| for low-level, close to hardware features, like rendering
| performance and battery life, both crucial on a phone. No
| browsing engine comes close to WebKit for those even on
| macOS.
|
| My best guess is that it would take a few years on iOS (at
| least) to get to the current difference that Blink/Geck have
| to WebKit on macOS, which is already considerable in favor to
| WebKit to begin with, despite being able to develop for this
| platform for decades.
| nabla9 wrote:
| That and allowing side-loading and other app stores happens
| because...
|
| EU does its job.
| rnk wrote:
| I naively thought because I could install my own web browser on
| android that I got more privacy than having any web browser on
| ios having to use webkit underneath (where they could centrally
| "spy" or get info for ad targeting).
|
| For example if look for tor on ios, you find info reminding you
| of using the system webkit. Has anyone looked into whether (1)
| android does provide you more privacy by bringing your own
| browser or not, (2) whether apple in fact has no privacy when
| using a browser?
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(page generated 2022-12-14 23:02 UTC)