[HN Gopher] Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA
___________________________________________________________________
Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA
Author : yashghelani
Score : 468 points
Date : 2025-07-14 07:27 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (open-web-advocacy.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (open-web-advocacy.org)
| v5v3 wrote:
| That you for your ongoing work Open Web Advocacy.
| Tepix wrote:
| Yes, Thank you! Someone has to do it, Apple is clearly dragging
| their feet as much as possible.
| v5v3 wrote:
| Just so you know, my post thanking you has 15 upvotes at
| present.
|
| So 16 people are thanking you together.
| v5v3 wrote:
| 19
| v5v3 wrote:
| 21
| simondotau wrote:
| The open web requires browser diversity in order to remain
| healthy, far more than it needs individuals to have browser
| choice. The former is important for the health of open
| standards; the latter only matters if you believe the web is
| whatever Google implements in Chrome.
|
| Without healthy browser diversity, the web might as well be
| renamed the Chrome Protocol and the "browser choice" you care
| about so much is gone.
| quitit wrote:
| Android already has all of the things being demanded of Apple
| and there is no dawn of a new age. No demand for web apps. No
| demand for alternative browser engines. All that's there is
| the Chrome desert with a near-total market share and a
| sprinkling of alternative app stores that few trust or use.
|
| It's a form of regulatory capture, coopting legislation to
| rid the market of remaining competition.
| concinds wrote:
| That's a deeply fallacious argument.
|
| https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-
| brow...
| mtomweb wrote:
| Thanks so much! it's been a four-year journey just to get this
| far, and none of it would have been possible without the
| volunteers who donate their time just for the belief in a
| better future for the web! Will be passing this comment on!
| TheDong wrote:
| I agree with the point about non-EU web developers.
|
| As long as people in the US can't test their web app on "firefox
| for iOS" without first buying a plane ticket to the EU and
| getting an EU sim card, all eu-only browser engines on iOS will
| be second-class citizens.
|
| I think the next logical extension is that actually limiting
| general public use across the entire world makes apple less
| compliant with the DMA. Mozilla will not be able to justify
| putting significant effort into the iOS port as long as it can
| only reach a small fraction of users, so in reality the way to
| get browser-engine competition in the EU is to mandate that apple
| _not_ impose EU-specific rules about what apps can be installed.
| mtomweb wrote:
| And it can't just be the woefully insufficient TestFlight 10k
| users because there are possible upwards of a million
| developers who need to test their websites/web apps in the EU.
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| What a load of BS. How can I test my website on safari without
| owning Apple hardware? I can't so I don't.
| conradfr wrote:
| Not the most practical but you can rent a macOS VM.
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| A hobby dev will not do such thing.
| conradfr wrote:
| It costs 10 cents an hour though.
|
| @javcasas for sure it's not practical if you want to
| develop with it, I was more thinking of testing on
| preprod/prod.
|
| But maybe ngrok can be sufficient to test your local dev
| from the VM?
| javcasas wrote:
| Plus moving stuff into the VM, opening a vnc connection,
| testing that it doesn't show properly, uploading a tweak
| to see if it improves, testing again, and so on.
|
| 10 cents is the smallest of the associated expenses. You
| are ignoring all the other expenses.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| You'll only get rates like that if you're reserving at
| least a month's usage.
|
| For small amounts of usage, the cheapest I've ever seen
| is $1 per hour, with a minimum spend past $30, with
| various further strings attached. And most are much more
| than that.
| conradfr wrote:
| Apple has a 24h minimum mandate so I guess I stand
| corrected.
|
| But it's not $1 per hour.
|
| https://www.scaleway.com/en/pricing/apple-silicon/
| chrismorgan wrote:
| OK, that does look like it actually _is_ only EUR2.64 per
| day. Having looked carefully a few years ago and briefly
| skimmed now, the absolute cheapest other provider I've
| seen in small quantities was over 8x that price.
| sakjur wrote:
| I don't think hobby developers are the cause for concern
| here. To me, these steps should be taken for
| professionally developed services where there is a
| reasonable expectation of accessibility (in my mind this
| would roughly speaking be those that are either publicly
| funded or where the revenue is at least a million euros).
|
| For smaller businesses and hobbyists it feels like
| expecting support for all major browsers would be
| discouraging in a negative way. I appreciate digital art
| even if it doesn't work in my favorite browser and a
| shitty online menu for a food truck is better than none.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Browserling has a usable free trial. They have a finite
| number of VMs dedicated to the trial, so sometimes it takes
| a while to get to the front of the queue, but it's been
| good enough when I've needed it.
| https://www.browserling.com/
| freeAgent wrote:
| It's relatively easy to own Apple hardware when one lives
| outside the EU, but basically impossible to use that hardware
| to run their own browser engine on iPhones or iPads.
| lmm wrote:
| > How can I test my website on safari without owning Apple
| hardware?
|
| Download the windows version from their website?
|
| If Apple doesn't want to make their browser available for
| other hardware that's on them and they'll suffer the
| consequences. Blocking other entities from making their
| browser available on Apple's hardware is very different.
| homebrewer wrote:
| What's the point in testing on a browser that hasn't been
| updated in 15 years, even if you bother to set up a VM
| specifically for it (since every other browser works on all
| three OSes)?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari_(web_browser)#Windows
| pmontra wrote:
| I remember Safari for Windows. It had a Mac chrome that was
| extremely weird to look at on Windows XP. It did work but
| Apple killed it after a short while, maybe because they
| decided that after all the iPhone was not going to use web
| apps Apple could not cash on, but native apps Apple could
| get their 30% from the store.
| TheDong wrote:
| I mean, ideally you can choose to _not_ do so, tell your
| users "We only support Firefox and Chrome on iOS, and not
| Safari, because we do not own apple hardware", and then
| report bugs to mozilla/chrome if iOS users report
| differences.
|
| Being able to run cross-platform browsers on iOS does in fact
| make the very thing you're complaining about better.
|
| I would love it if the EU did in fact force apple to release
| a cross-platform iOS emulator to allow web developers to
| properly test iOS browsers, but presumably apple would argue
| that there are strong technical reasons there (and the DMA
| differentiates real technical reasons from monopolistic
| arbitrary roadblocks).
|
| For making browsers available across regions, that's very
| obviously not driven by strong technical reasons. Making
| cross-platform code has real technical burden.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I've worked at a company that did this. We didn't have
| Apple hardware (except for a very old Mac that took forever
| to boot). Chrome was promised, Firefox was often tested,
| Safari was unsupported.
|
| Customers bought Samsung tablets to use our SaaS product.
| If you're in the right area of business, you can just
| ignore Safari.
|
| > but presumably apple would argue that there are strong
| technical reasons there
|
| They already have to make the appropriate iOS simulators
| and firmware for European developers. Making that available
| to American developers costs them nothing extra. They just
| don't want to.
| pickledoyster wrote:
| > tell your users "We only support Firefox and Chrome on
| iOS, and not Safari, because we do not own apple hardware"
|
| I'd be pissed if someone did that for my browser engine of
| choice. Also, from what I understand, Apple still leads in
| accessibility, so this would be an asshole move towards
| consumers stuck in that ecosystem just because Google and
| Microsoft can't get their act together.
| mcny wrote:
| > I'd be pissed if someone did that for my browser engine
| of choice.
|
| I read it differently. I don't think they said somehow
| block people from using their browser of choice, but that
| if you report an issue, the first thing tech support will
| do is ask you to use a different browser. I think it is
| reasonable.
| pmontra wrote:
| I develop on Firefox and it works on Chrome and Safari with
| no issues on all OSes (Windows, Mac and Linux). In the
| extremely rare case when there are some platform specific
| issues customers tunnel to my dev machine and check the web
| app (it's Vue) with their iPhones or Macs. I remember only
| two issues in about 3 years with this customer, all of them
| with the Apple ecosystem:
|
| 1. A form that could not find anymore a picture when they
| selected it from the Mac Photos app. Apparently Photos
| creates a temporary file that disappears before the browser
| submits the form, when probably reads it again from disk. No
| problems when the picture is loaded from a normal folder. We
| should read the picture into the memory of the browser and
| add it to the form from there, of transition to a JSON
| request. My customer decided that it's a niche case and it's
| not worth working on it.
|
| 2. A slight misalignment of an arrow and a checkbox, but that
| also happens in a different way with Chrome and Firefox, so
| there is some structural bug in the DOM/CSS of those UI
| elements. We're working on that.
|
| Except those issues I can't remember any cross browser or
| cross OS problems in the last years. If it works in Firefox
| it works in Chrome and Safari too.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| You can run Gnome Web for free. It's the open source version
| of WebKit so you won't be able to see all the tweaks Apple
| adds to their proprietary build, but it's close enough that
| obvious differences are visible, at least on desktop.
|
| Safari on iOS cannot be tested without paying Apple so I
| generally don't for my personal stuff either.
|
| All of that said, American developers often can't even be
| bothered to support characters like n or e, so I think it's
| quite reasonable to expect an EU browser to be a second class
| citizen for American developers. We can work around that
| pretty easily by simply not buying products and services that
| don't work well in the EU.
| stavros wrote:
| Right, but approximately zero people have ever said "this
| website doesn't work on Firefox, so I won't use this
| website". They say "this website doesn't work on Firefox,
| so I won't use Firefox".
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| Zero percent maybe. I personally changed banks when they
| broke Firefox support and said to use chrome.
|
| I welcome the Safari walled garden because if Apple have
| to allow chrome on ios, that's the end of any cross
| browser testing (and the end of Firefox)
| kosinus wrote:
| I think that is true when you initially switch and are
| still comparing browsers, but I certainly no longer check
| if something broken happens to work in Chrome. Stuff may
| equally be broken by my adblocker. Too lazy to debug
| someone else's work.
| Fluorescence wrote:
| Too often the only sites I find are broken in Firefox are
| "necessary" things like financial and medical things. I
| rarely see any issue with hobby and nonsense sites where
| "laziness" might be excusable.
|
| It's the perverse incentives where companies with a
| captive audience that can't easily churn will be the ones
| that ship broken half-arsed sites and not care.
|
| One phenomena I am seeing more that makes me boil with
| fury is infinite captchas in Firefox. If Firefox
| increasingly gets excluded "for security" then...
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| > One phenomena I am seeing more that makes me boil with
| fury is infinite captchas in Firefox
|
| This is driven by enhanced tracking prevention. If you
| turn that off for the respective site, then it goes away.
| Fluorescence wrote:
| Good to know.
|
| Pretty sure I try disabling protections in such
| situations but maybe not. I returned to the last site
| that did it to me to try this out (on a different
| machine) and it didn't captcha me at all with protections
| on! Ugh.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > One phenomena I am seeing more that makes me boil with
| fury is infinite captchas in Firefox. If Firefox
| increasingly gets excluded "for security" then...
|
| I can't figure out if this is true. I certainly get
| constant captchas, but everybody else I know who uses
| firefox is also ad-blocking, dropping cookies, resisting
| fingerprinting, forging referers, downloading embedded
| videos, etc. etc... A lot of us look like anonymous bot
| traffic because we are trying to look like anonymous bot
| traffic. I don't know what the solution would be.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I can't remember the last time I encountered a site that
| didn't work in Firefox. Very rarely I need to disable
| uBlock for a site, but not for anything mainstream such
| as my bank, utilities, online shopping.
| freedomben wrote:
| I did exactly that with Mailgun and Ramp.com
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Go to an Apple store or use a friend's hardware.
| oblio wrote:
| > As long as people in the US can't test their web app on
| "firefox for iOS" without first buying a plane ticket to the EU
| and getting an EU sim card, all eu-only browser engines on iOS
| will be second-class citizens.
|
| VM is EU. Heck, it can be an ephemeral instance on EC2, so it
| would only cost money while in use, probably tens of cents or
| something.
|
| If there's a will, there's a way.
| tehbeard wrote:
| Remote debug on iOS is ass unless you are fully invested into
| their ecosystem.
|
| And apple has some "nice" licencing nonsense around their
| software that makes VMs not the "obvious" solution.
| oblio wrote:
| Ah, that was silly from me, I forgot about those
| shenanigans.
| agust wrote:
| Testing mobile interactions such as scrolling and swiping, as
| well as animations' performance cannot be done through a VM.
|
| Only real devices allow to test these aspects properly.
| oefrha wrote:
| I have a bit of experience with cloud mobile simulators (like
| Appetize). Ignoring the question of whether their simulators
| have EU builds that allow running alternative browser
| engines, the experience simply sucks for developing
| interactive apps.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| You can't develop an app if you aren't able to test it like a
| real user would use it on a real device.
| selckin wrote:
| This Apple policy is the only thing stopping chrome from having a
| full monopoly, and we should be careful trying to remove it
| elashri wrote:
| It is shame that this is true. However it should not mean that
| we need to accept this situation. Hopefully Google anti
| competitive practices with Chrome can be addressed at the same
| time.
| systemtest wrote:
| Those popups I get multiple times a day about how this
| website works better on Chrome , which cover half my screen
| and which forward me to the App Store, are incredibly
| misleading. I have misclicked many times and then the App
| Store opens up. If you go back to the browser and hit the
| back button, it will again open the App Store. I have to
| press and hold the back button and skip multiple pages to get
| back to what I was doing.
| RegW wrote:
| Strange - I don't get this in Firefox. I wonder if its
| because I'm in the UK or perhaps Privacy Badger is blocking
| it.
| elashri wrote:
| I think we are talking about phones here because on macOS
| you can use any browser without limitation.
| systemtest wrote:
| This is with the Safari browser on iOS, using Google
| websites while not being logged in to Google. No content
| blockers.
| windward wrote:
| Monopolies are made illegal because they limit consumer choice
| and the role of competition in the free market, distorting
| incentives.
|
| The status quo has all of the problems of a monopoly. Doing
| this or not doing this won't change that. But it will remove
| another barrier to consumers being able to do what they want.
| simondotau wrote:
| I care about the web remaining a truly open platform based on
| standards rather than the whims of a singular software
| project. What matters is browser diversity, even if it's at
| the expense of browser choice. Because without healthy
| browser diversity, the web might as well be renamed the
| Chrome Protocol and you lose browser choice anyway.
|
| Apple, with their iOS browser lock-in, is the greatest gift
| ever to the open web.
| yxhuvud wrote:
| No, the status quo has the problems of a whole series of
| interconnected monopolies. More than one will need to be
| broken up before we are out of it, but one step at a time.
| I'd be surprised if chrome is still part of google when the
| politicians have reached a happy state.
| eviks wrote:
| We're very careful, it's not being removed even after blatantly
| illegal actions, and even then the mandate isn't global, and
| we've waited for many years.
| oblio wrote:
| If Chrome has a full monopoly, guess what's the next logical
| action...
|
| Might as well get it over with quickly.
|
| In case it's not obvious, these crutches should be removed.
|
| Treat Google paying Apple for the use of Google's search engine
| and Mozilla for the same thing, as anti-competitive (they're
| token gestures propping up the monopoly).
|
| And break Google up in multiple companies. Not sure along which
| lines but I would steer towards platforms (Android + Chrome +
| Search + Docs + Cloud; banned from entering advertising), Play
| Store, Ads.
|
| The same thing should be done to Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.
| Nobody has the guts anymore.
| bapak wrote:
| > Nobody has the guts anymore.
|
| I think nobody has the manpower to deal with all the shit.
| The EU already regularly fines big companies, but for every
| fine they get away with so much.
| oblio wrote:
| I meant more in the US. I think they had a fairly
| aggressive head of FTC but she's been removed (Lina Khan?).
| bapak wrote:
| I would not be surprised if Google is lobbying like the whole
| company depended on it.
| rafaelmn wrote:
| Google has an incentive to make everything work through the
| web. Safari has the incentive to gatekeep the app store
| revenue, which is why PWAs are a joke on iOS.
|
| Google also has bad incentives (Android, ads) but Safari is the
| IE6 of modern web.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| Chrome is the IE6 of the modern Web. Devs are building hacky
| sites that only work in Chrome.
|
| It's the browser we're FORCED to have installed for the
| occasional shitty flight or hotel booking that doesn't work
| in Firefox.
| arccy wrote:
| it's the browser you need when your shitty default browser
| decided to spend their money elsewhere instead of building
| a proper browser that can compete against the app store
| lock in
| spicycode wrote:
| Agreed, that's why we steer people away from Edge.
| nobleach wrote:
| If anyone is building using experimental features that are
| either flagged or unflagged in Chrome, that's NOT on
| Chrome. For example, if I built a feature based on Chrome's
| weird Observables, sure, I could do it... it would work
| nowhere else. If you're actually seeing this happen, who do
| you blame in this situation?
|
| IE flat out refused to implement features that were agreed
| upon by standards bodies. They pushed for VML development
| and ignored SVG. They ignored CSS3 in favor of their
| DirectX filters. Chrome does indeed put experimental
| features out there AFTER they support the standards.
| Firefox also has agreed to a set of web standards and is
| simply behind on implementation.
|
| Having lived(as a developer) through IE4 - IE9, I reserve
| that title of "the new IE" for the worst offenders.
| freedomben wrote:
| It depends on what you are looking at. Chrome is the IE6 of
| the modern web as far as it is often the only browser
| people care about, but it's very much the _opposite_ of IE6
| regarding developing new features and moving web tech
| forward. In order to have a productive conversation about
| which browser is the new IE6, I think it 's important to
| state what you are measuring
| superkuh wrote:
| Work? No. Google has an incredible incentive to make
| everything javascript so they can make money through spying.
| The web is HTML.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| The web gives users a lot of control using extensions.
| That's why companies don't like it. Google tries to fight
| it by not supporting extensions in its mobile browser.
| Apple is more egregious, preventing people from doing many
| things using the web platform entirely, with no escape
| hatch.
| ec109685 wrote:
| Are PWA's better and more popular on Android?
| streptomycin wrote:
| Biggest differences:
|
| - You can fairly easily list them in the Google's app
| store, whereas they are basically banned from Apple's app
| store
|
| - iOS/Safari is much more aggressive about deleting data
| from PWAs
| zamadatix wrote:
| Much better but only slightly more popular. Partly because
| the Play Store ecosystem treats wrapping PWAs as a first
| class use case and you don't even have to source APKs from
| the official store anyways - so there's not much to gain by
| delivering via "true" PWA. Apple goes more the route of the
| stick than carrot.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| 100%! Without the Safari walled garden, start ups won't bother
| considering cross platform testing.
| utf_8x wrote:
| Maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing. Maybe chrome capturing
| the majority of the iOS market would finally be the proverbial
| straw that breaks the camel's back and pushes regulators
| towards forcing Google to sell Chrome.
| 9dev wrote:
| Or... Sundar Pichai has lunch with Trump, brings with him a
| few nice cigars and a Google-sponsored Yacht (I hear he's
| still short on these), explains to him how that's all just a
| liberal media fake news campaign against good American
| products, and they decide to axe regulatory bodies instead.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Maybe when all browsing is under one monopoly then we'll
| finally care to regulate it properly instead of sticking our
| fingers in our ears and saying we have a different monopoly for
| iOS users so everything is fine.
| amelius wrote:
| We have to put more power in the hands of one organization that
| fights for our rights.
|
| Consider adding this to your website: <script
| src="https://eff.org/defend_the_web.js"></script>
|
| This link does not exist right now, but it will allow EFF to
| take control when necessary. E.g. by nudging people away from
| Chrome if it becomes too powerful.
| beeflet wrote:
| chrome could just block the script if they try this
| resource_waste wrote:
| That is some wild moral coating.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| It's the unfortunate truth. Nobody gives a shit about
| Firefox, not even Mozilla. Safari is the only major non
| chromium browser. You get rid of it and Google basically has
| full control of web standards and we've come full circle.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| I use Firefox because it is the only mobile browser worth a
| damn. Mozilla screwed up by wasting resources on FirefoxOS
| and other projects that had no business case in the early
| days of mobile browser adoption, but they eventually got
| their act together and started supporting extensions and
| other differentiating features that people want. They're
| still slow-walking container support, but nobody else has
| that either.
| resource_waste wrote:
| Oh its 'true' but does the pain of having to use Safari
| make up for some sort of benefit of having a non-chrome
| browser?
|
| I really appreciate that you sacrifice your happiness in
| favor of Apple profits so I can have multiple browsers
| competing against chrome.
|
| Thank you.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| I daily use Safari on MacOS and iOS, and regularly use
| Edge on MacOS and Windows 11. I really don't notice a
| difference, other than I find the dev tools in Chromium
| browsers more familiar and overall better.
| resource_waste wrote:
| You are happy to sacrifice your freedom and you don't
| notice a difference?
|
| Have you considered you are just rationalizing your
| condition rather than having a genuine take?
|
| Its easier to cope with the idea that you've chosen this
| 'freedom', than to realize you don't have it.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| Brother, I have no idea what you're talking about. I feel
| like it's gotta be some high concept trolling lampooning
| the spirit of the average Hacker News but I don't have
| the energy to read your comment history and find out.
| throwaway229864 wrote:
| This is an understandable concern, but it's not actually
| supported by the data.
|
| On MacOS, where there has long been engine choice, Safari
| market share is >50%. Defaults are powerful and many users are
| happy with the real and perceived benefits of the first-party
| brand.
|
| Safari has >90% market share on iOS today. If engine
| competition were permitted, they might lose a few percent
| initially, but would be highly motivated to close any gaps.
|
| There's no world in which WebKit usage among the world's
| wealthiest consumers drops low enough that web developers can
| target a chromium monoculture. The purpose of engine choice is
| to create real competition in order to motivate Apple to do
| better.
| danaris wrote:
| Unfortunately, the problem is that what's needed is for a
| massive special antitrust operation to address the tech sector
| _as a whole_ , unravel all the various anticompetitive,
| bundling, and otherwise monopolistic behavior they all engage
| in, and implement remedies on all of them at once.
|
| But the US's system certainly doesn't allow that (and, of
| course, there isn't going to be any serious antitrust in the US
| for the foreseeable future anymore). I have no idea if the EU's
| does, but I _really_ don 't think they have sufficient
| jurisdiction to do things like break up Apple, Google, and
| Microsoft. Which is definitely necessary to address these
| problems.
|
| Make no mistake: the reason we are here is because of the
| morally- and intellectually-bankrupt shift to the Chicago
| School-backed philosophy of antitrust under Reagan, coupled
| with a government--at all levels, in all branches--that didn't
| understand technology, and collectively refused to learn, for
| _decades_.
| freedomben wrote:
| I don't disagree, but this is an "ends justifies the means"
| type of argument, which generally speaking I struggle with. I
| think sometimes the end does justify the means (within reason
| of course), but I try to be very cognizant when that is the
| position.
|
| I do also think there are a lot of downsides to letting big
| tech companies exercise tight control over stuff, especially
| when it is anti-competitive. The slowing of Chrome is a good
| outcome, but there are plenty of other downsides that come
| along with allowing Apple (and others) to have these policies.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Unfortunately the problem here is that Apple decides that they
| are the only entity that knows how to do security and no you
| can't see how they do it. This means whatever choices they make
| are clearly the right ones.
| fabian2k wrote:
| The simple fact that they restrict this to the EU, where they are
| forced to provide the option, shows that Apple is not serious
| about this. They're barely fulfilling the letter of the law here.
|
| If this would be only about security as Apple claims, there would
| be no reason to restrict this to the EU and to force Browser
| vendors to publish other engines as separate apps after they meet
| the security conditions Apple imposes.
| bapak wrote:
| > Apple is not serious about this. They're barely fulfilling
| the letter of the law here.
|
| Is that surprising in any way?
|
| They've been asked to not reject third party browser engines in
| the EU. _Check._
|
| Google has plenty of developers in the EU so I'm not even sure
| what people want exactly.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| they want apple adhere to EU law for everyone outside the EU
| lol
|
| how can people think like this
| 9dev wrote:
| No. Apple claims they cannot implement this due to security
| concerns. Yet at the same time, they assure EU users that
| the Apple platform is of course secure. So which one is it?
|
| By limiting this change to the EU, Apple displays that they
| clearly are able to add support for multiple browser
| engines without compromising security if forced to, so the
| only reason left is their unwillingness to commit to their
| users freedom of choice.
|
| It's just greed, nothing more.
| giingyui wrote:
| It's actually the opposite, no? If it's about security it makes
| sense they choose to compromise the security of their platform
| only where they are forced to.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Security for who against what threat? It's hard to make the
| case this is possibly in the users' interest.
|
| This is about securing the phone in Apple's interest against
| the desires of the user.
| danaris wrote:
| > It's hard to make the case this is possibly in the users'
| interest.
|
| Not in the least.
|
| If anyone who wants can make a complete browser for iOS,
| then, for instance, Meta could come out with their own
| Facebook(tm) Browser that does extra super duper tracking
| on them and everyone they interact with online.
|
| Or Russia/China/Trump/Obama/whoever you hate most could
| make their own browser that inserts propaganda into
| websites, redirects you away from sites that are critical
| of them, etc.
|
| Or straight-up criminals could make browsers that steal
| your credit card info.
|
| And a) Apple would be put in the position of having to do
| _comprehensive_ testing on all these browsers to make sure
| they did _not_ do these things, even in unusual situations,
| and b) do you actually trust Apple 's App Review system to
| catch it all? 'Cause I _like_ Apple, and I sure as hell don
| 't. Especially in cases like the latter, where they could
| create a dozen profiles and have each one submit a dozen
| slightly different versions of their compromised browser
| (eg, one that's Skibidi Toilet themed, one that's got
| scantily-clad women (just PG enough that Apple won't ban
| them for that) framing the pages, one each themed for the
| MCU movies...)
| MangoToupe wrote:
| I don't trust the app store to act in my interest at all.
| They have damn gambling apps all over the place.
| hbn wrote:
| As an iOS and web user, it is my desire that Apple doesn't
| allow other browser engines because immediately Google and
| other web devs will start pushing webapps that only work
| with mobile Chrome and we'll all be forced to install a
| Chromium browser to use certain websites, it becomes
| default and users will think "Safari sucks now, a bunch of
| websites don't work with it," finally ending Google's last
| bit of real competition in the browser space: Safari with
| its terrifying 17% marketshare.
|
| That's not even getting into the resources/battery life
| aspect.
| fsflover wrote:
| > Google and other web devs will start pushing webapps
| that only work with mobile Chrome
|
| This is anti-competitive and should be illegal, too.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| I mean, none of this really affects me. Forcing safari on
| me does.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| "shows that Apple is not serious about this"
|
| noo, that how law works
|
| EU make an law that forces Apple to adhere, apple make changes
| that suit the new law
|
| if its works in EU only then its working as intended
| sealeck wrote:
| > The simple fact that they restrict this to the EU, where they
| are forced to provide the option, shows that Apple is not
| serious about this. They're barely fulfilling the letter of the
| law here.
|
| Apple may or (more likely) may not be complying in terms of
| allowing third party browser engines, but I don't see how you
| can argue that not implementing this _outside_ the EU fails to
| comply with EU law (which applies _inside_ the EU).
|
| That's not to say they shouldn't allow this elsewhere (although
| it will just cement the Chrome monopoly - actually _decreasing_
| competition and solidifying the incumbent's position) but I
| don't think you can argue that this law requires them to do
| that.
| fabian2k wrote:
| I'm not saying this is against the law, but it is clear that
| Apple only moves exactly as far as the EU forces it to, not a
| bit more. And within the limits the law allows, they're doing
| everything they can to make it tedious and difficult to
| actually get alternative apps stores or browser engines on
| their OS.
| sealeck wrote:
| > it is clear that Apple only moves exactly as far as the
| EU forces it to
|
| I don't think this is a secret - Apple publicly opposes
| these kinds of laws.
|
| > And within the limits the law allows, they're doing
| everything they can to make it tedious and difficult to
| actually get alternative apps stores or browser engines on
| their OS.
|
| Sure, it's unclear what the EU can do to oppose this
| though. If they push too far they risk invoking the wrath
| of the much more powerful US government.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| The EU does not risk invoking the "wrath" of the "much
| more powerful" US government by telling Apple to stop
| abusing it's customers, market and developers.
|
| You have progressive states passing similar legislation
| as the EU within the US so I bet they'll be getting the
| firm hand first if anything.
| mrkstu wrote:
| If states get too onerous the Feds will pass similar,
| very much less restrictive legislation, which will have
| the effect of nullifying state legislation due to federal
| supremacy.
| sealeck wrote:
| The US government doesn't really take kindly to other
| states trying to reign in its companies. This is
| something that has bipartisan support. Even American
| politicians who support regulating Apple, only support
| _them_ doing this. Is this good? No. But it's also how
| Europe treats other countries. Basically: think about
| what France would do if Mozambique ejected or otherwise
| restrained Total -- that's roughly what Americans would
| do.
|
| https://www.politico.eu/article/victory-eu-donald-trump-
| meta...
| bluesign wrote:
| Now basically the situation is: No browser vendor wants to port
| their engine, because cost > benefit.
|
| I think the discussion should focus more on why benefit is this
| small for users to switch.
|
| With browser selection dialog, I think vendors have already 0
| cost channel for UA. I don't think new binary would make a big
| difference.
| Jyaif wrote:
| > Safari is the highest margin product Apple has ever made.
|
| Anybody has the number of committers to webkit from Apple? It
| would give us a good idea on the margin of the product.
|
| Assuming 100 engineers costing Apple 500k per year, that's 50
| millions in investment for 20 billion in revenue.
|
| > For each 1% browser market share that Apple loses for Safari,
| Apple is set to lose $200 million in revenue per year.
|
| They should be investing like _crazy_ to make Safari the best
| browser out there instead of just relying on their monopole. And
| why the fuck is there no Windows version to make their iOS users
| happy?
| Batman8675309 wrote:
| > They should be investing like crazy to make Safari the best
| browser out there instead of just relying on their monopole.
| And why the fuck is there no Windows version to make their iOS
| users happy?
|
| Simple. Apple doesn't want you to use Windows. They want you to
| buy an expensive Apple computer instead.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Why would you only count engineers?
| Jyaif wrote:
| Same reason I choose 500k, it's an approximation.
| doabell wrote:
| > They should be investing like crazy to make Safari the best
| browser out there
|
| So true. It didn't occur to me that I had naturally assumed
| Safari to be worse, when it would have been better in a more
| competitive market. So by relying on monopolistic behavior,
| Apple is also partly responsible for the Chromium monopoly
| (that this law will help solidify).
| layer8 wrote:
| They don't want their iOS users to be happy using Windows.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| FWIW, there is a very high probability that Google's $20B
| yearly payment to Apple is going to vanish, pending a current
| trial.
|
| Safari is actually a pretty great browser, both technically and
| from a user perspective, and the complaints often levied on
| sites like this usually boil down to "Why do alternatives to
| Chrome exist? So annoying! I'm incredibly lazy and want to just
| deploy whatever half-baked non-standard ad-benefiting nonsense
| Google threw into Chrome this month". There was a Safari for
| Windows for some time but they had a small enough uptake that
| they abandoned it.
| shusaku wrote:
| Honestly those barriers they complain about are not so high. I
| don't believe any major browser vendor is deterred by this.
| mtomweb wrote:
| We do talk to the browser vendors. The bundle ID one by itself
| ensures it's unviable project. That's why 15 months in, there
| are no alternative browser engines in the EU.
| pickledoyster wrote:
| On top of that, iOS continues to push Safari on users by
| disregarding their default browser settings.
|
| Steps to reproduce: 0. Select a different default browser, delete
| the Safari app (just for good measure, even though it's not
| really possible just like deleting IE in older Win versions) 1.
| Open the Books app 2. Select text 3. Select Search 4. Press
| Search the Web 5. Safari search results open as you stare in
| disbelief
| boroboro4 wrote:
| They do similarly with dates and calendar app. Disgraceful.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Apple knows that what they're doing is against the law, but
| every day, every month, every year they can get away with it,
| till the hammer of the law inevitably strikes, is more money
| in their pocket. So delaying it by every means necessary is
| what's in their best interest, it's what their lawyers are
| paid to do because each such decision of conforming to the
| law boils down to an accounting decision for them: "are the
| potential fines bigger than the profits".
|
| You know a company has long lost the innovation race when the
| company is run by the lawyers and bean counters instead of
| the engineers, trying to milk their product lines form 10+
| years ago. I wonder how long until they resort to becoming a
| patent troll ... oh wait. Their final form will be selling
| ads to their users.
| ezst wrote:
| Tech giants need to be dismantled.
| jjani wrote:
| Western governments just need to toughen up. If China
| tells Apple to stop doing something by next Monday,
| they'll have it changed by then.
|
| "But due process!!". For individuals and SMEs, sure. For
| mega companies, _absolutely not_. Getting to rake in
| billions of profits should come with a _loss_ of
| privileges, not with a gain. That needs to be the trade-
| off.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> But due process!!"._
|
| If only they would give the same due process to the users
| and app devs before they close their accounts.
|
| Companies want and exploit all the perks of the liberal
| democratic western societies that helped them make what
| they are today and reciprocate with defying the laws and
| tax avoidance, while bowing down to foreign dictatorships
| no problem.
|
| The only way you stop them abusing this is to put an
| executive to jail. Because that's why they instantly bow
| down to China. Braking the law in China is a legal
| problem with personal accountability, breaking the law in
| the west is just an accounting problem that you can
| easily pay your way out of.
|
| The moment you put someone in jail, everyone stops
| breaking the law immediately, because nobody likes the
| idea of going to jail.
| komali2 wrote:
| It's not just that people go to jail in the PRC, after
| all it's not like Tim Cook or other western executives
| need fear extradition to the PRC or something, it's more
| like because for better or (mostly) worse the PRC is a
| single party government, if one aspect of that government
| says "do this, or we close this 1.3 billion person market
| to you," it's a threat with actual teeth.
|
| In the USA any given administration can try something
| like that and one party or the other will work with
| whatever company is being sanctioned out of pure spite,
| or will know that divisions in the USA mean that all that
| a company needs to do is play just enough lip service to
| appear respectful to the current admin. Worse case
| scenario, they wait four years. See: nvidia flagrantly
| selling cards to the PRC through Singapore.
|
| I disagree with the "dictatorship of the proletariat"
| ideology, but to be fair the remnants of it that survived
| Deng Xiaoping does seem to somewhat work in resisting the
| influence of foreign capitalists.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> it's not like Tim Cook or other western executives
| need fear extradition to the PRC or something_
|
| Tim Cook isn't going to jail in China, Apple has local
| employees of their branch that can go to jail and pretty
| sure they don't want to so they aren't gonna defy their
| government.
|
| _> I disagree with the "dictatorship of the proletariat"
| ideology_
|
| Sure, but then the masses easily switch their opinions
| when they see the whole due process is only for the super
| rich, and when they break the law it's an open and shut
| case.
| komali2 wrote:
| > Sure, but then the masses easily switch their opinions
| when they see the whole due process is only for the super
| rich, and when they break the law it's an open and shut
| case.
|
| I'm a bit confused by this, can you help me understand
| what you mean?
| Coffeewine wrote:
| If Careless People is to be believed, not even then. In
| that book Facebook was perfectly happy to have employees
| spend time in jail, as long as it wasn't Zuckerberg or
| Sandberg.
| rayiner wrote:
| I agree, we shouldn't have due process for corporations.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| They say that somewhere one Darl McBride makes a sad
| chuckle reading this.
| msgodel wrote:
| It's why I think they're such a great short.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Google does this too on Android in a few places. Stuff still
| opens in Chrome even if Firefox is the default.
| xnx wrote:
| Do you know of an example? I use a non-Chrome browser on
| Android and can't remember encountering this.
| ffgbbvv66 wrote:
| Some apps specifically open chrome, e.g. chatgpt was doing
| that for login. Dunno if still is.
| seritools wrote:
| it's the "thin" browsers that are half-embedded in other
| apps, such as Google News. In the menu you can see "Running
| in Chrome" and "Open in <yourdefaultbowser>"
| tricot wrote:
| This feature is called Android Custom Tabs and it is
| supported by most browsers on Android afaik. I use
| Firefox for this purpose, but it is possible that certain
| Google apps always use Chrome for this, not entirely
| sure.
| 0xTJ wrote:
| I have Chrome disabled, and every link that I open comes up
| in the standalone non-full-browser version of Firefox. I
| don't know if it would behave differently is Chrome was
| available, but I don't give it the chance.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| No Chrome, no problem. Just remove it or - better still -
| never install it. Use an AOSP-derived distribution like
| Lineage, use Cromite as system we view and _all your browser
| engines are belong to you_.
| sexy_seedbox wrote:
| Install "Choose Browser": https://play.google.com/store/apps/
| details?id=de.ub0r.androi...
|
| I have this installed and all links I can choose between Kiwi
| Browser or Firefox.
| kyriakos wrote:
| Isn't kiwi discontinued?
| sexy_seedbox wrote:
| Yes, last update was April 2025. Their developer
| recommends users to move to MS Edge, which I have not
| made the switch just yet.
| kyriakos wrote:
| Just checking if it got updated because I switched to
| vivaldi after lack of updates (don't feel comfortable
| with a browser that doesn't get security patches) but
| kiwi was good and I wished it development continued.
| khalic wrote:
| This is because the safari app is a wrapper for apple's
| webview, which is the only way to display web content on iOS,
| that's what the article is talking about
| pickledoyster wrote:
| No. This is not webview, this is opening a full Safari
| browser instance and disregarding the user's default browser
| setting. It also used to be the case with doing a dictionary
| look up anywhere in iOS too, where the user selects a word,
| uses the popup menu to Loop Up, and then selects Search Web.
| This resulted in the absurd situation where you're using your
| default browser, looking up a word, selecting Search Web and
| then having Safari (again, not the default browser) open with
| a search query. Thankfully, at least that behavior has
| changed recently
| resource_waste wrote:
| That literally sounds like Windows 11 with edge.
| int_19h wrote:
| Interestingly this is not the case on iOS. So much so that
| Apple Mail has an option in context menu for hyperlinks to open
| them in _any_ of the installed browsers (while respecting your
| choice of the default).
| nntwozz wrote:
| Another reminder of Rockefeller's reputed remark, "Competition is
| a sin."
|
| Apple is behaving like the Standard Oil Company of the 2020s.
| wdb wrote:
| I am not convinced this will help getting more browser engines in
| general. Currently, it's Chromium that dominates. That's worse
| than webkit only on iOS in my opinion.
| pmkary wrote:
| I wonder why they should make iOS specific engines. To be honest
| only two things come to my mind: Shortcuts Integration and
| WebExtensions. Currently Orion is trying to bring extensions but
| I think there is a lot to be done for that to be considered
| operational and if that proves to work, then only remains
| Shortcuts which only lets you inject JS, or say get the content
| of a page from a "Safari" web page (while I think every webview
| is basically a Safari page).
|
| That brings me to this: Chrome extensions are valuable and we
| know as early as the rumors of Apple being forced to open up,
| Google started working on iOS port, but really, is there any
| justification for bringing a browser engine to iOS? I really
| don't understand how will it be beneficial when the user probably
| will notice anything.
|
| Also we only have like four players to enter: Google (which will
| come), Mozilla (broke and miss-managed as hell), GNOME Web (will
| never come), Ladybug Browser (they are crazy and will definitely
| come someday, but it takes a long time for them to be an actual
| player)
|
| So my question is: Will all this effort even fruit?
| agust wrote:
| Browser engines define the capabilities of web apps and
| websites. When they don't support APIs or have bugs, they
| impact negatively web software.
|
| Apple's WebKit is renowned to be lagging behind, refusing to
| implement crucial features and being rigged with bugs, hence
| limiting the capabilities and quality of web apps, and
| effectively preventing them to compete with native apps.
|
| Getting other browser engines on iOS would be beneficial for
| developers, businesses and end user by making mobile web apps
| viable.
| rgovostes wrote:
| So these web apps will prompt the user to install and
| configure a third-party browser engine?
| agust wrote:
| The likely outcome of alternate, capable browser engines
| coming to iOS will be to push Apple to invest in Safari so
| it can compete with them and not loose all of its market
| share.
|
| Otherwise, yes it's likely web apps will prompt their user
| to use a browser with a capable engine on iOS if they
| exist. Nothing to configure, install and use.
|
| Users will then be able to use capable web apps that take
| up a tenth of the storage of native apps, that are cheaper
| and portable across platforms -- among many other benefits.
| xcrjm wrote:
| To be fair to Apple, as a user of Safari, I mostly agree with
| their feature omissions. Web developers have shown near
| limitless capacity for abusing new platform features and
| Apple has provided sound explanations for why they won't
| implement eg. web bluetooth. On the other hand as a web
| developer I have definitely suffered my fair share of
| Safari's incompatibilities (however I find myself in these
| situations less and less these days).
| dickersnoodle wrote:
| Hopefully not. If Chrome gets to take over the whole browser
| world, everyone's desktop will wind up looking like a scene out
| of "Blade Runner" with all of the ads.
| stockresearcher wrote:
| Even if you get past the roadblocks Apple has put in place, it's
| not beer and skittles for browser makers in the EU.
|
| The CRA, which is now in effect, lists browsers as class I
| important products. Technical documentation, design
| documentation, user documentation, security conformance testing,
| a declared support period at the time of download, software bill
| of materials, the legal obligation to respond to and make all
| your internal documents available to market surveillance
| organizations, etc.
|
| And if the EU doesn't publish harmonized development standards by
| 2027, you will be required to pay a 3rd party to come in and
| analyze you, your design, and the security of your browser, and
| make a report to send to the market surveillance organization,
| who gets to decide if you have the requisite conformance.
|
| Are you sure that anyone but the big boys _want_ to make a
| browser in the EU?
|
| Here is the law, please point out where I am wrong. Much
| appreciated :)
|
| https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L...
| op00to wrote:
| Holy cow, they're serious:
|
| Penalties:
|
| * Up to EUR15 million or 2.5 % of global turnover for essential
| requirement failures.
|
| * EUR10 million or 2 % turnover for other obligations.
|
| * EUR5 million or 1 % turnover for misleading or incomplete
| documents
|
| On the one hand, these are important standards. On the other,
| it seems impossible for small shops to adhere to a lot of this.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Hear me out, I have a tinfoil hat theory. What if, those
| requirements weren't put to help small shops making a new
| browser, but to guarantee the big shops who already have a
| browser are getting fined? * _hits bong_ *
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| And this is why the EU's GDP versus the US is now only 65%
| and shrinking. The regulations are about beating US
| companies into compliance, sometimes with righteous
| motives; but there's no forethought on how a domestic EU
| startup might be able to comply, or how a startup would
| convince investors to take the gamble.
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| Yeah, because EU software companies were totally
| destroying the American software industry before the last
| decade...
|
| The EU's relatively shrinking GDP has much more to do
| with their populations growing older and their population
| size stabilizing, and the relatively tiny amount of
| migration, than EU digital laws, most of which have been
| replicated throughout the world.
|
| Additionally, the EU has always had weak financial
| markets, and the only strong financial center, the city
| of London, quit the EU and both the EU and the city of
| London have suffered because of that, with a whole bunch
| of LSE listed companies moving to New York (including
| possibly Shell, which would be devastating for London as
| a financial center).
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| That's not necessarily true; as the EU had many major
| players, especially historically: SUSE, Ericsson, Nokia,
| SAP; all were or are being shredded by US competition
| despite a domestically entrenched position. Even in 2008,
| when both economies did badly, the EU and the US had
| nearly identical GDP figures.
|
| The EU might point to ASML as a point of pride; but that
| assumes an ASML competitor wouldn't get tens of billions
| to compete the moment ASML is inconvenient.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| ASML (plus Airbus, SAP and Spotify) can't feed 300
| million EU workers. Europe needs more than just a point
| of pride on the entire continent to be an economic
| powerhouse. Like we say in my country: "a single bloomed
| flower does not make spring".
| Rexxar wrote:
| 2008 was a point where euro was overvalued compared to
| dollar at 1.60$ after the subprime crises. It's not a
| significant number.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> The EU's relatively shrinking GDP has much more to do
| with their populations growing older_
|
| I'm not buying this argument. Same how the US's economy
| isn't stronger because Americans have more kids because
| we're not talking about agrarian civilizations here where
| every pair of hands on the farm ads proportional labor
| output. In service based economies, a smart person with a
| wealthy VC behind him can generate the GDP growth of tens
| of thousands of traditional labor jobs so population
| growth isn't the bottleneck.
|
| EU economy is weak not because of lack of more kids, but
| because they have not captured any high growth industries
| (specifically tech) to generate better jobs and new
| wealth for future generations of youth. Europe is all old
| wealth and in the hands of old people. Once the economy
| becomes a fixed pie with no growth, population growth
| follows suit. EU economy is weak because after 2008 they
| went the route of austerity while the US printed it's way
| out dumping cheap money on fueling economic growth.
|
| If Europeans would hypothetically start having way more
| kids tomorrow, those kids would end up being even poorer
| having to share the same fixed pie of limited economic
| resources. Another argument why more kids != wealthier
| for Europeans, is a news I read today of another local
| university graduate who moved his start-up to the US, so
| what's the point in making more kids if they have no
| funds to increase the GPD here and they leave? More kids
| with no comparable growth in money = those kids competing
| with India or Bangladesh.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Labor is absolutely the bottleneck. You can come up with
| as many billion dollar ideas as you like, but without
| people to pay for them, where does the income come from?
| Economies grown because money flows, it gets invested,
| and that investment creates income, which goes to the
| workers and owners, and gets spent again. With fewer
| people, it doesn't matter how rich some of them get, the
| entire economy will slow down, because there is nowhere
| to productively spend that money in that economy -- it
| flows out.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Labor is absolutely the bottleneck._
|
| Question: Europe has had an open door migration policy
| since at least 2015 and taken millions of migrants,
| especially Italy and Greece. Why haven't all those
| migrants turned EU's or Italy or Greece's economies into
| a powerhouse and built US big-tech competitors here? Same
| question for Canada. When is that magic economic growth
| from population growth coming?
|
| Answer: Because US invests more money in high growth
| sectors than EU and Canada combined, and because people
| aren't fungible cogs in a machine, that you can swap in
| and out and get the same economic output it's agrarian
| labor. Attracting the handful of the smartest people in
| the world with money and resources like the US did, is
| more important and ads more value to their economy than
| attracting millions of desperate unskilled laborers like
| EU and Canada did.
|
| _> but without people to pay for them_
|
| Yes, people to pay for them, as in billionaire VCs pay
| for them, not millions of poor uneducated people, those
| can't even pay their rent without government support let
| alone boost economy. They aren't gonna boost anything
| except Amazon fulfillment center and Door dash delivery
| rates.
|
| So NO, I don't agree with you at all. EU has enough local
| skilled college educated people since university is free
| here, but it has no VC money to amplify their labor into
| economic output as proven how many EU's top minds choose
| to work for US companies. Adding even more random people
| to a stagnating economy just means lower wages and
| bargaining power with higher rents, not more wealth
| growth per capita. Your comment does not disprove any of
| this.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| I was responding to a specific aspect regarding
| population and labor, I am not an expert on Europe. I
| would like to say, though, that starting with a
| conclusion and working backwards from it is a really
| terrible way to proceed with a hypothesis.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> I was responding to a specific aspect regarding
| population and labor_
|
| Like which example are you referring to? Be specific.
| Because you haven't provided any reproducible arguments
| or specific facts to support your opinion, and I gave you
| a real life example that disproves your hypothetical one.
|
| _> I am not an expert on Europe_
|
| You don't need to be one to argue on this, if you have
| other arguments that can be substantiated with proof or
| facts to disprove mine.
|
| _> I would like to say, though, that starting with a
| conclusion and working backwards from it is a really
| terrible way to proceed with a hypothesis._
|
| I'm not starting from the conclusion, I just picked the
| best real life example at my disposal that contradicts
| your point and chose to narrate it from that end, but it
| doesn't change the start condition or the outcome, it's
| still the same no mater from which way you look at it.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| > Like which example are you referring to? Be specific.
| Because you haven't provided any reproducible arguments
| or specific facts to support your opinion, and I gave you
| a real life example that disproves your hypothetical one.
|
| Your first paragraph, specifically.
|
| > Same how the US's economy isn't stronger because
| Americans have more kids because we're not talking about
| agrarian civilizations here where every pair of hands on
| the farm ads proportional labor output. In service based
| economies, a smart person with a wealthy VC behind him
| can generate the GDP growth of tens of thousands of
| traditional labor jobs so population growth isn't the
| bottleneck.
|
| > You don't need to be one to argue on this, if you have
| other arguments that can be substantiated with proof or
| facts to disprove mine.
|
| I am not arguing with you about anything, I am stating
| why population is an important factor in economic growth.
| Are you disputing that this is the case?
|
| > I'm not starting from the conclusion
|
| You are starting from 'the US economy is better than
| Europe's because Europe is stifling high tech growth' and
| working backwards from there. It is incredibly obvious
| that is what you are doing.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > Yeah, because EU software companies were totally
| destroying the American software industry before the last
| decade...
|
| In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44553811 I
| pointed out that in the past a lot (former) successful
| German software were simply bought out by US-American
| software companies.
| 9dev wrote:
| And that will continue, since it's a reinforcing effect:
| Just like successful American startups tend to be bought
| by the big corps, the same happens here. There's just no
| behemoth regionally to swallow them.
| ashdksnndck wrote:
| If my coworkers are anything to judge by, the smart
| ambitious Europeans are coming to work in tech in the US
| to seek their fortune.
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| you mean the US GDP is bigger because the US lacks
| consumer and environmental protection?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Everything has tradeoffs. You can protect children
| extremely well, if you mandate that every household have
| a live-in social worker, subsidized by the government
| with a 30% caretaker tax on top of standard income tax.
| If a government were to pass such legislation, do you
| hate children and love money _that much_ to want to
| repeal it?
|
| At some point, protections are not feasible - and the
| EU's "consumer and environmental" protections are
| apparently unfeasibly expensive in their current form to
| have a competitive economy. This is also self-defeating,
| as only in the context of a competitive economy, would
| these protections have any merit or be enforceable.
| Beggars can't be choosers.
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| I don't get your first paragraph, sorry.
|
| But I disagree with your sentiment that the EU is going
| too far. Look at how healthy and happy the US is and how
| happy and healthy we are. The market, corporations and
| the economy are there to serve us, not to dominate us.
| Their existence is a means to an end, not an end in
| itself. Consumer and environmental protection are not a
| luxury, it's essential.
|
| And surely, tariffs and trade wars have nothing to do
| with anything, right? It's just this damn overregulation
| and nothing else!!111
| abirch wrote:
| We can look at China that is focused on growth at all
| costs. If you look at rare earth metals, they're equally
| distributed but they are toxic to extract. The west has
| pretty much stopped extracting. China is still going full
| steam ahead. https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-
| wrestles-with-the-toxic...
|
| China would bulldoze my hometown in 2 seconds if it meant
| an addition 0.1 GDP. I would say that the US is between
| Europe and China for balancing GDP vs protecting its
| citizens.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> We can look at China that is focused on growth at all
| costs._
|
| It's easy to look down on others from an ivory tower in
| the wealthy developed west, but consider that China was
| dirt poor a few decades ago. What else would you have
| chosen? Die of poverty while protecting the environment?
| Same with India. They did what they had to in order to
| survive.
|
| The west did that too in the industrial revolution. China
| had to speed run decades of industrial evolution in
| years. So why gaslight other countries for doing the same
| thing your country did a few decades earlier?
|
| The good news for them is China recently stopped
| extracting rare earths on the cheap for the west. Their
| cities, air, water are waaay cleaner than they were just
| a decade ago. Chinese cities are actually livable now.
|
| That's why the west is scrambling to find alternative
| sources on the cheap in other places that will let their
| environment be trashed, like Ukraine and Africa, since
| China doesn't want to be the west's easily exploitable
| environmental pay-piggy anymore, and good for them.
|
| The bad news for the planet is that environmental
| destruction is not stopping, it's just moving away from
| China to other poorer places with weaker economies and
| militaries who are more malleable to western pressure and
| corporate demands.
|
| _> China would bulldoze my hometown in 2 seconds if it
| meant an addition 0.1 GDP._
|
| Your western nation most likely did the same from the
| industrial revolution till WW2.
| abirch wrote:
| I'm not looking down at China. I use using it as an
| example of there's a trade off between environmental and
| growth. I don't believe I offered a value statement. Yes
| the USA is famous for breaking treaties with the Native
| Americans whenever they found resources on the Native
| American's reservations. The USA seized private property
| to give to a pharmaceutical company.[0]
|
| Do you believe there can be trades off between consumer,
| environmental protections, and GDP? I do.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London
| Yeul wrote:
| No they are about improving the lives of EU citizens.
|
| America doesn't give a flying fuck about it's people it
| puts corporations first.
|
| Now I don't judge every nation has it's own culture.
| Rexxar wrote:
| > US is now only 65% and shrinking.
|
| It's a fake news that just don't take into account on
| currency value change (euro has lost some value between
| 2019 and 2024). But if you look really want to look at it
| this way, I have a bad news for new: USA has shrink 15%
| since January compared to Europe as EUR go from 1$ to
| 1.15$.
|
| If we look at GDP at purchasing power parity from 2007 to
| 2023 we have this:
|
| - European Union: 31,162 => 61,217, +96% (https://data.wo
| rldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locat...)
|
| - USA: 48,050 => 82,769, +72% (https://data.worldbank.org
| /indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locat...)
|
| Which shows a slight catching-up by the European Union
| over the period.
| gruez wrote:
| >GDP per capita, PPP (current international $)
|
| In other words, it's already been adjusted for exchange
| rates. If you adjust for today's USD/EUR exchange rate,
| you're double-adjusting it. The US dollar has dropped in
| the recent months, and much of that is arguably due to
| bad decision making by the current administration, but it
| hardly refutes the claim that US growth has outpaced EU
| growth for the few decades.
| immibis wrote:
| Actually, that's because the USA has the world reserve
| currency as a result of the former Bretton Woods system,
| itself a result of World War 2. This allows it to command
| a large exchange rate premium without having to actually
| work for it. This is the reason the USA has a larger GDP
| per capita than every other country except for a bunch of
| tax havens (which have artificially inflated total GDP).
| op00to wrote:
| Probably the case!
| poisonborz wrote:
| Watch them not enforce this at all whenever they need
| something from the US, like how they delayed (and afaik still
| do) heavy Google/Meta/Apple fines for DMA. Laws don't matter,
| only enforcement. See TikTok ban.
| swat535 wrote:
| This is the biggeest issue that techies on HN don't
| understand.
|
| These tech giants are essentially extensions of the United
| State's government now and fining them or imposing
| restrictions isn't as simple as fining any corporation due
| to the geopolitics at play.
|
| The long term solution is for EU to decouple its reliance
| on American technology. Anything else is a bandaid IMO.
| poisonborz wrote:
| The problem is not the technical reliance, EU is relying
| on the US, full stop. This isn't a question of making a
| new EU cloud hosting provider (already hard). This turn
| of events was completely unexpected and decades of
| strategizing crumbled.
| dns_snek wrote:
| As usual this is a panicked overreaction. No, startups won't be
| fined out of existence by the iron fist of regulators who
| despise innovation.
|
| > (93) In relation to microenterprises and small enterprises,
| in order to ensure proportionality, it is appropriate to
| alleviate administrative costs without affecting the level of
| cybersecurity protection [...] It is therefore appropriate for
| the Commission to establish a simplified technical
| documentation form targeted at the needs of microenterprises
| and small enterprises. [...] In doing so, the form would
| contribute to alleviating the administrative compliance burden
| by providing the enterprises concerned with legal certainty
| about the extent and detail of information to be provided.
| [...]
|
| > (96) In order to ensure proportionality, conformity
| assessment bodies, when setting the fees for conformity
| assessment procedures, should take into account the specific
| interests and needs of microenterprises and small and medium-
| sized enterprises, including start-ups. In particular,
| conformity assessment bodies should apply the relevant
| examination procedure and tests provided for in this Regulation
| only where appropriate and following a risk-based approach
|
| > (97) The objectives of regulatory sandboxes should be to
| foster innovation and competitiveness for businesses by
| establishing controlled testing environments before the placing
| on the market of products with digital elements. Regulatory
| sandboxes should contribute to improve legal certainty for all
| actors that fall within the scope of this Regulation and
| facilitate and accelerate access to the Union market for
| products with digital elements, in particular when provided by
| microenterprises and small enterprises, including start-ups.
|
| > (118) [...] specify the simplified documentation form
| targeted at the needs of microenterprises and small
| enterprises, and decide on corrective or restrictive measures
| at Union level in exceptional circumstances which justify an
| immediate intervention [...]
|
| > (120) [...] When deciding on the amount of the administrative
| fine in each individual case, all relevant circumstances of the
| specific situation should be taken into account [...],
| including whether the manufacturer is a microenterprise or a
| small or medium-sized enterprise, including a start-up [...].
| Given that administrative fines do not apply to
| microenterprises or small enterprises for a failure to meet the
| 24-hour deadline for the early warning notification of actively
| exploited vulnerabilities or severe incidents having an impact
| on the security of the product with digital elements, nor to
| open-source software stewards for any infringement of this
| Regulation, and subject to the principle that penalties should
| be effective, proportionate and dissuasive, Member States
| should not impose other kinds of penalties with pecuniary
| character on those entities.
| stockresearcher wrote:
| I have two comments:
|
| First, I believe that you are correct in that small
| enterprises are not going to be fined out of existence
| (unless they continually fail to adhere to CRA requirements).
| The issue is that if you want to make a browser in the EU,
| you have to be extremely serious about it.
|
| Second, you are quoting from the section of the act that the
| EU uses to lay out their reasoning, justification, and
| thought process. This section is not legally binding. The
| actual text (page ~28 and beyond in the linked document) is
| what controls. We have seen from DMA enforcement in regard to
| Apple that the EC does not consider conflicts between the two
| sections to be important.
| danaris wrote:
| > if you want to make a browser in the EU, you have to be
| extremely serious about it.
|
| Why is this a problem?
|
| No, really; why is it a _bad thing_ that if you want to
| create a complete new browser, you have to actually be
| serious and committed to it?
|
| A web browser is a pretty significant piece of software,
| and it sits between you and _the entire web_. You do your
| banking through it. You access your email through it. You
| book flights through it.
|
| If the browser is badly constructed or malicious, any of
| these very vital functions can fail in unpredictable ways,
| be compromised by unknown third parties, or even be
| deliberately intercepted by the browser itself.
|
| Here in the US, and especially for tech people like us,
| we're used to thinking of software as a complete free-for-
| all: anyone _can_ make anything they want, and anyone
| _must_ be allowed to make anything they want! That 's what
| Freedom means!
|
| But that kind of freedom can have pretty serious
| consequences if it's treated without respect or abused.
| Frankly, I'm glad to see the EU starting to put some
| genuine safeguards in place for the people who have to
| _use_ the software we make, to ensure that we can 't just
| foist off crap on them and when they get their identity
| stolen because of our negligence, just say "lol too bad,
| Not Guaranteed Fit For Any Purpose, deal with it".
| stockresearcher wrote:
| Yes, I don't want to say that this is a problem (or not a
| problem).
|
| The original article has a quote from Apple saying that
| they don't know why nobody has submitted any new browser
| for them to approve and then goes on to list a bunch of
| reasons for why this is the case. All of which center on
| Apple being obstinate. If Apple was suddenly a nice
| friendly corporation, would the browser landscape in the
| EU change much?
|
| The CRA has been law for less than 9 months. I don't
| think that the general software developer community has
| awaken to what it is going to involve when full
| enforcement begins in 2027. I believe that at least some
| of the people that had originally planned to create new
| browsers in the EU have reconsidered now that they know
| what their obligations in 1.5 years will be. And that is
| probably a good thing (but not Apple's fault).
| troupo wrote:
| > If Apple was suddenly a nice friendly corporation,
| would the browser landscape in the EU change much?
|
| Not immediately. Because there are literally no browser
| vendors beyond the existing three. Everyone else is just
| soapping on different coats pf paint on Chromium.
|
| But then there's Ladybird for example
| https://2025.stateofthebrowser.com/speaker/andreas-kling/
| Yeul wrote:
| For the record you can still put your meme browser on
| F-droid and let people download it.
|
| It just won't be in any Android default list.
| gpm wrote:
| > The issue is that if you want to make a browser in the
| EU, you have to be extremely serious about it.
|
| The current browser vendors have made the web so complex
| that this is already the case regardless of what laws do or
| do not impose. It's simply too large a project to implement
| one for any non-serious project to succeed (as evidenced by
| the fact that we haven't got a new browser since... Chrome.
| Microsoft edge sort of I guess but that project was
| abandoned and they moved to chrome).
| bangaladore wrote:
| True, but legal complexity and technical complexity are
| two very different things. I can pretty much guarantee
| from experience that small businesses prefer technical
| complexity every day of the week.
| danbruc wrote:
| We are not generally used to this in our field but just think
| about the amount of paperwork you have to go through in order
| to construct a bridge or an airplane. Browsers have become a
| critical component and it seem not really unexpected that there
| will eventually be legal requirements to help to ensure that
| browsers are safe given the amount of software that runs on top
| of browsers. And this is also not new, there have been legal
| requirements for all kinds of software for a long time, you
| will just not think about those unless you work in an affected
| area.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| How will regulations on browsers make us safer though?
| troupo wrote:
| By making their implementors responsible for implementation
| and safety errors, presumably. See every other engineering
| profession and business
| isomorphic wrote:
| Right. Define "safe."
|
| Personally I consider Chrome to be one of the least- _safe_
| browsers available, because it sends my data to Google.
| Also it perpetuates a monoculture. However, others may
| define "safe" differently, excluding such considerations.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Are you seriously suggesting that becoming more regulated
| like bridge/building builders is GOOD for software?
|
| You sure you are ready to freeze all innovation forever?
| Cause there is a well documented inverse relationship between
| regulation and innovation. (Small teams cannot afford
| compliance officers and other such dross. Big ones do move
| fast, and, without competition from the smells, do not need
| to)
| gruez wrote:
| >but just think about the amount of paperwork you have to go
| through in order to construct a bridge [...]
|
| Yeah, I do. Guess which industry has seen _negative_
| productivity growth in the past 2 decades, even though the
| broader private sector grew by 50%?
|
| https://www.economist.com/content-
| assets/images/20250712_WBC...
| beeflet wrote:
| Curious then that this safety regulation should apply only to
| browsers on iOS and not every other type of app distributed.
| GGByron wrote:
| > "Are you sure that anyone but the big boys want to make a
| browser in the EU?"
|
| Surely that's the point - a collusive oligopoly making end runs
| around the "free market". Just look at all the other replies,
| rich with apologia.
| hungmung wrote:
| Can somebody tell me if this applies to FOSS browsers?
| paisawalla wrote:
| Someone will need to establish an entity to bring a
| distributable version of that browser to an app store, and in
| doing so, taking on the compliance liability.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Two of the arguments just aren't true.
|
| If you use another browser today even if it does use Apple's
| engine, Apple's not making search revenue from Google.
|
| The second point is that it came out in the Epic trial that 90%
| of App Store revenue comes from games and in app purchasing.
| Those apps are not going to the web.
|
| Third, if the only thing stopping great web apps is Apple, why
| aren't their popular web apps for Android and why do companies
| that produce iOS apps still create Android apps instead of
| telling Android users to just use the web?
| lozenge wrote:
| Yes but there's no reason to use another browser today, because
| the browsers aren't able to add differentiating features.
|
| I don't think you are correct to assume games can't go to the
| web. Any feature they need from native APIs can be added to the
| web. Full screen, gyro, vibration, multi touch, payment APIs,
| notifications, WASM and GPU support are already on the web!
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Then why aren't profitable games based on web technology on
| Android if it is just Apple holding it back?
|
| But it's not about the technology even then. Games make money
| via in app purchases by whales. In app purchasing is easy and
| they are able to tap into kids spending money. Most parents
| aren't going to put their credit cards on kids phones. They
| will let kids do in app purchases with parental controls that
| are available on the App Store.
| quitit wrote:
| Considering Apple isn't even a go-to choice for gamers, the
| idea that iOS's minority market-share is holding back
| Windows, Android (and even macOS), is nothing short of
| farcical b/s-ing.
|
| Heck, most developers don't even produce versions of their
| games for any Apple hardware, even though there are plenty
| of cross-platform development suites.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I think you are misinterpreting what "games" are. Mobile
| gaming and in app purchases of loot boxes and other pay
| to win mechanics are a much bigger market than console or
| PC games.
| robertoandred wrote:
| Web browsers aren't supposed to have differentiating
| features. There's a web standard that everyone's supposed to
| agree on and implement.
| jsnell wrote:
| I think the argument is that as long as 3p browsers are forced
| to be just thin WebKit wrappers, it's harder for them to
| compete against. Why even bother switching from the default
| when it's going to be the same slop with a different brand?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Most people don't care about the web engine. The ones who use
| Chrome now on Android care about bookmarks syncing, Google
| passwords, etc.
| jsnell wrote:
| How about you let the browser makers decide whether they
| need to have their own engine to compete?
|
| The fact is that Apple makes tens of billions in pure
| profit from Safari, and by closing off one of the principal
| ways of browser differentiation have ensured that they
| don't even need to invest in Safari. They can just lean
| back, safe in the knowledge that there is no risk of
| disruption.
|
| (Like, the main selling point of Firefox on Android is
| support for browser extensions, and they're only able to do
| that thanks to having their own browser engine rather than
| using the platform-provided one.)
|
| You never know where exactly the next steps in browser
| innovation are going to come from, but it is virtually
| guaranteed that they won't be just in the UI chrome. If
| you're e.g. going to make the best agentic AI browser in
| the world, it's not going to happen by reskinning Safari,
| and as a corollary Apple doesn't need to worry about
| competing with such a browser.
| JustExAWS wrote:
| Yes because of all the great browser innovation on
| Android there are a plethora of great web apps on Android
| and companies are taking advantage of it so they can make
| one app that serves computer users over the web and
| Android users?
|
| And Safari has had real browser extensions for years on
| iOS.
|
| Where is the browser "innovation" on Android - the
| platform with 70% market share?
|
| Last I checked, Firefox isn't doing to well on Android
| either...
|
| Firefox's market share on mobile is 0.53%.
|
| https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-
| share/mobile/world...
| mtomweb wrote:
| 1. If you use either "Safari" or "Chrome" on iOS, then Apple
| gets paid. That's 97% of the market on iOS.
|
| 2. Many of those games could be rewritten in WebGPU/WebGL2.. if
| it saved them 30% appstore tax, and the install process was
| decent and they had frictionless payments, they'd move.
|
| 3. Because Apple is the primary target market, and if you've
| already built native for iOS, what's the advantage of doing web
| for Android if your not making the cost savings of only having
| to build one app. 70% of Desktop usage is now the web/web
| apps... that tells you what's possible if browsers can compete.
| JustExAWS wrote:
| That's not true. Apple only gets paid for search going
| through Safari to Google.
|
| If the game makers are do interested in saving the 30% tax,
| then why aren't they making the games web based for Android?
| Gabe makers want the easy in app purchases and getting kids
| who while they don't have credit cards on their phones, do
| have access to buy content in apps with parental controls.
|
| How is iOS the primary market when 70% of mobile phones both
| worldwide and in the EU are on Android?
|
| If they already have a web app for PCs, then why do they need
| to make an Android app too if web apps are so great on
| Android?
|
| And if the web makes such a good platform for games, then why
| aren't there more great games on the web that would run on
| PCs and Android unmodified?
| itopaloglu83 wrote:
| > If you use another browser today even if it does use Apple's
| engine, Apple's not making search revenue from Google.
|
| Yes, but this would limit the browser technology to Apple's
| implementation, or lack there of.
|
| > Those apps are not going to the web.
|
| It's likely because the mobile browsers don't support enough
| graphics and lacking robust control features of native
| applications.
|
| > Third, if the only thing stopping great web apps is Apple ...
|
| Having wide browser support across all operating systems would
| definitely increase the adoption speed of new technologies.
| Remember how IE7 kept us back for years?
|
| That being said, a lot of people are bothered by Apple's
| success and would like to access to iOS ecosystem without
| paying anything to them.
| ygritte wrote:
| Apple's malicious compliance all the way down. They need to get
| hit with fines that actually hurt.
| pxeger1 wrote:
| Relatedly, all Google apps (e.g. Maps) on iOS try very hard to
| push Chrome on you (even though iOS Chrome still has to use
| WebKit). When you click an external link, they present you the
| options of Chrome, Google (the search app), or Safari. This
| happens even if you don't have Chrome/Google installed, so they
| take you to the App Store instead of opening the webpage. If you
| choose Safari, it still doesn't open Safari, it opens a web view
| inside Google Maps, from where you have to press yet another
| button to get it to open as a actual Safari tab. The menu has a
| "remember my choice for next time" switch, but it seems to reset
| every few times so it constantly re-nags you.
|
| If the link goes to something that should open in another app
| (e.g. goes to instagram.com when I have the Instagram app
| installed), unless I satisfy its demands to install Chrome, it
| takes like 3 extra clicks to open in that other app.
| davidcbc wrote:
| I have never experienced this on iOS. I just tested it in
| Google maps and despite having Chrome installed it opened in
| Safari (my default) with no prompting or extra steps, it just
| immediately opened Safari
| DanielHB wrote:
| Are you in the EU?
| mahmoudhossam wrote:
| I am in the EU and I still get the nag screen sometimes,
| it's awful.
| davidcbc wrote:
| No
| empath75 wrote:
| This just started with me with youtube links last week. Super
| obnoxious.
| kalleboo wrote:
| I just had this happen to me in Gmail last week. The last
| time it showed the nag screen was probably a year or so ago
| when I turned it off, so it seems they flipped it back on to
| boost some quarterly KPIs.
| layer8 wrote:
| Google Maps on iOS has a toggle "Ask me every time" that you
| can turn off, which maybe you did at some point.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| The most infuriating of those are when you do a web search from
| safari and google give you an overlay on the result asking if
| you want to "continue" and if you do want to "continue" it
| tries to install the google app and breaks any way of getting
| back to your search. Because continue doesn't mean "continue
| what you are doing"
|
| I can't believe that their search deal with apple allows that.
| simondotau wrote:
| I get that all the time. It's such an overtly dark pattern.
| Sad and disgusting.
| giingyui wrote:
| In gmail you can long press a link to get it to open in
| external safari. But, it's undoubtedly painful and annoying.
| technimad wrote:
| As a user I don't get why Apple allows this user hostile
| behavior in an app they distribute in their app store.The
| platform has alternatives. iOS has a sharing sheet. iOS has a
| default browser setting (in EU).
| layer8 wrote:
| Google Chrome and Search offer in-app purchases from which
| Apple receives a share.
| mrkstu wrote:
| You have to download Google Maps in the first place- my
| (older teen and adult) kids don't even have an entry point
| for Google, they just use Apple's built in apps + ChatGPT.
| jmm5 wrote:
| Even Google Search relentlessly nags you to download the
| Google Search app.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| Is it useful anymore? I switched to DDG a few years ago
| and then OpenAI search. Even when I was on DDG
| exclusively I didn't miss Google search at all. And
| occasionally when I use Google search I get terrible
| results filled with garbage ads and the likes.
| SpaceNoodled wrote:
| DDG is just Bing
| SirMaster wrote:
| Hmm, mine doesn't seem to do this.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| Same with Reddit. They have their own share sheet, and then
| 'other' which goes to the iOS built-in one.
|
| I wish Apple was more strict on this. There is no reason for
| them to have their own. Same with the photo viewer.
|
| I love the iOS photo viewer, it allows me to select text
| directly to copy it etc, but Reddit needs to use their own.
|
| On the other hand, it should be possible for me to set up a
| default photo viewer.
| dmonitor wrote:
| My guess is that the custom share sheet lets reddit see
| what services users are sharing to
| 9dev wrote:
| ...which is exactly what Apple should prevent apps from
| seeing. It's none of Reddits business where I share links
| to.
| quintu5 wrote:
| It also gives them a hook apply a watermark to the shared
| image.
| eddythompson80 wrote:
| Yes, Apple should start rejecting apps with bad UX. However
| Apple defines bad is good for me /s
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| Also extremely annoying that they implement their own share
| menu that you have to do an extra tap on to get to the native
| share menu. Amazon does this as well.
|
| I assume it's so they can track what option you choose.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| Reddit does this, too. It is used to measure sharing
| something as some sort of analytic/goal on your account for
| engagement. I tend to just screenshot them now after the
| annoying middle menu started popping up for me.
|
| I really am not a fan of apps wanting me to engage more with
| the app when I'm trying to engage with real-life people.
| caseyohara wrote:
| Reddit also has that annoying pop-up when you screenshot
| something. "Sending this post to someone? It looks better
| when you share it."
|
| Perhaps they mean it looks better for Reddit's smarmy user
| engagement metrics.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| There's an option in settings where you can disable the
| Reddit frame the put around shared images
| syndeo wrote:
| They wanted to hire me at one point for their iOS app. I
| declined; I didn't want any part of that. What a mess.
| aikinai wrote:
| I despise that phantom Share menu!
| kccqzy wrote:
| I don't experience this extra Share menu in Google Maps. The
| share button at a location directly brings up the iOS native
| share sheet.
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| I don't use Google Maps, YouTube is what I was thinking of.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Ah okay. I never watch enough YouTube to download its
| app.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I do not experience this at all. I remember having seen the
| browser choice screen in Google Maps but it consistently
| remembers my setting and does not nag me each time. My default
| browser isn't even Safari (it's Quiche Browser) and Google Maps
| correctly opens Quiche Browser whenever I click on a link.
| troupo wrote:
| All Google apps will forget this setting at one point.
| Usually after an update.
|
| They used to be significantly more aggressive with it, but
| have dialed it back
| SpikedCola wrote:
| In the same way, Apple is equally difficult about forcing the
| use of Apple Maps.
|
| If you receive an address in an iMessage, clicking/long-holding
| will always open in Apple Maps. There is no way to share to
| Google Maps (it doesn't appear in the list), and the default
| setting to use Google Maps doesn't affect iMessage.
|
| You have to copy the address, switch to Google Maps, paste it
| in, and search. I would much prefer clicking the address to
| open in the app of my choice.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Normally, I'd hate Apple for making me use Apple Maps like
| that. But since the alternative is Google, get thee behind me
| Satan.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Yeah. That particular one is definitely a case of "not
| today Satan".
|
| I do wish there was a non-privacy invading maps app outside
| of Apple though.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| Check out _Organic Maps_ - https://organicmaps.app/ - it
| runs on OpenStreetMaps, is privacy focused (no data
| collection, no ads, no tracking), is open source, runs
| offline, is multi-platform and even supports old ios
| versions (which none of the other popular Maps app do).
|
| (Old HN discussion -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37347447 )
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Thanks. Will check it out... as far as I know, no one's
| died being lost in the Australian desert with it, so it's
| got that going for it.
| troupo wrote:
| It's worse than that. Apple will let users set a default
| maps app... only in the EU
| https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/03/14/dma-compliance-default-
| ma...
|
| The pettiness is off the charts
| kevincox wrote:
| It's not pettiness, its just business. They want the lock
| in, they want the ad views they want the user data. Don't
| anthropomorphize your lawnmower.
| lemoncucumber wrote:
| Thus far Apple Maps doesn't have ads. There are rumors
| they may ad them (pun intended), but I don't think their
| motivations for steering people towards Apple Maps are
| primarily monetary.
| kevincox wrote:
| I think they are. Maybe not directly as you point out but
| there are lots of indirect reasons that don't seem that
| far fetched.
|
| 1. Using Apple Maps makes the switching cost to other
| devices (that don't have Apple Maps) higher.
|
| 2. Having more users makes any future monetization more
| valuable. I understand that there doesn't yet appear to
| be any direct monetization but I very much expect to see
| it at some point.
|
| 3. Removing traffic from competitors hurts them making
| their product relatively better the the competitors.
| lemoncucumber wrote:
| Agreed, I guess I should have said it's not _directly_
| about making money from Maps, it 's all indirect business
| reasons.
|
| Same thing with Apple operating iMessage for free without
| ads... they don't care about monetizing iMessage but it's
| also not about altruism.
| freedomben wrote:
| Also having that sweet sweet user data, and
| simultaneously depriving your competitor of it
| dagmx wrote:
| The sharing is because Google doesn't register a share
| provider.
|
| I can share just fine from messages to other apps like Tesla
| or other mapping software like ABRP. I don't see a Google
| Maps share provider anywhere on my device though
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| That's not what I observe, it opens in the "default app" for
| "navigation". I've just tried this on my iPhone, running iOS
| 18.5.
|
| If I click on an address received via iMessage, it will open
| the "default app for navigation". If I long press it, the
| context menu will say "get directions" which opens the
| "default app", open in "google maps" if it's set as the
| default app. There's no option to open it in Apple Maps. If
| the "default app for navigation" is Apple Maps, everything I
| said above changes to Apple Maps.
|
| If I click "share", Google Maps doesn't show up in the list,
| but neither does Apple Maps.
| robocat wrote:
| > default app" for "navigation". > iOS 18.5.
|
| Where is that setting?
|
| Settings | Apps | Default Apps has no option for Navigation
| (iPhone SE 18.5, in New Zealand). Maybe EU thing?
| mattl wrote:
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/121430
|
| * Navigation (in some countries and regions1) -- choose
| another app instead of the Apple Maps app to use when
| opening links for a location
|
| I don't have this option in the US.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Possibly an EU thing then, I'm in France.
|
| However, when I use Google Maps, I do have the behavior
| described elsewhere in this thread: it constantly bugs me
| to open the links in chrome (which I've never had
| installed) even though I always click "use default
| browser". Googling something in safari also regularly
| prompts me to install chrome.
| stahtops wrote:
| I don't want it to open google maps or ask me to open google
| maps. Stop trying to make things worse for everyone.
|
| Google maps and google.com shouldn't prompt either. No
| prompts.
| graealex wrote:
| Look, it's Apple, Google and Microsoft being at their peak of
| customer hostility. Each of them constantly push their own
| browser in their own products.
| teekert wrote:
| If you use DDG browser or FireFox you'll find it dangling even
| below Safari, in a unattractively colored button "default
| browser". A slap in the face of course, why do you think I have
| an alternative default browser?
| te_chris wrote:
| Yeah it's so stupid. I'm this close to ditching them.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I notice something similar in GrapheneOS. I have Play Services
| installed, but have never installed Google Maps.
|
| When I click on a Google Maps link, I get asked by the OS if I
| want to open it using an app from the store (GMaps). I say no,
| go to google.com/maps and then get asked if I want to use the
| app or "Keep using Web". And of course at each stage, it
| _could_ remember my choice, but it does not.
|
| Bing's mobile UI is highly annoying, covering half the map by
| default with "recommendations". I still use it rather than
| Google whenever possible. Though I do use Waze when driving.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _This happens even if you don 't have Chrome/Google
| installed, so they take you to the App Store instead of opening
| the webpage._
|
| Curious which Android flavour this is on. I'm running stock
| Android & I've found:
|
| 1. Chrome app can be set to "Disabled", but cannot be entirely
| uninstalled
|
| 2. When modifying any system settings that involve choosing
| defaults from a list of apps that could include Chrome, Chrome
| still appears (despite being "Disabled") & if chosen for that
| action opens up Chrome surprisingly fast & is magically
| suddenly no longer "Disabled".
|
| On the contrary, I have not had the issue you describe with
| Google apps (I mainly use Gmail & Maps & both always open
| Firefox for me with no reversions). I also have an iPhone (for
| work) & Apple's complete disregard for browser defaults for
| links opened from most apps (including 3rd-party) drives me
| insane. Slack opens in Firefox but most other apps give me a
| popup with only Safari & (ironically) Chrome as options -
| clicking Chrome brings me to the App Store.
| gruez wrote:
| >>Relatedly, all Google apps (e.g. Maps) on _iOS_
|
| >Curious which _Android_ flavour this is on
|
| emphasis mine
| deepsun wrote:
| Well, iOS apps do that all the time from their side, so I don't
| see any problem there. User suffers because of that, yes. On
| Android you set a default browser (like Firefox Mobile) and
| it's used almost always (except some security-sensitive login
| screens to the Google Services I believe).
| bitpush wrote:
| I admire your skill in bringing up, and distracting everyone
| with Google in a post about Apple's shenanigans. No love lost
| for Google, but wasnt expecting to read about Google as a top
| comment on Apple thread.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Especially because the thing he's complaining about doesn't
| happen on Android. Why? Probably because Android supported
| setting a default browser app from the beginning, while iOS
| forced all links to open in Safari by default.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| I'm not sure the default browser setting is nearly as
| relevant here as how Chrome is conveniently the default
| browser on the overwhelming majority of Android devices,
| and it's rare for users to change that.
|
| If Android shipped with Firefox or Vivaldi or something as
| its default browser, I'd bet anything that Google's Android
| apps would do the exact same Chrome-pushing as their iOS
| apps.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Chrome wasn't even available until Android 4.0 (as a
| beta), and it wasn't included by default on most phones
| until later. On most Samsung devices, the default browser
| has been Samsung Internet for years. Starting March 2024,
| there is no default browser in the EEA.
| https://www.android.com/choicescreen/dma/browser/
|
| Despite all of that, there are no such shenanigans on
| Android. The reason is almost certainly that Google had
| to implement such a workaround due to Apple's refusal to
| allow users to set default apps, and that workaround
| stuck.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Even so, Chrome is still by far the dominant browser on
| Android, sitting at about 70%[0] between iOS and Android
| and higher on Android alone. There's little benefit to be
| had from Google harassing Android users about browsers,
| and in fact it could bring users to think worse of
| Android, so they don't.
|
| [0]: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-
| share/mobile/world...
| odyssey7 wrote:
| Gosh, thanks for laying that out more clearly for me. I'll try
| giving Apple Maps another go.
| Yeul wrote:
| Interesting on Android you can easily set default browser and
| never get bothered about it.
| jlokier wrote:
| Several comments point out this doesn't happen on Android.
|
| I'm using Android, with my default browser set to Firefox
| Focus, and I found:
|
| - Every few months, the default browser gets reset to Chrome. I
| don't know this has happened until I realise I'm looking at
| something in Chrome. Then I look at the default browser
| setting, see it changed to Chrome (without my consent, and as
| far as I know, no notification), and I change it back to
| Firefox Focus. This has happened at least twice in the last
| year.
|
| - For a while, when opening things from Google Search it opened
| them in Chrome. However I'm unable to replicate that now.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I would suspect your phone maker or a rogue app is changing
| it on you. That doesn't happen on a Motorola phone with FF.
| artursapek wrote:
| I've always hated the in-app web views on iOS. They fucking
| suck. It's so easy to lose your state accidentally. And it
| confuses me later when I'm trying to find a tab I had open in
| the Safari app, and finally realize it was open in a stupid ass
| web view instead so it's gone.
| notnullorvoid wrote:
| As someone who despises Apple's anti-competitive behavior, I
| would be okay with them removing apps for this kind of abuse.
|
| Setting a default browser means when I open a link it should
| always use that browser without prompting.
|
| Facebook/Messenger are another case of not respecting default
| browser, and always open with their own in-app browser.
| moogly wrote:
| Unrelatedly, I would say.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| I get really annoyed when I open safari type something in the
| top bar to search the google search happens. then google has a
| pop up asking me if i want to be using google search app
| instead. to which the answers are Continue(highlighted in blue)
| or stay on web (almost grayed out). and if you forget and click
| on continue it takes you to the fucking app store. then if i go
| back to the browser and try to go back to the search that it
| definitely did. it takes me to the app store again. if i go
| back twice, i end up where i was before doing the search. fuck
| google and their dark patterns.
| ctippett wrote:
| Oh my god yes, it's absolutely infuriating. I chastise myself
| every time I accidentally click Continue, because it means I
| have to suffer through another Safari- _App Store_ -Safari-
| _App Store_ loop..
| komali2 wrote:
| > Safari is the highest margin product Apple has ever made,
| accounts for 14-16% of Apple's annual operating profit and brings
| in $20 billion per year in search engine revenue from Google. For
| each 1% browser market share that Apple loses for Safari, Apple
| is set to lose $200 million in revenue per year.
|
| Right now in many MRT stations throughout Taipei, there's ads for
| Safari. I don't think I ever in my life have seen an
| advertisement for a web browser until now. I guess now I know
| why.
| ingohelpinger wrote:
| sell your apple stonks
| semiquaver wrote:
| > Safari is the highest margin product Apple has ever made,
| accounts for 14-16% of Apple's annual operating profit
|
| Does anyone know what this means? Safari is built in to the OS,
| how exactly would you measure its margin? Are they just talking
| about the Google search deal?
| nikanj wrote:
| Safari has a minuscule team and brings in the Google money
| swores wrote:
| I think it's a bit misleading to call Safari a "high margin
| product" based on that logic, considering they could have
| made even more profit by not making it at all and just charge
| Google the exact same money to let them ship Chrome as the
| default iOS browser... (I mean an actual Chrome browser, not
| the Chrome skin of a WebKit browser that Google currently has
| to settle for.)
|
| I'm not saying I'd prefer that scenario, just that it would
| have been a feasible choice for Apple and as such their
| Safari costs are actually profit losing not profit generating
| (other than potentially indirectly, if Apple is correct that
| limiting devices to their own browser engine improves the
| product and therefore aids device sales, but I don't think
| anyone would argue that's significant enough to call it their
| biggest profit driver).
| nchmy wrote:
| That scenario seems just completely illegal under the
| regulations that are being discussed
| swores wrote:
| I'm talking about historic choices rather than current
| options - but yes I agree that even if they wanted to,
| they'd face legal trouble if they tried now to replace
| Safari with an exclusive deal for Chrome to be the only
| browser.
| charcircuit wrote:
| If a supermarket has their own store brand products it's
| fair to say that those products have a profit margin, even
| if the store could replace their spot on the shelf with a
| product of someone else.
| swores wrote:
| Sure, but if they get to keep $x per item for both own
| brand and other brand products, but have zero expenses
| for other brand products vs. having to pay to
| create/ship/etc. the own brand versions, you wouldn't
| talk about what great profit margins the own brand
| products have.
|
| Plus, in this store nobody is buying any of the items,
| the only revenue is from the Nestle sign above the door,
| which they'd earn even if they threw all of their own
| brand products into the bin rather than letting customers
| have them. So it's not an exact analogy...
| benoau wrote:
| They're referring to the "Google Search Deal", where Google
| shares 36% of ad revenue with Apple in exchange for being
| default search provider across their devices, an amount
| approximately $20b/year for basically just not changing the
| default. Which was revealed in Google's antitrust trial, where
| the deal has been deemed illegal.
| mort96 wrote:
| Interesting. So it doesn't have anything to do with the
| browser engine ban, since Apple presumably doesn't earn money
| from a Google search from Chrome on iOS regardless of whether
| it's powered by WebKit or Blink.
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| It does have a lot to do with the browser engine ban.
|
| It means that if someone else comes up with a much better
| browser engine than Safari's, iPhone users cannot use it so
| Safari remains competitive even though it may have a
| browser engine that's lacking, since others are forced to
| use Safari's browser engine and not their much better
| engine.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Safari is the default browser and they don't support ad
| blocking very well. It's easily the worst web browsing
| experience of any platform I've used in the last 5 years.
| tensor wrote:
| Safari supports ad blocking just fine. In fact I switched
| from a google pixel to iphone precisely for this feature. On
| the pixel there was no way to have ad blocking in embedded
| browsers, and of course so many apps defaulted to embedded
| browsers for that very reason. On iOS the blocking works
| everywhere.
|
| Safari as a browser is great on iOS. The problem is the
| forced default of google search, and worse, you can't even
| use search engines outside of a very small number of built-
| in. E.g. I can't set the. default to be kagi. This is because
| the money from google is dependant on them sending users to
| the "search" site.
| robertoandred wrote:
| Ad block works fine on Safari.
| openplatypus wrote:
| Can we finally start putting dimwit Apple execs in jail?
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| First of all. We must not agree that all the
| market will be taken by one engine (i.e. Chromium)
|
| Sadly there's no incentive for this, of course we have Firefox
| (still, right?) but it may perish because of underfunding for
| example. We used to have opera, IE, those engines are lost.
|
| So what I think about the EU directive is that it basically
| allows one company (Google) take over the whole market. Because
| what we have to choose between is MS Edge (Chromium), Chrome
| (Chromium), Vivaldi (Chromium) and other Chromium based forks.
| And I forgot about Firefox which is the margin atm.
|
| I didn't want to say that Apple should allow other engines. What
| I wanted to say is that I'm scared that once iOS allows
| installation of chrome, there will become only one engine in the
| world and THIS will be THE MONOPOLY we don't want to have.
| 93po wrote:
| i think it's unlikely firefox would perish. there are endless
| open source forks of major browsers, including FF, and even of
| mozilla themselves fell apart over night, people would continue
| to maintain.
|
| FF's real threat, as open source software, is either:
|
| 1. further capture of mozilla and intentional degradation by
| google to the point of obscurity
|
| 2. organizational implosion followed by google deliberating
| requiring changes to web standards that break firefox in a way
| that open source contributions struggle to keep up with
|
| 3. a paradigm shift in how we use the internet (i.e. people
| transition to interacting with AI 98% of the time)
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| True true true
| amiga386 wrote:
| > Firefox [...] may perish because of underfunding
|
| Hindsight is 20/20, but remember that Google has paid Mozilla
| 3.8 BILLION DOLLARS in the past 10 years alone:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Finances
|
| You could do a lot with 3.8 billion dollars, if you spent it on
| your core mission and not chasing Bay Area trendy shit.
| Mitchell Baker is still there, making phat bank, she's just the
| chair of the Mozilla Foundation instead of being the CEO of
| Mozilla Corporation.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| I'm not getting into details. Open Source is getting quickly
| beyond the "I'll do it in my garage in my free time" phase.
| It has a lot of illnesses (kernel patching acceptance problem
| etc), but if we want to have some neutrality, it should be
| funded. We've seen world with only proprietary software. And
| we don't want to come back there
| troupo wrote:
| > So what I think about the EU directive is that it basically
| allows one company (Google) take over the whole market.
|
| Yup. It's a lose-lose situation
| United857 wrote:
| Edit: they finally did allow JIT for browsers.
|
| The article doesn't mention Apple's persistent refusal of JIT
| support for 3rd party JavaScript engines, which is a main barrier
| to implementing a performant 3rd party browser.
| ec109685 wrote:
| They relaxed that for browser makers:
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/browserenginekit/p...
| alex1138 wrote:
| Why can't the internet just be fun for once
| Spivak wrote:
| Because the web became too "capable." Fun is incompatible with
| a platform made by and for serious businesses looking to make
| money with it. It's why the cozy web is a thing that emerged
| from the corporate theme park that the clear web has become.
| j45 wrote:
| It's too bad Apple still doesn't allow different browser engines.
|
| Perhaps there's some scenario where webkit usage collapses and
| chrome increases here that I'm not seeing, and/or some security
| management issues.
|
| Increasingly I'm looking at remote streaming browsers to get
| what's needed for some use cases.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| This browser engine ban is unique to Apple and no other
| gatekeeper imposes such a restriction.
|
| What other gatekeepers are relevant to the above? Is it just
| Google?
|
| DMA seems to be an EU thing, which I'm guessing makes Asia not
| relevant here.
| samat wrote:
| I've got a flashback from all the 'civil society/advocacy forums'
| I've attended. Big Co. send the representatives whose sole
| purpose is to make it look like they care. They do not.
|
| Only state coercion -- big fat fines (% of the total income) make
| any difference.
|
| I think personal criminal liability would be a nice step to make
| corporations finally respect the law, but that's too much to ask
| from late stage capitalism.
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