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Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December

447 points by mtomweb 1y ago

agust 1y ago
So after the EU and the UK, Japan is now putting an end to Apple's iOS alternative browser engine ban too. Those are 3 large jurisdictions, I wonder if that's now a market big enough for Chrome and Firefox to invest into iOS versions of their browser that use Blink and Gecko under the hood. From what I heard this was one of the main reasons they haven't done it yet.
- charcircuit 1y ago
  I wonder if it would make more sense and be easier for Firefox to switch to Blink, working together with Google making an alternate browser engine for iOS.
  - reorder9695 1y ago
    It'd probably be easier but not good, diversity in engines is good here. We don't want something like the IE monopoly again.
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      The issue that you bringing up was more of an issue of Microsoft thinking they were finished with the web and the lack of automatic updates. It was not due to lack of diversity of engines, but of market share of a single product. This is very different from having the dominant browser engine invested in the success of the web with automatic updates to ensure that the web platform is able to advance and not stagnate.
      - lucasban 1y ago
        As a counterpoint, this does make it so that one group has disproportionate power over what features make it into that engine, or how they are implemented. What if their incentives change over time and are no longer aligned with what we might consider the success of the web?
        charcircuit 1y ago
        Then it can be forked because it's open source.
        cosmic_cheese 1y ago
        The problem with forking Blink/Chromium is that in order to be able to counter Google, the organization maintaining the fork is going to need dev manpower on the order of Google’s to be able to keep up with upstream patches, which is prohibitively expensive for all but a handful of orgs (not to mention, skilled talent capable of working on web engines doesn’t grow on trees). Without that any fork that differs substantially from mainline is eventually doomed as the divergence grows and overwhelms the team.
        charcircuit 1y ago
        It does not take the same order of engineers for only integration. That is false as you can see by the existing integration teams for forks that exist. And I'm sure Mozilla is able to find talent capable of working on web engines.
        cosmic_cheese 1y ago
        There are no Blink forks with appreciably large differences yet, though. In the aftermath of Google turning “evil” and working against the better interests of the web in multiple ways, you’re looking at a fork with divergences as large or larger than those that prompted Google to fork Blink from WebKit, making integration of patches from mainline Blink a full time non-trivial job. Personally I’d rather see Mozilla working on Gecko or maybe consider switching to Servo or something instead.
        charcircuit 1y ago
        The software is very modular. I don't see what could make it so hard to remove "evil" modules.
      - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
        Monopolies are bad regardless. It’s similar to dictators — even if you have a “good” one that works in the interest of the people, that can all come crashing down and turn to despotism in an instant. In the case of the web, it’s also bad for any single company to have as much influence as Google has on web standards development. There’s simply too much conflict of interest at play. As a web engine developer they should have some amount of sway but if any party is to have disproportionate power it’d be better if it were an org like Mozilla that’s more likely to give issues like privacy and potential for abuse greater consideration.
    - Towaway69 1y ago
      Hahaha - as a European there is already a monopoly, a US based monopoly. But that's really due to the compliancy of europeans tech industry.
      - surajrmal 1y ago
        Is it even worth investing in? It would require massive capital spend and the ongoing costs to stay afloat would be similarly high. There is little to no certainty to believe you could acquire users or a revenue model either. None of the chromium derivatives have managed to gain traction other than edge. It seems wiser to invest in the next platform rather than ones with big players already in the space.
        Towaway69 1y ago
        Not really, that boat has sailed. It was just funny reading an American suggesting that a monopoly in the browser space would be bad ;) Also, as a European, I can also say that a monopoly in the social media space would be bad but there is always TikTok or are they French?!? /s
      - immibis 1y ago
        Today I was asked to give permission to transmit my personal data to Google Maps to view my train route. I wondered why they didn't use Open Street Maps. Systems exist, but the people with the money don't care to use them. My new phone is full of many more libre apps than my old phone.
  - troupo 1y ago
    > to switch to Blink, working together with Google making an alternate browser engine for iOS. How is switching to Blink, a Google-controlled engine, supposed to help creating an "alternative engine"?
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      Because Blink is an alternate engine to Webkit.
      - troupo 1y ago
        Fully controlled and developed by Google. So what would Firefox (or anyone) gain by Firefox ditching their engine and helping Google?
        charcircuit 1y ago
        I was suggesting Mozilla could help with the development. Firefox gains an engine that has a lot of other engineering hours being invested into it that can fulfill their needs.
        troupo 1y ago
        Mozilla already has an engine with a lot of engineering hours invested in it and that fulfills their need. How does helping Google maintain their dominance help Mozilla?
        charcircuit 1y ago
        Gecko doesn't support ios, so it wouldn't fulfill their needs here. Since Blink is known for being easier to embed then Gecko I think it would be easier for Firefox to move from Webkit to Blink than to Gecko. Google's dominance is due to Chrome's market share. Using their browser engine doesn't affect their dominance.
        1y ago
- immibis 1y ago
  I thought it was because Apple still put so many roadblocks in the way of browser developers that nobody was able to pass them.
  - agust 1y ago
    Yeah other reasons I've heard of include the obligation to adopt iOS-specific APIs for features like scrolling and text inputs; developing a separate app for these markets and therefore loosing their existing userbase; and signing a pretty crazy contract, among other things. But the bigger the market they can reach, the bigger the reward, and so at some point it may justify investing resources to work around those roadblocks and accept the drawbacks.
    - thewebguyd 1y ago
      > Yeah other reasons I've heard of include the obligation to adopt iOS-specific APIs for features like scrolling and text inputs TBH I'm fine with that. Applications, browsers or not, should use the operating system's components and APIs for things for a unified experience across all apps and interactions. On the desktop side of things, I hate when an application breaks convention for the OS it's deployed on. If I'm using macOS, for example, I want every app on my mac to look and behave like any other, consistent with the rest of the OS.
      - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
        I’d say it’s even more important on mobile than it is on desktop. Third parties re-implementing things like the keyboard and IMEs are unlikely to do those anywhere near as well as the OS does, not to mention how custom implementations would break password manager integration, user-selected third party keyboards, etc.
  - criddell 1y ago
    Don't expect Apple to just open the gates and say anything goes as far as the browser is concerned. Instead, look for an Apple build of Firefox and maybe an Apple build of Chrome that you will be able to install.
- ChocolateGod 1y ago
  I thought in the UK, the government decided to only weakly enforce the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.
  - benoau 1y ago
    Weakly might even be overstating it. Their roadmap has all this ambitious stuff like sideloading and competing app stores and allowing apps to link to their own payments, that they are aiming to have categorized into priority-buckets by the middle of next year. This could take the rest of the decade to actually be implemented on Apple's side.
    - ChocolateGod 1y ago
      The UK is kinda trying to balance both the US and EUs commercial interests when it comes to regulation right now
- Sayrus 1y ago
  From the same website, there are still blocks put in place by Apple to discourage anyone, especially large browsers, from publishing their own engine: https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apples-browser-engine-ban-persists-even-under-the-dma/ https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apples-browser-engine-ban...
  - fsflover 1y ago
    HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44557348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44557348
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  AFAIK the main reason is that only the EU+UK cared about these rules and their market share is too small for companies like Google or Mozilla to invest into. Because of the way the App Store works, browser engines segregated by region need to be two different apps. That means maintaining two source trees (EU+UK+JP vs worldwide) and two releases with two reviews. I expect niche browsers to have a go at porting to iOS at some point (I'd love to see a project like Ladybird be the first non-Safari browser on the app store!) but for the major companies it seems like too much of a hassle at the moment.
  - agust 1y ago
    Yeah that's why the bigger the market they can reach with a version using their own engine, the more likely they are to invest into doing it. Now the question is what's the threshold for this market to be big enough? Maybe Japan's joining in pushes it past that point.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- a_vanderbilt 1y ago
  Culturally, the Japanese aren't likely to care. Take a look at Linux usage in Japan to get what I mean. You will have a small but very dedicated group of users who won't change for anything, and then the masses who just use what is convenient. They don't like tweaking.
  - nemomarx 1y ago
    is Linux usage significant enough in any country to really make judgements about culture from?
  - rs186 1y ago
    Weird argument. Linux mostly operates in a completely different space (enterprise) from where iOS/Chrome (consumer electronics and technology) lives
garyclarke27 1y ago
This is good news, the US should join in aswell in stopping this despicable behaviour by Apple. Apple handicaps browsers because web apps are the only viable alternative to Native Apps which generate huge commission for Apple.
- benoau 1y ago
  It's a factor in the DOJ antitrust case that's going to trial soon - > 43. Developers cannot avoid Apple’s control of app distribution and app creation by making web apps—apps created using standard programming languages for web-based content and available over the internet—as an alternative to native apps. Many iPhone users do not look for or know how to find web apps, causing web apps to constitute only a small fraction of app usage. Apple recognizes that web apps are not a good alternative to native apps for developers. As one Apple executive acknowledged, “[d]evelopers can’t make much money on the web.” Regardless, Apple can still control the functionality of web apps because Apple requires all web browsers on the iPhone to use WebKit, Apple’s browser engine—the key software components that third-party browsers use to display web content. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.njd.544402/gov.uscourts.njd.544402.1.0_3.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.njd.544... (p22)
- edude03 1y ago
  More likely because otherwise companies would have no reason to support Safari, they'd tell everyone to download chrome like they do on desktop - then google would have no incentive to optimize chrome for iOS because what would you use otherwise?
kjfaejgoaeijhei 1y ago
to anyone who believes this is good news: enjoy your chrome monoculture in a few years when apple stops developing safari
- amadeuspagel 1y ago
  If I was worried about a chrome monoculture I would want Safari to face competition. Apple has more then enough resources to invest in it.
  - kjfaejgoaeijhei 1y ago
    if chrome ever ends up with a majority browser share on ios/ipados, apple won't have any way to keep up. at this point, google already almost 100% controls web standards, and they can push new features (no matter how privacy-hostile or overreaching) without even allowing apple the chance to keep up. at that point, the incentives for apple to keep developing safari would slowly dwindle away. (oh, and gecko is a joke, especially on mobile - no need to even bring it up)
    - prmoustache 1y ago
      > (oh, and gecko is a joke, especially on mobile - no need to even bring it up) What is the issue with gecko? I am using it every day on my smartphone.
    - Dah00n 1y ago
      Gecko works just fine.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Apparently the IE lesson was lost on newer generations.
  - 1y ago
ygritte 1y ago
Looks like Japan learned from the malicious compliance shenanigans Apple is pulling with the EU. I hope Apple gets served some substantial fines that really hurt when they try to pull the same shit there. And I say, "when", not "if".
- namibj 1y ago
  Imagine banning sale and import, wonder how long Apple stores have to be closed for Apple to give in....
  - onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
    Wouldn't people in Japan riot because they can't buy iPhones and be part of the tribe? There are few things in life people like more than their iPhones.
    - bad_haircut72 1y ago
      Nobody is gonna riot over an iphone lmao
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      I think you're extrapolating America's materialism to other cultures that don't necessarily care so much. There's not really any feature of the iPhone that can't be replaced by another product. It's only Americans that feel the need to slake brand loyalty with army-of-one boycotts.
      - Alupis 1y ago
        That's totally why 68.75% of Japanese smartphone users own an iPhone[1]... [1] https://magmatranslation.com/stats/en/mobile-usage-trends-in-japan#:~:text=The%20iPhone%20market%20share%20in,portion%20of%20the%20mobile%20market. https://magmatranslation.com/stats/en/mobile-usage-trends-in...
        1y ago
KingOfCoders 1y ago
I found the power of "It can be done" amazing. One country does it, everyone else thinks "It can be done, we don't want to be left behind" after 20 years of this being impossible.
- ACCount36 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - overfeed 1y ago
    Several red-states in the US had already passed similar laws before the UK - see headlines where the pornographers responded by blocking visitors geolocated in those states because they figured there's no sensible way to verify age.
  - sneak 1y ago
    I’d have gone with nationwide 24/7 facial recognition surveillance of all modes of travel and transport, something the UK and China have pioneered, and is now being rolled out as fast as possible across every other superpower, the US at the forefront.
HHad3 1y ago
I would welcome if this global legislative push would end up in a more open app ecosystem for iOS overall. BrowserEngineKit is a thin wrapper over XPC and iOS' extension system. The system would be so much better to develop for if XPC was an open API, and JIT for isolated sub-processes was permitted without Apple's blessing. * Messengers could have separate sub-processes for preprocessing untrusted inputs -- iMessage already does this, third-party messengers are single-process and cannot. * Applications could isolate unstable components for better user experience and crash recovery. * Emulators, e.g. for retro systems, would benefit from speedy emulation. * WASM would become useful in iOS. * Browser could use XPC without special-purpose API wrappers such as BrowserEngineKit. But alas, all of this would make it easier to load code that runs at native speed into an iOS app after a store review happened, and as we all know that'll be the end of the world.
- yupyupyups 1y ago
  >and as we all know that'll be the end of the world. I'll enjoy seeing all the accounts on MacRumors clawing their eyes out when that happens. It would be naive to think that Apple isn't funding sites and narratives on the internet to serve their economic interests. One of the most outlandish one being that freedom to use your phone however you want would necessarily compromise security and privacy for everyone. It's such a bizarre and indefencible take, and yet it's repeated over and over again on those Apple-worship platforms.
  - loa_in_ 1y ago
    Freedom to use your phone however you like would make bug tracking on Apple's side more complicated and therefore more expensive and therefore it damages their profit bottom line. They would happily freeze development altogether if it was a feasible option.
  - nuker 1y ago
    > ... freedom to use your phone however you want I want to use my phone locked down hard and apps reviewed by Apple. I sleep better with things as they are. I suspect 99% of normal users are in the same boat.
khana 1y ago
good. DISMANTLE APPLE
LadyCailin 1y ago
* in Japan. Apple has made it clear that they are willing and able to only allow consumer choice if they are in the jurisdiction where they are required to. I live in Norway, so I’m not able to sideload apps, because Norway, despite usually being lumped in with “the EU” is not actually part of the EU, and thus not covered by the EU ruling.
dzhiurgis 1y ago
Of all the things that iOS could do, why browser engine is so important? Is there anything to them other than UI nowadays, especially on small form factor?
TheDong 1y ago
> the determination is made based on the degree of likelihood that [it will prevent alternative browser engines] If you interpret that very liberally, doing a region-locked "you can release alternate browser engines but only regionlocked to japanese apple accounts" could be seen as intentionally preventing alternative browsers from existing. Why would mozilla port firefox when it can only target a tiny fraction of its users? I know it's not super realistic, but maybe there's a path to global browser choice in there.
- fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
  To increase their already tiny fraction of marketshare by another tiny fraction?
  - the_sleaze_ 1y ago
    To be fair a tiny fraction of marketshare can represent a very attractive level of revenue depending on the market
    - trinix912 1y ago
      We thought the same when the Slovenian government passed a law requiring Apple (among others) to translate their operating systems to Slovene. Apple was the outlier here, as Android, Windows, even various Linux distros had all been translated years ago. To the surprise of many, they complied, releasing a full translation of decent quality in a stunningly short time. The market they'd otherwise lose access to would be roughly 2 million people. The Japanese population is over 60 times that. I don't think they want to risk losing that.
      - jmb99 1y ago
        > I don't think they want to risk losing that. It depends on the cost. Translating the OS to Slovene really just costs whatever a translation service costs, plus review & a bit of ongoing maintenance. Even on the high end, I doubt it would push 8 figures up front, and probably 6 in yearly maintenance. If compliance with the Japanese law means every iOS build in every region must support alternate browser engines, what's the cost to Apple? They clearly must believe it's high (otherwise they would have done so already). Brand risk? Maybe, and hard to price that, but at Apple's valuations and revenues that could be 9+ figures depending on severity. Loss of revenue from Google (if they still pay to be the default search engine in Safari)? That could be a large number too. It all comes down to the numbers. How much will Apple lose by pulling out of Japan (possibly betting on such a move being temporary, hoping Japan changes their mind, and also hoping that their reputation worldwide doesn't suffer) vs allowing alternate browser engines worldwide?
fidotron 1y ago
Japan has a funny relationship with Apple. For example, the Felica ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa ) based ticket system is built into every iPhone globally, making life in Japan significantly easier for foreign iOS users. More surprisingly actually using the tickets does not require any app at all - you just use Apple Pay. This is all narrowing the scope of what advantages native apps have (they do still have advantages), but it's hard to argue they simply aren't moving gatekeeping to other areas.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- delfinom 1y ago
  FeliCa is simply a patent issue. Apple got some sort of sweetheart deal somewhere. Every Google Pixel has FeliCa its just turned off on non-Japan phones due to said licensing, though people have rooted the phone to turn it on.
  - kikkia 1y ago
    Apple having such a dominant hold of market share in the smartphone space gave a lot of leverage when negotiating royalties with Sony who makes the felica stuff. From what I heard it was basically just gifted to them, because if Apple says no we wont support it, then you lose a huge amount of users. Whereas with other manufacturers they pay on a per device basis tracked by the underlying osaifu-keitai stuff. If you are rooted though it is usually just 1 flag or something you need to change. Been using my US Pixel 6 for years daily on my commutes. https://github.com/jjyao88/unlock-felica-pixel https://github.com/jjyao88/unlock-felica-pixel
- Shank 1y ago
  FeliCa Networks support is the direct result of the fact that mobile transit and mobile payments use in Japan predates the iPhone. Mobile Suica and Osaifu-Keitai already existed, and Apple needed to compete. It started with Japanese SKU iPhones but expanded globally. Even now in Japan, mobile payments are anything but a monopoly. When Apple is forced to compete, they do things like add Suica with Express Transit. PayPay, a made-in-Japan QR code payments app is more prevalent than credit card payments here.
BaardFigur 1y ago
Hopefully EU can make the same requirements, and hopefully Firefox can port its engine to iOS
- immibis 1y ago
  The EU did make these requirements, Apple ignored them, the EU made Apple pay a big fine, and Apple put out some token process for browser engine approval that's not actually possible to pass but looks to bureaucrats like it meets the requirements.
frou_dh 1y ago
We've got to assume that Google have internally been developing "real" Chrome for iOS for a long time, so that it'll be ready to go immediately, right?
- fragmede 1y ago
  (Blink is the Chrome web rendering engine) > Checking out and building Chromium for iOS > Building Blink for iOS > The iOS build supports compiling the blink web platform. To compile blink set a gn arg in your .setup-gn file. Note the blink web platform is experimental code and should only be used for analysis. > [gn_args] > use_blink = true > ios_content_shell_bundle_identifier="REPLACE_YOUR_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER_HERE" > ios_chromium_bundle_id="REPLACE_YOUR_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER_HERE" > Note that only certain targets support blink. content_shell and chrome being the most useful. https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/ios/build_instructions.md#Building-Blink-for-iOS https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/i...
- xnx 1y ago
  February 2023: "Google begins effort to run Chrome’s Blink engine on iOS in place of Apple’s WebKit" https://9to5google.com/2023/02/06/google-chrome-blink-ios-webkit/ https://9to5google.com/2023/02/06/google-chrome-blink-ios-we...
- concinds 1y ago
  Google has been porting Blink to iOS and making steady progress. Here's the tracking bug on Chromium's bugtracker: https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40254930 https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40254930 Presumably they would have invested more resources into it and been done by now, if there was a viable path to release, which there isn't yet due to Apple's EU geofencing, and because there were a number of bugs and limitations in Apple's BrowserEngineKit which browsers are forced to use.
ajaimk 1y ago
Is this a good thing? Doesn't this just expand the marketshare of Chromium?
- cguess 1y ago
  It does indeed. Safari on iOS is the one thing keeping the web from just being "All Chrome Everywhere".
  - simondotau 1y ago
    Haven’t you heard? The web is dead. It’s now called the Chrome Platform. The standard is defined as whatever Google implements.
    - betaby 1y ago
      > Chrome Platform. The West's Internet is just Cloudflare's proxy.
- sunaookami 1y ago
  If Safari can only survive because Apple has a monopoly on browsers on iOS then it's a shit browser.
  - ezfe 1y ago
    Even if Safari was perfect, people would still switch to Chrome because that's what they think they need.
  - fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
    Firefox is overall a fine browser. Still has 2% marketshare. There's also the fact that websites themselves need to be mindful of multiple browser engines existing because of Safari. Once users are able to install Chrome on iPhones, developers will just abandon every other engine wholesale.
    - 1y ago
shmerl 1y ago
Oh, finally someone treats this issue right.
Shank 1y ago
I think this is a net good in the long term. Even if you completely exclude obvious benefits, like being able to support more APIs than Safari, it forces Apple to actually compete with other browsers and implement things if they start getting real market share. Not that you really should, but Safari has a limit of 500 tabs. Why? It's arbitrary. Safari doesn't support WebRequest in blocking mode, so you can't have real adblockers (just MV3 style content blockers, like uBOL). There are all sorts of edge cases too, like if you want cross-browser sync and extensions. Sure, you can totally run Safari with extension support, but extensions in e.g., Orion are shaky at best. The biggest claim that Apple made about this whole thing was that web browsers offered an attack surface increase as a result of giving JIT to other browsers, and they could be owned. Frankly, though, I would take a browser without JIT if I had a real adblocker.
- natch 1y ago
  Yes it's arbitrary. But it's not a limit of 500 tabs, it's 500 per tab group.
daedrdev 1y ago
Im not sure the Japanese government will survive to December so this could change
zerr 1y ago
How about smart TVs?
hbn 1y ago
Big victory for poor little Google with its 70% browser marketshare. Hope you guys like Chromium!
nuker 1y ago
(Narrator) In one year Chrome market share hit 100% in Japan, and became the only browser websites are designed for.
- tristan957 1y ago
  You're completely ignoring the staying power of defaults. Most users do not change anything about their system defaults.
  - nuker 1y ago
    Small percent of sites will start breaking down in Safari, making small percent of users switch to Chrome. Process will start slow but will only go in one direction, and accelerate.
  - jlund-molfese 1y ago
    Apart from ChromeOS, most desktop operating systems default to other browsers. Yet Chrome is estimated to have ~70% of desktop browser market share. So defaults can't be much of a defense against browser advertising, especially on Google-owned properties.
coupdejarnac 1y ago
Sweet, WebBLE and WebUSB on iOS let's go.
notanastronaut 1y ago
You clearly do not understand the product if you buy an iPhone and then complain about its walled garden.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
skeezyboy 1y ago
[flagged]
duffyjp 1y ago
Everybody is talking about Chrome, but I tell ya what I have that disabled on my Android in favor of Firefox. Firefox on mobile with full-fat uBlock Origin is the closest thing to parity with desktop web access you can get. I don't just block ads, I block elements on sites I don't care about with :has-text RegEx rules. You can't do that on Chrome even on desktop anymore. I'm this close to swapping to the Android as my primary device-- it's iMessage that has me chained. It's just too dang nice to respond to chats from my Mac during work so I don't need to pick up my phone. Everything else is better on the Android. Don't get me started about the iOS keyboard or Siri.
- two-sandwich 1y ago
  FF with uBO was the killer app that kept me on android. If Apple let me run that, I'd have bought into it years ago. Have you considered messages.google.com? I think you need to use Google's messages app (not the Samsung messager or equivalent) but it does as you describe and supports RCS.
  - bkmq 1y ago
    Kagi made a safari based w är my browser that can use both FF and chrome addons on iOS. I use full uBO and I still don’t care about cookies.
    - TheDong 1y ago
      Can i share my history and bonus with my desktop, ie linux? Oh, it's closed source ios/macos only? Yeah, no thanks. I also kinda doubt it's compatible with most firefox addons, addons can and do rely on details of firefox that ios does not provide the ability to emulate.
  - frevib 1y ago
    uBlock Origin for iOS was released yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44795825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44795825 If you are on another locale, search “ublock origin lite” with double quotes.
viktorcode 1y ago
For reference, here's Apple's requirements for browser engines in EU: https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engines/ https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi...
t1234s 1y ago
Not being able to run firefox is the only reason I don't use an iPhone.
- natch 1y ago
  What does Firefox give you, I mean what are the benefits? Some extensions that only work in Firefox, I guess? This is the only annoyance I'm aware of but it's real.
  - crapple8430 1y ago
    ublock origin is a necessity for browsing the web. Not having it is more than an annoyance for me.
jgalt212 1y ago
> This results in no effective browser competition on iOS, and web apps being deprived of the APIs and performance they need to compete with native apps. To my eyes, the regulators hit the nail on the head here. It's not about other browsers, it's about keeping the iPhone browser crummy so the app store and the 30% Apple Tax stays humming along.
m463 1y ago
There's a lot of nonsense buried in safari and webkit. For example, loading certain URLs will deep link to on-device apps. If you surf to amazon urls in the browser, the amazon app will be notified. I'm pretty sure this is unblockable snooping people don't realize is going on. So I think this is great news, maybe we get rid of nonsense like that. However, I'll bet apple will make this japan specific just like eu laws don't affect their behavior in the US. For example, a japanese iphone will always make a sound when you take a picture. If you leave the country, that will go away, unless you're in airplane mode and then it will start making sounds for every picture again. country-specific behavior. I don't see why apple wouldn't do the same thing -- firefox works in japan, but not outside japan.
Aleklart 1y ago
Finally, Japanese will experience popups, location requests, notifications and constant tracking along with battery drain and zero days as glorious first party android users. IOS don’t need more spyware in form of chrome or firefox. If you need it, get spydroid with ios theme.

447 points by mtomweb 1y ago

So after the EU and the UK, Japan is now putting an end to Apple's iOS alternative browser engine ban too. Those are 3 large jurisdictions, I wonder if that's now a market big enough for Chrome and Firefox to invest into iOS versions of their browser that use Blink and Gecko under the hood. From what I heard this was one of the main reasons they haven't done it yet.

charcircuit 1y ago
I wonder if it would make more sense and be easier for Firefox to switch to Blink, working together with Google making an alternate browser engine for iOS.
- reorder9695 1y ago
  It'd probably be easier but not good, diversity in engines is good here. We don't want something like the IE monopoly again.
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    The issue that you bringing up was more of an issue of Microsoft thinking they were finished with the web and the lack of automatic updates. It was not due to lack of diversity of engines, but of market share of a single product. This is very different from having the dominant browser engine invested in the success of the web with automatic updates to ensure that the web platform is able to advance and not stagnate.
    - lucasban 1y ago
      As a counterpoint, this does make it so that one group has disproportionate power over what features make it into that engine, or how they are implemented. What if their incentives change over time and are no longer aligned with what we might consider the success of the web?
      - charcircuit 1y ago
        Then it can be forked because it's open source.
        cosmic_cheese 1y ago
        The problem with forking Blink/Chromium is that in order to be able to counter Google, the organization maintaining the fork is going to need dev manpower on the order of Google’s to be able to keep up with upstream patches, which is prohibitively expensive for all but a handful of orgs (not to mention, skilled talent capable of working on web engines doesn’t grow on trees). Without that any fork that differs substantially from mainline is eventually doomed as the divergence grows and overwhelms the team.
        charcircuit 1y ago
        It does not take the same order of engineers for only integration. That is false as you can see by the existing integration teams for forks that exist. And I'm sure Mozilla is able to find talent capable of working on web engines.
        cosmic_cheese 1y ago
        There are no Blink forks with appreciably large differences yet, though. In the aftermath of Google turning “evil” and working against the better interests of the web in multiple ways, you’re looking at a fork with divergences as large or larger than those that prompted Google to fork Blink from WebKit, making integration of patches from mainline Blink a full time non-trivial job. Personally I’d rather see Mozilla working on Gecko or maybe consider switching to Servo or something instead.
        charcircuit 1y ago
        The software is very modular. I don't see what could make it so hard to remove "evil" modules.
    - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
      Monopolies are bad regardless. It’s similar to dictators — even if you have a “good” one that works in the interest of the people, that can all come crashing down and turn to despotism in an instant. In the case of the web, it’s also bad for any single company to have as much influence as Google has on web standards development. There’s simply too much conflict of interest at play. As a web engine developer they should have some amount of sway but if any party is to have disproportionate power it’d be better if it were an org like Mozilla that’s more likely to give issues like privacy and potential for abuse greater consideration.
  - Towaway69 1y ago
    Hahaha - as a European there is already a monopoly, a US based monopoly. But that's really due to the compliancy of europeans tech industry.
    - surajrmal 1y ago
      Is it even worth investing in? It would require massive capital spend and the ongoing costs to stay afloat would be similarly high. There is little to no certainty to believe you could acquire users or a revenue model either. None of the chromium derivatives have managed to gain traction other than edge. It seems wiser to invest in the next platform rather than ones with big players already in the space.
      - Towaway69 1y ago
        Not really, that boat has sailed. It was just funny reading an American suggesting that a monopoly in the browser space would be bad ;) Also, as a European, I can also say that a monopoly in the social media space would be bad but there is always TikTok or are they French?!? /s
    - immibis 1y ago
      Today I was asked to give permission to transmit my personal data to Google Maps to view my train route. I wondered why they didn't use Open Street Maps. Systems exist, but the people with the money don't care to use them. My new phone is full of many more libre apps than my old phone.
- troupo 1y ago
  > to switch to Blink, working together with Google making an alternate browser engine for iOS. How is switching to Blink, a Google-controlled engine, supposed to help creating an "alternative engine"?
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    Because Blink is an alternate engine to Webkit.
    - troupo 1y ago
      Fully controlled and developed by Google. So what would Firefox (or anyone) gain by Firefox ditching their engine and helping Google?
      - charcircuit 1y ago
        I was suggesting Mozilla could help with the development. Firefox gains an engine that has a lot of other engineering hours being invested into it that can fulfill their needs.
        troupo 1y ago
        Mozilla already has an engine with a lot of engineering hours invested in it and that fulfills their need. How does helping Google maintain their dominance help Mozilla?
        charcircuit 1y ago
        Gecko doesn't support ios, so it wouldn't fulfill their needs here. Since Blink is known for being easier to embed then Gecko I think it would be easier for Firefox to move from Webkit to Blink than to Gecko. Google's dominance is due to Chrome's market share. Using their browser engine doesn't affect their dominance.
        1y ago
immibis 1y ago
I thought it was because Apple still put so many roadblocks in the way of browser developers that nobody was able to pass them.
- agust 1y ago
  Yeah other reasons I've heard of include the obligation to adopt iOS-specific APIs for features like scrolling and text inputs; developing a separate app for these markets and therefore loosing their existing userbase; and signing a pretty crazy contract, among other things. But the bigger the market they can reach, the bigger the reward, and so at some point it may justify investing resources to work around those roadblocks and accept the drawbacks.
  - thewebguyd 1y ago
    > Yeah other reasons I've heard of include the obligation to adopt iOS-specific APIs for features like scrolling and text inputs TBH I'm fine with that. Applications, browsers or not, should use the operating system's components and APIs for things for a unified experience across all apps and interactions. On the desktop side of things, I hate when an application breaks convention for the OS it's deployed on. If I'm using macOS, for example, I want every app on my mac to look and behave like any other, consistent with the rest of the OS.
    - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
      I’d say it’s even more important on mobile than it is on desktop. Third parties re-implementing things like the keyboard and IMEs are unlikely to do those anywhere near as well as the OS does, not to mention how custom implementations would break password manager integration, user-selected third party keyboards, etc.
- criddell 1y ago
  Don't expect Apple to just open the gates and say anything goes as far as the browser is concerned. Instead, look for an Apple build of Firefox and maybe an Apple build of Chrome that you will be able to install.
ChocolateGod 1y ago
I thought in the UK, the government decided to only weakly enforce the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.
- benoau 1y ago
  Weakly might even be overstating it. Their roadmap has all this ambitious stuff like sideloading and competing app stores and allowing apps to link to their own payments, that they are aiming to have categorized into priority-buckets by the middle of next year. This could take the rest of the decade to actually be implemented on Apple's side.
  - ChocolateGod 1y ago
    The UK is kinda trying to balance both the US and EUs commercial interests when it comes to regulation right now
Sayrus 1y ago
From the same website, there are still blocks put in place by Apple to discourage anyone, especially large browsers, from publishing their own engine: https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apples-browser-engine-ban-persists-even-under-the-dma/ https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apples-browser-engine-ban...
- fsflover 1y ago
  HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44557348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44557348
jeroenhd 1y ago
AFAIK the main reason is that only the EU+UK cared about these rules and their market share is too small for companies like Google or Mozilla to invest into. Because of the way the App Store works, browser engines segregated by region need to be two different apps. That means maintaining two source trees (EU+UK+JP vs worldwide) and two releases with two reviews. I expect niche browsers to have a go at porting to iOS at some point (I'd love to see a project like Ladybird be the first non-Safari browser on the app store!) but for the major companies it seems like too much of a hassle at the moment.
- agust 1y ago
  Yeah that's why the bigger the market they can reach with a version using their own engine, the more likely they are to invest into doing it. Now the question is what's the threshold for this market to be big enough? Maybe Japan's joining in pushes it past that point.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
a_vanderbilt 1y ago
Culturally, the Japanese aren't likely to care. Take a look at Linux usage in Japan to get what I mean. You will have a small but very dedicated group of users who won't change for anything, and then the masses who just use what is convenient. They don't like tweaking.
- nemomarx 1y ago
  is Linux usage significant enough in any country to really make judgements about culture from?
- rs186 1y ago
  Weird argument. Linux mostly operates in a completely different space (enterprise) from where iOS/Chrome (consumer electronics and technology) lives

garyclarke27 1y ago

This is good news, the US should join in aswell in stopping this despicable behaviour by Apple. Apple handicaps browsers because web apps are the only viable alternative to Native Apps which generate huge commission for Apple.

benoau 1y ago
It's a factor in the DOJ antitrust case that's going to trial soon - > 43. Developers cannot avoid Apple’s control of app distribution and app creation by making web apps—apps created using standard programming languages for web-based content and available over the internet—as an alternative to native apps. Many iPhone users do not look for or know how to find web apps, causing web apps to constitute only a small fraction of app usage. Apple recognizes that web apps are not a good alternative to native apps for developers. As one Apple executive acknowledged, “[d]evelopers can’t make much money on the web.” Regardless, Apple can still control the functionality of web apps because Apple requires all web browsers on the iPhone to use WebKit, Apple’s browser engine—the key software components that third-party browsers use to display web content. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.njd.544402/gov.uscourts.njd.544402.1.0_3.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.njd.544... (p22)
edude03 1y ago
More likely because otherwise companies would have no reason to support Safari, they'd tell everyone to download chrome like they do on desktop - then google would have no incentive to optimize chrome for iOS because what would you use otherwise?

kjfaejgoaeijhei 1y ago

to anyone who believes this is good news: enjoy your chrome monoculture in a few years when apple stops developing safari

amadeuspagel 1y ago
If I was worried about a chrome monoculture I would want Safari to face competition. Apple has more then enough resources to invest in it.
- kjfaejgoaeijhei 1y ago
  if chrome ever ends up with a majority browser share on ios/ipados, apple won't have any way to keep up. at this point, google already almost 100% controls web standards, and they can push new features (no matter how privacy-hostile or overreaching) without even allowing apple the chance to keep up. at that point, the incentives for apple to keep developing safari would slowly dwindle away. (oh, and gecko is a joke, especially on mobile - no need to even bring it up)
  - prmoustache 1y ago
    > (oh, and gecko is a joke, especially on mobile - no need to even bring it up) What is the issue with gecko? I am using it every day on my smartphone.
  - Dah00n 1y ago
    Gecko works just fine.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
pjmlp 1y ago
Apparently the IE lesson was lost on newer generations.
- 1y ago

ygritte 1y ago

Looks like Japan learned from the malicious compliance shenanigans Apple is pulling with the EU. I hope Apple gets served some substantial fines that really hurt when they try to pull the same shit there. And I say, "when", not "if".

namibj 1y ago
Imagine banning sale and import, wonder how long Apple stores have to be closed for Apple to give in....
- onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
  Wouldn't people in Japan riot because they can't buy iPhones and be part of the tribe? There are few things in life people like more than their iPhones.
  - bad_haircut72 1y ago
    Nobody is gonna riot over an iphone lmao
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    I think you're extrapolating America's materialism to other cultures that don't necessarily care so much. There's not really any feature of the iPhone that can't be replaced by another product. It's only Americans that feel the need to slake brand loyalty with army-of-one boycotts.
    - Alupis 1y ago
      That's totally why 68.75% of Japanese smartphone users own an iPhone[1]... [1] https://magmatranslation.com/stats/en/mobile-usage-trends-in-japan#:~:text=The%20iPhone%20market%20share%20in,portion%20of%20the%20mobile%20market. https://magmatranslation.com/stats/en/mobile-usage-trends-in...
      - 1y ago

KingOfCoders 1y ago

I found the power of "It can be done" amazing. One country does it, everyone else thinks "It can be done, we don't want to be left behind" after 20 years of this being impossible.

ACCount36 1y ago
[flagged]
- overfeed 1y ago
  Several red-states in the US had already passed similar laws before the UK - see headlines where the pornographers responded by blocking visitors geolocated in those states because they figured there's no sensible way to verify age.
- sneak 1y ago
  I’d have gone with nationwide 24/7 facial recognition surveillance of all modes of travel and transport, something the UK and China have pioneered, and is now being rolled out as fast as possible across every other superpower, the US at the forefront.

HHad3 1y ago

I would welcome if this global legislative push would end up in a more open app ecosystem for iOS overall. BrowserEngineKit is a thin wrapper over XPC and iOS' extension system. The system would be so much better to develop for if XPC was an open API, and JIT for isolated sub-processes was permitted without Apple's blessing. * Messengers could have separate sub-processes for preprocessing untrusted inputs -- iMessage already does this, third-party messengers are single-process and cannot. * Applications could isolate unstable components for better user experience and crash recovery. * Emulators, e.g. for retro systems, would benefit from speedy emulation. * WASM would become useful in iOS. * Browser could use XPC without special-purpose API wrappers such as BrowserEngineKit. But alas, all of this would make it easier to load code that runs at native speed into an iOS app after a store review happened, and as we all know that'll be the end of the world.

yupyupyups 1y ago
>and as we all know that'll be the end of the world. I'll enjoy seeing all the accounts on MacRumors clawing their eyes out when that happens. It would be naive to think that Apple isn't funding sites and narratives on the internet to serve their economic interests. One of the most outlandish one being that freedom to use your phone however you want would necessarily compromise security and privacy for everyone. It's such a bizarre and indefencible take, and yet it's repeated over and over again on those Apple-worship platforms.
- loa_in_ 1y ago
  Freedom to use your phone however you like would make bug tracking on Apple's side more complicated and therefore more expensive and therefore it damages their profit bottom line. They would happily freeze development altogether if it was a feasible option.
- nuker 1y ago
  > ... freedom to use your phone however you want I want to use my phone locked down hard and apps reviewed by Apple. I sleep better with things as they are. I suspect 99% of normal users are in the same boat.

khana 1y ago

good. DISMANTLE APPLE

LadyCailin 1y ago

* in Japan. Apple has made it clear that they are willing and able to only allow consumer choice if they are in the jurisdiction where they are required to. I live in Norway, so I’m not able to sideload apps, because Norway, despite usually being lumped in with “the EU” is not actually part of the EU, and thus not covered by the EU ruling.

dzhiurgis 1y ago

Of all the things that iOS could do, why browser engine is so important? Is there anything to them other than UI nowadays, especially on small form factor?

TheDong 1y ago

> the determination is made based on the degree of likelihood that [it will prevent alternative browser engines] If you interpret that very liberally, doing a region-locked "you can release alternate browser engines but only regionlocked to japanese apple accounts" could be seen as intentionally preventing alternative browsers from existing. Why would mozilla port firefox when it can only target a tiny fraction of its users? I know it's not super realistic, but maybe there's a path to global browser choice in there.

fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
To increase their already tiny fraction of marketshare by another tiny fraction?
- the_sleaze_ 1y ago
  To be fair a tiny fraction of marketshare can represent a very attractive level of revenue depending on the market
  - trinix912 1y ago
    We thought the same when the Slovenian government passed a law requiring Apple (among others) to translate their operating systems to Slovene. Apple was the outlier here, as Android, Windows, even various Linux distros had all been translated years ago. To the surprise of many, they complied, releasing a full translation of decent quality in a stunningly short time. The market they'd otherwise lose access to would be roughly 2 million people. The Japanese population is over 60 times that. I don't think they want to risk losing that.
    - jmb99 1y ago
      > I don't think they want to risk losing that. It depends on the cost. Translating the OS to Slovene really just costs whatever a translation service costs, plus review & a bit of ongoing maintenance. Even on the high end, I doubt it would push 8 figures up front, and probably 6 in yearly maintenance. If compliance with the Japanese law means every iOS build in every region must support alternate browser engines, what's the cost to Apple? They clearly must believe it's high (otherwise they would have done so already). Brand risk? Maybe, and hard to price that, but at Apple's valuations and revenues that could be 9+ figures depending on severity. Loss of revenue from Google (if they still pay to be the default search engine in Safari)? That could be a large number too. It all comes down to the numbers. How much will Apple lose by pulling out of Japan (possibly betting on such a move being temporary, hoping Japan changes their mind, and also hoping that their reputation worldwide doesn't suffer) vs allowing alternate browser engines worldwide?

fidotron 1y ago

Japan has a funny relationship with Apple. For example, the Felica ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa ) based ticket system is built into every iPhone globally, making life in Japan significantly easier for foreign iOS users. More surprisingly actually using the tickets does not require any app at all - you just use Apple Pay. This is all narrowing the scope of what advantages native apps have (they do still have advantages), but it's hard to argue they simply aren't moving gatekeeping to other areas.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
delfinom 1y ago
FeliCa is simply a patent issue. Apple got some sort of sweetheart deal somewhere. Every Google Pixel has FeliCa its just turned off on non-Japan phones due to said licensing, though people have rooted the phone to turn it on.
- kikkia 1y ago
  Apple having such a dominant hold of market share in the smartphone space gave a lot of leverage when negotiating royalties with Sony who makes the felica stuff. From what I heard it was basically just gifted to them, because if Apple says no we wont support it, then you lose a huge amount of users. Whereas with other manufacturers they pay on a per device basis tracked by the underlying osaifu-keitai stuff. If you are rooted though it is usually just 1 flag or something you need to change. Been using my US Pixel 6 for years daily on my commutes. https://github.com/jjyao88/unlock-felica-pixel https://github.com/jjyao88/unlock-felica-pixel
Shank 1y ago
FeliCa Networks support is the direct result of the fact that mobile transit and mobile payments use in Japan predates the iPhone. Mobile Suica and Osaifu-Keitai already existed, and Apple needed to compete. It started with Japanese SKU iPhones but expanded globally. Even now in Japan, mobile payments are anything but a monopoly. When Apple is forced to compete, they do things like add Suica with Express Transit. PayPay, a made-in-Japan QR code payments app is more prevalent than credit card payments here.

BaardFigur 1y ago

Hopefully EU can make the same requirements, and hopefully Firefox can port its engine to iOS

immibis 1y ago
The EU did make these requirements, Apple ignored them, the EU made Apple pay a big fine, and Apple put out some token process for browser engine approval that's not actually possible to pass but looks to bureaucrats like it meets the requirements.

frou_dh 1y ago

We've got to assume that Google have internally been developing "real" Chrome for iOS for a long time, so that it'll be ready to go immediately, right?

fragmede 1y ago
(Blink is the Chrome web rendering engine) > Checking out and building Chromium for iOS > Building Blink for iOS > The iOS build supports compiling the blink web platform. To compile blink set a gn arg in your .setup-gn file. Note the blink web platform is experimental code and should only be used for analysis. > [gn_args] > use_blink = true > ios_content_shell_bundle_identifier="REPLACE_YOUR_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER_HERE" > ios_chromium_bundle_id="REPLACE_YOUR_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER_HERE" > Note that only certain targets support blink. content_shell and chrome being the most useful. https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/ios/build_instructions.md#Building-Blink-for-iOS https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/i...
xnx 1y ago
February 2023: "Google begins effort to run Chrome’s Blink engine on iOS in place of Apple’s WebKit" https://9to5google.com/2023/02/06/google-chrome-blink-ios-webkit/ https://9to5google.com/2023/02/06/google-chrome-blink-ios-we...
concinds 1y ago
Google has been porting Blink to iOS and making steady progress. Here's the tracking bug on Chromium's bugtracker: https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40254930 https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40254930 Presumably they would have invested more resources into it and been done by now, if there was a viable path to release, which there isn't yet due to Apple's EU geofencing, and because there were a number of bugs and limitations in Apple's BrowserEngineKit which browsers are forced to use.

ajaimk 1y ago

Is this a good thing? Doesn't this just expand the marketshare of Chromium?

cguess 1y ago
It does indeed. Safari on iOS is the one thing keeping the web from just being "All Chrome Everywhere".
- simondotau 1y ago
  Haven’t you heard? The web is dead. It’s now called the Chrome Platform. The standard is defined as whatever Google implements.
  - betaby 1y ago
    > Chrome Platform. The West's Internet is just Cloudflare's proxy.
sunaookami 1y ago
If Safari can only survive because Apple has a monopoly on browsers on iOS then it's a shit browser.
- ezfe 1y ago
  Even if Safari was perfect, people would still switch to Chrome because that's what they think they need.
- fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
  Firefox is overall a fine browser. Still has 2% marketshare. There's also the fact that websites themselves need to be mindful of multiple browser engines existing because of Safari. Once users are able to install Chrome on iPhones, developers will just abandon every other engine wholesale.
  - 1y ago

shmerl 1y ago

Oh, finally someone treats this issue right.

Shank 1y ago

I think this is a net good in the long term. Even if you completely exclude obvious benefits, like being able to support more APIs than Safari, it forces Apple to actually compete with other browsers and implement things if they start getting real market share. Not that you really should, but Safari has a limit of 500 tabs. Why? It's arbitrary. Safari doesn't support WebRequest in blocking mode, so you can't have real adblockers (just MV3 style content blockers, like uBOL). There are all sorts of edge cases too, like if you want cross-browser sync and extensions. Sure, you can totally run Safari with extension support, but extensions in e.g., Orion are shaky at best. The biggest claim that Apple made about this whole thing was that web browsers offered an attack surface increase as a result of giving JIT to other browsers, and they could be owned. Frankly, though, I would take a browser without JIT if I had a real adblocker.

natch 1y ago
Yes it's arbitrary. But it's not a limit of 500 tabs, it's 500 per tab group.

daedrdev 1y ago

Im not sure the Japanese government will survive to December so this could change

zerr 1y ago

How about smart TVs?

hbn 1y ago

Big victory for poor little Google with its 70% browser marketshare. Hope you guys like Chromium!

nuker 1y ago

(Narrator) In one year Chrome market share hit 100% in Japan, and became the only browser websites are designed for.

tristan957 1y ago
You're completely ignoring the staying power of defaults. Most users do not change anything about their system defaults.
- nuker 1y ago
  Small percent of sites will start breaking down in Safari, making small percent of users switch to Chrome. Process will start slow but will only go in one direction, and accelerate.
- jlund-molfese 1y ago
  Apart from ChromeOS, most desktop operating systems default to other browsers. Yet Chrome is estimated to have ~70% of desktop browser market share. So defaults can't be much of a defense against browser advertising, especially on Google-owned properties.

coupdejarnac 1y ago

Sweet, WebBLE and WebUSB on iOS let's go.

notanastronaut 1y ago

You clearly do not understand the product if you buy an iPhone and then complain about its walled garden.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

skeezyboy 1y ago

[flagged]

duffyjp 1y ago

Everybody is talking about Chrome, but I tell ya what I have that disabled on my Android in favor of Firefox. Firefox on mobile with full-fat uBlock Origin is the closest thing to parity with desktop web access you can get. I don't just block ads, I block elements on sites I don't care about with :has-text RegEx rules. You can't do that on Chrome even on desktop anymore. I'm this close to swapping to the Android as my primary device-- it's iMessage that has me chained. It's just too dang nice to respond to chats from my Mac during work so I don't need to pick up my phone. Everything else is better on the Android. Don't get me started about the iOS keyboard or Siri.

two-sandwich 1y ago
FF with uBO was the killer app that kept me on android. If Apple let me run that, I'd have bought into it years ago. Have you considered messages.google.com? I think you need to use Google's messages app (not the Samsung messager or equivalent) but it does as you describe and supports RCS.
- bkmq 1y ago
  Kagi made a safari based w är my browser that can use both FF and chrome addons on iOS. I use full uBO and I still don’t care about cookies.
  - TheDong 1y ago
    Can i share my history and bonus with my desktop, ie linux? Oh, it's closed source ios/macos only? Yeah, no thanks. I also kinda doubt it's compatible with most firefox addons, addons can and do rely on details of firefox that ios does not provide the ability to emulate.
- frevib 1y ago
  uBlock Origin for iOS was released yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44795825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44795825 If you are on another locale, search “ublock origin lite” with double quotes.

viktorcode 1y ago

For reference, here's Apple's requirements for browser engines in EU: https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engines/ https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi...

t1234s 1y ago

Not being able to run firefox is the only reason I don't use an iPhone.

natch 1y ago
What does Firefox give you, I mean what are the benefits? Some extensions that only work in Firefox, I guess? This is the only annoyance I'm aware of but it's real.
- crapple8430 1y ago
  ublock origin is a necessity for browsing the web. Not having it is more than an annoyance for me.

jgalt212 1y ago

> This results in no effective browser competition on iOS, and web apps being deprived of the APIs and performance they need to compete with native apps. To my eyes, the regulators hit the nail on the head here. It's not about other browsers, it's about keeping the iPhone browser crummy so the app store and the 30% Apple Tax stays humming along.

m463 1y ago

There's a lot of nonsense buried in safari and webkit. For example, loading certain URLs will deep link to on-device apps. If you surf to amazon urls in the browser, the amazon app will be notified. I'm pretty sure this is unblockable snooping people don't realize is going on. So I think this is great news, maybe we get rid of nonsense like that. However, I'll bet apple will make this japan specific just like eu laws don't affect their behavior in the US. For example, a japanese iphone will always make a sound when you take a picture. If you leave the country, that will go away, unless you're in airplane mode and then it will start making sounds for every picture again. country-specific behavior. I don't see why apple wouldn't do the same thing -- firefox works in japan, but not outside japan.

Aleklart 1y ago

Finally, Japanese will experience popups, location requests, notifications and constant tracking along with battery drain and zero days as glorious first party android users. IOS don’t need more spyware in form of chrome or firefox. If you need it, get spydroid with ios theme.