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This is a sad but expected capitulation on Mozilla's part. They weren't succeeding in their efforts to ship Firefox devices and they were blocked from shipping

by crabasa 11y ago

This is a sad but expected capitulation on Mozilla's part. They weren't succeeding in their efforts to ship Firefox devices and they were blocked from shipping Firefox proper on iOS devices. If they didn't ship something, an entire generation of web users wouldn't even know what Firefox was. Webkit browsers currently account for a 91.6% share [1] of mobile (phone/tablet) browsing. Ironic as it sounds, the only hope right now for mobile web standards is Microsoft. They're the only vendor that stands in the way of the idea that Webkit should simply become the de-facto standard for the web, in place of specs worked out in collaboration with other browser vendors through the W3C. [1]: https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=1 https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qpr... Correction: Firefox on Android ships with Gecko, my mistake.

reubenmorais 11y ago
> they were blocked from shipping Firefox proper on iOS and Android devices Firefox on Android is as "proper" as it gets. It uses Gecko, not Webkit.
- coldpie 11y ago
  And it even works with extensions like uBlock Origin, so you can finally stop getting those malicious app store redirects and audio ads.
  - codemac 11y ago
    Yeah, firefox on android is basically the best thing since sliced bread.
- crabasa 11y ago
  You're completely right. I've updated my comment, sorry for that oversight.
SpaceCadetJones 11y ago
What about Servo?
- sp332 11y ago
  What about Servo?
- scott_karana 11y ago
  My understanding is that Apple blocks the usage of other rendering engines, so both Chrome and Firefox for iOS are essentially skins over top of Safari. Servo and Gecko are both blocked.
  - jd3 11y ago
    really makes my blood boil. straight up anti-competitive.
    - acdha 11y ago
      Kind of – they ban everything which does runtime code generation for security reasons. That has some nasty side-effects but it's at least consistent and more defensible than “no competing browsers”. I would love it if the FTC, etc. made them open up with, say, the ability to set the security requirements they use and accept anything from companies which make similar commitments.
      - bzbarsky 11y ago
        It's not just runtime code generation. If it were just that, you could have a browser without a JIT. But they also forbid execution of code that doesn't ship with the app itself. So you can't have a JIT-less browser that runs any JS at all. But for Servo none of that would matter anyway, because it's written in Rust. And Apple's policies only allow binaries whose source code is C, C++, Objective-C or Swift, last I checked. So Servo, and any other program written in Rust, is not allowed in the app store period, no matter whether it's a web browser or not and what it does with JS.
spankalee 11y ago
From your link, Blink looks to be at least 20%, so WebKit can't be 91.6% edit: Android Browser uses Blink now, but I'm not sure if all 4.0 versions do. Blink could be higher than 30% depending.
- crabasa 11y ago
  Blink is a fork of Webkit. So while it may be sufficiently different thank Webkit in the future, I'm not sure how meaningfully different it is today. Especially from the perspective of a web developer or user.
  - spankalee 11y ago
    The fork happened 2.5 years ago and there is significant divergence already.
  - kijiki 11y ago
    And everyone but Gecko is a fork of KHTML. When do you draw the line and allow forks their own identity?
    - pcwalton 11y ago
      Not Trident.
      - i336_ 11y ago
        Yeah, that split off NCSA Mosaic. Gecko (aka Netscape) was a ground-up rewrite of the engine (it had to be due to licensing issues).
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Osmose 11y ago
One thing to keep in mind is that even if we can't use Gecko on iOS, having _something_ on iOS rather than nothing means that people who use Firefox on Desktop or other platforms will be less likely to switch away due to issues like their bookmarks / tabs / etc not syncing between devices. It's an indirect way of getting more people to use Firefox (which promotes standards) over another option, but it's certainly better than telling iOS users "If you want synced stuff, switch to Chrome or Safari."
- crabasa 11y ago
  I agree with you. I think it's really interesting to think about what a "browser" or "user agent" really is. It's clearly more than just rendering, it's things like bookmarks/syncing/plugins/etc. I just worry that if Mozilla doesn't figure out their mobile-first strategy, having will Firefox on iOS will only serve to slow the bleeding, not really help with getting back to growth.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  It's a pretty simplistic view of things, Chrome on iOS isn't that great, even if you use Chrome on all other devices the account sync and all the other Google features might not be worth the performance issues compared to Safari. FF Account Sync isn't as robust as Google's (not saying it's bad, it's not intended to be as universal and or invasive) so you will get for the most part even less out of it. FF on Android is a true FF build, you can run most addons on it and it uses Gecko as their rendering engine. The problem with iOS is that we are going back to a single eco-system when it comes to rendering engines this means that everyone needs to get inline with how Apple thinks that the web should work which we had to suffer through before when Microsoft polluted the web with their own interpretations and "proprietary" standards. Also from a security POV this is pretty damn awful if there is a vulnerability in WebKit/iOS Webview or however Apple wants to call it, there's a good chance that every browser will be vulnerable this means that until Apple can patch it out there is no alternative non-vulnerable browser for the iOS ecosystem. This pretty much reminds me of the late 90's early 2000's where there were a billion "alternative" browsers like NeoBrowser and the like that were nothing more than a reskin of Internet Explorer, the fact that you can't push out your own low-level components to one of the most popular mobile platforms in the western world is pretty god damn sad. I for one would have actually loved it if Mozilla and Google would've make a stand against Apple and say if you don't allow us to build our browsers like we want too we're not going to be on your system. But sadly because Apple users are the more "important" (as they have more money to spend) than alternative platforms it doesn't seem likely to happen.
bad_user 11y ago
Not sure what a Microsoft product placement is doing in the context of a story about an open-source browser and being portrayed as the glimpse of hope. But the new IExplorer (sorry, Edge) only runs on Windows 10, being the least supported browser in the history of browsers. And is proprietary too, running on top of Microsoft's iOS-wannabe, with a market share so poor that Microsoft resorts to branding gimmicks and is planning to force upgrades down on people's throats just to make their numbers look good.

by crabasa 11y ago

reubenmorais 11y ago

> they were blocked from shipping Firefox proper on iOS and Android devices Firefox on Android is as "proper" as it gets. It uses Gecko, not Webkit.

coldpie 11y ago
And it even works with extensions like uBlock Origin, so you can finally stop getting those malicious app store redirects and audio ads.
- codemac 11y ago
  Yeah, firefox on android is basically the best thing since sliced bread.
crabasa 11y ago
You're completely right. I've updated my comment, sorry for that oversight.

SpaceCadetJones 11y ago

What about Servo?

sp332 11y ago
What about Servo?
scott_karana 11y ago
My understanding is that Apple blocks the usage of other rendering engines, so both Chrome and Firefox for iOS are essentially skins over top of Safari. Servo and Gecko are both blocked.
- jd3 11y ago
  really makes my blood boil. straight up anti-competitive.
  - acdha 11y ago
    Kind of – they ban everything which does runtime code generation for security reasons. That has some nasty side-effects but it's at least consistent and more defensible than “no competing browsers”. I would love it if the FTC, etc. made them open up with, say, the ability to set the security requirements they use and accept anything from companies which make similar commitments.
    - bzbarsky 11y ago
      It's not just runtime code generation. If it were just that, you could have a browser without a JIT. But they also forbid execution of code that doesn't ship with the app itself. So you can't have a JIT-less browser that runs any JS at all. But for Servo none of that would matter anyway, because it's written in Rust. And Apple's policies only allow binaries whose source code is C, C++, Objective-C or Swift, last I checked. So Servo, and any other program written in Rust, is not allowed in the app store period, no matter whether it's a web browser or not and what it does with JS.

spankalee 11y ago

From your link, Blink looks to be at least 20%, so WebKit can't be 91.6% edit: Android Browser uses Blink now, but I'm not sure if all 4.0 versions do. Blink could be higher than 30% depending.

crabasa 11y ago
Blink is a fork of Webkit. So while it may be sufficiently different thank Webkit in the future, I'm not sure how meaningfully different it is today. Especially from the perspective of a web developer or user.
- spankalee 11y ago
  The fork happened 2.5 years ago and there is significant divergence already.
- kijiki 11y ago
  And everyone but Gecko is a fork of KHTML. When do you draw the line and allow forks their own identity?
  - pcwalton 11y ago
    Not Trident.
    - i336_ 11y ago
      Yeah, that split off NCSA Mosaic. Gecko (aka Netscape) was a ground-up rewrite of the engine (it had to be due to licensing issues).

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Osmose 11y ago

One thing to keep in mind is that even if we can't use Gecko on iOS, having _something_ on iOS rather than nothing means that people who use Firefox on Desktop or other platforms will be less likely to switch away due to issues like their bookmarks / tabs / etc not syncing between devices. It's an indirect way of getting more people to use Firefox (which promotes standards) over another option, but it's certainly better than telling iOS users "If you want synced stuff, switch to Chrome or Safari."

crabasa 11y ago
I agree with you. I think it's really interesting to think about what a "browser" or "user agent" really is. It's clearly more than just rendering, it's things like bookmarks/syncing/plugins/etc. I just worry that if Mozilla doesn't figure out their mobile-first strategy, having will Firefox on iOS will only serve to slow the bleeding, not really help with getting back to growth.
dogma1138 11y ago
It's a pretty simplistic view of things, Chrome on iOS isn't that great, even if you use Chrome on all other devices the account sync and all the other Google features might not be worth the performance issues compared to Safari. FF Account Sync isn't as robust as Google's (not saying it's bad, it's not intended to be as universal and or invasive) so you will get for the most part even less out of it. FF on Android is a true FF build, you can run most addons on it and it uses Gecko as their rendering engine. The problem with iOS is that we are going back to a single eco-system when it comes to rendering engines this means that everyone needs to get inline with how Apple thinks that the web should work which we had to suffer through before when Microsoft polluted the web with their own interpretations and "proprietary" standards. Also from a security POV this is pretty damn awful if there is a vulnerability in WebKit/iOS Webview or however Apple wants to call it, there's a good chance that every browser will be vulnerable this means that until Apple can patch it out there is no alternative non-vulnerable browser for the iOS ecosystem. This pretty much reminds me of the late 90's early 2000's where there were a billion "alternative" browsers like NeoBrowser and the like that were nothing more than a reskin of Internet Explorer, the fact that you can't push out your own low-level components to one of the most popular mobile platforms in the western world is pretty god damn sad. I for one would have actually loved it if Mozilla and Google would've make a stand against Apple and say if you don't allow us to build our browsers like we want too we're not going to be on your system. But sadly because Apple users are the more "important" (as they have more money to spend) than alternative platforms it doesn't seem likely to happen.

bad_user 11y ago

Not sure what a Microsoft product placement is doing in the context of a story about an open-source browser and being portrayed as the glimpse of hope. But the new IExplorer (sorry, Edge) only runs on Windows 10, being the least supported browser in the history of browsers. And is proprietary too, running on top of Microsoft's iOS-wannabe, with a market share so poor that Microsoft resorts to branding gimmicks and is planning to force upgrades down on people's throats just to make their numbers look good.