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React native has Hermes, it’s own JavaScript engine. The key is it’s not a JIT though. It actually performs better in many facets than JSC which is impressive.

React native has Hermes, it’s own JavaScript engine. The key is it’s not a JIT though. It actually performs better in many facets than JSC which is impressive. So you can run your own side process, and it can be its own JS engine. Also, I’ll repeat this, but Im a fan of the JSC only limitation, at least for now. By not allowing v8, we are least have some hedge against a… hegemony. I like Apple over Google for many reasons, and would like to see Googles extremely hostile actions towards the web curtailed. I’ll take the trade off. I’d be less happy actually as a consumer if they allowed third party browser engines.

kmeisthax 5y ago
It's sad that the only hedge we have against the browser monoculture problem is Safari of all things.
kitsunesoba 5y ago
> By not allowing v8, we are least have some hedge against a… hegemony. I like Apple over Google for many reasons, and would like to see Googles extremely hostile actions towards the web curtailed. I’ll take the trade off. I’d be less happy actually as a consumer if they allowed third party browser engines. Similar deal with WebKit. At ~15% marketshare between mobile and desktop followed with Gecko at ~5%, it's the only real holdout against Chromium domination. If browser engines were opened up on iOS, you can bet anything that Google is going to go bananas with marketing Chromium-based Chrome for iOS and web devs will happily back those efforts, pushing most or all of that 15% over into Google's lap. At that point Mozilla will have an even more difficult time holding on as an increasing number of devs only develop against Chromium.
- moshmosh 5y ago
  Not only that, if Chrome gets enough marketshare on iOS Google could do things like taking away 5-20% of a huge fraction of iOS devices' battery life just by shipping a somewhat less efficient build, plus doing the same with any embedded versions they'd manage to convince everyone to use in their apps. I mean, Chrome's already less efficient than Safari, so that much of a penalty might happen regardless, but they could accidentally-on-purpose fail to optimize new features in their iOS code to harm their only competitor in the mobile OS arena. "But developers and users wouldn't stand for that!" OK except I can take 4-6 hours off my M1 Macbook's battery life by using a couple Electron apps and favoring Chrome over Safari. Lots of people do exactly that, maybe not because they want to, but because they need those crappy programs to get work done.
  - hparadiz 5y ago
    Safari breaks it's debug protocol all the time and is no longer compatible with Android so it's not even really an option for my workflow.
    - moshmosh 5y ago
      Sure, I know lots of people in our field don't have much choice to avoid Chrome on the desktop, even if they want to (and they might simply prefer it anyway, despite the higher power use and its generally being heavier on system resource use)
  - arvinsim 5y ago
    It must be alien to you that some people do like Chrome for what it offers.
    - moshmosh 5y ago
      Why must that be the case?
    - katbyte 5y ago
      And that comes at a battery life costC I’m slowly trying to move off it myself and it is hard with chrome lockin
- ArchOversight 5y ago
  I absolutely can not stand Chrome. I don't like how it doesn't tie in with native services like Keychain, I don't like how it logs me into the browser when I log into a website (Google)> Lastly Chrome is power hungry. When I need to use Chrome for work, I go through my battery almost 2 - 3 times faster than when using Safari. I much prefer the integrated experience I get with Safari and how it feels like it fits in with the rest of the OS over Chrome which does its best to tie me into Google services.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    > I much prefer the integrated experience I get with Safari and how it feels like it fits in with the rest of the OS over Chrome which does its best to tie me into Google services. That sentence is weird to me - you appreciate Safari for binding you into using in-house Apple built functionality but you begrudge Chrome trying to do the same with Google build functionality.
    - ArchOversight 5y ago
      Yeah, I appreciate Safari for fitting in with the rest of the OS and integrating with the services it provides. I can easily share my passwords with other apps/devices I own, and use it as a password manager. I don't want to cede that to another service. So yes I begrudge Google for forcing me to use their services instead.
- simion314 5y ago
  >you can bet anything that Google is going to go bananas with marketing Chromium-based Chrome for iOS But Apple is a Pro at PR so Google PR should not work, the only issue would be if Safari is garbage or Google attempts to use some non standard APIs on their pages - but in this case Apple could give everyone a hand by using their expsensive lawyers and doing once in their life something good and go after Google.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > Google attempts to use some non standard APIs on their pages Google pushes their APIs and calls them standard. And then employs "developer advocates" to bash iOS and Safari. Here's a non-exhaustive list of APIs that are "standard" even though both Safari and Firefox are against them: https://webapicontroversy.com/ https://webapicontroversy.com/
    - blacktriangle 5y ago
      What's sad is, the current duopoly actually has a nice division of labor. Google tossing any brain drippings of some random web dev into Chrome to experiment with, Apple plays the conservative role examining what is going on and waiting for things to go through a committee. The only place this breaks down is where the Google missionaries go around and lambast Apple for not rushing out to implement every half-assed feature that ships in Chrome.
      - dmitriid 5y ago
        OMG I never thought about it this way. That's a very interesting and quite accurate description, thank you!
mhh__ 5y ago
If you want to hedge against a hegemony why not allow an actual compiler...
- w0mbat 5y ago
  Because the hedgehog won’t share the hedge.
arvinsim 5y ago
> By not allowing v8, we are least have some hedge against a… hegemony. I like Apple over Google for many reasons, and would like to see Googles extremely hostile actions towards the web curtailed. I’ll take the trade off. I’d be less happy actually as a consumer if they allowed third party browser engines. I'm sorry but I only see "I like X and I hate Y". Worse, you want your preference to be forced on other people.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Klonoar 5y ago
  This comment could be slapped on either side of the fanboys in this thread and it would still do nothing except be inflammatory.
fingerlocks 5y ago
Upvoting you because I don’t think many people in this thread understand what kind of dangerous privilege is given to third party JIT web renderers. On iOS, third party JIT is blocked by disabling mprotect + PROT_EXEC syscall, which allows execution of arbitrary blocks of memory. No thank you, I don’t want rando apps to have that kind of power. Especially given the trade-off is some marginally different browser experience.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  This is not a dangerous privilege, given that you can already ship pretty much arbitrary code to users…

kmeisthax 5y ago

It's sad that the only hedge we have against the browser monoculture problem is Safari of all things.

kitsunesoba 5y ago

> By not allowing v8, we are least have some hedge against a… hegemony. I like Apple over Google for many reasons, and would like to see Googles extremely hostile actions towards the web curtailed. I’ll take the trade off. I’d be less happy actually as a consumer if they allowed third party browser engines. Similar deal with WebKit. At ~15% marketshare between mobile and desktop followed with Gecko at ~5%, it's the only real holdout against Chromium domination. If browser engines were opened up on iOS, you can bet anything that Google is going to go bananas with marketing Chromium-based Chrome for iOS and web devs will happily back those efforts, pushing most or all of that 15% over into Google's lap. At that point Mozilla will have an even more difficult time holding on as an increasing number of devs only develop against Chromium.

moshmosh 5y ago
Not only that, if Chrome gets enough marketshare on iOS Google could do things like taking away 5-20% of a huge fraction of iOS devices' battery life just by shipping a somewhat less efficient build, plus doing the same with any embedded versions they'd manage to convince everyone to use in their apps. I mean, Chrome's already less efficient than Safari, so that much of a penalty might happen regardless, but they could accidentally-on-purpose fail to optimize new features in their iOS code to harm their only competitor in the mobile OS arena. "But developers and users wouldn't stand for that!" OK except I can take 4-6 hours off my M1 Macbook's battery life by using a couple Electron apps and favoring Chrome over Safari. Lots of people do exactly that, maybe not because they want to, but because they need those crappy programs to get work done.
- hparadiz 5y ago
  Safari breaks it's debug protocol all the time and is no longer compatible with Android so it's not even really an option for my workflow.
  - moshmosh 5y ago
    Sure, I know lots of people in our field don't have much choice to avoid Chrome on the desktop, even if they want to (and they might simply prefer it anyway, despite the higher power use and its generally being heavier on system resource use)
- arvinsim 5y ago
  It must be alien to you that some people do like Chrome for what it offers.
  - moshmosh 5y ago
    Why must that be the case?
  - katbyte 5y ago
    And that comes at a battery life costC I’m slowly trying to move off it myself and it is hard with chrome lockin
ArchOversight 5y ago
I absolutely can not stand Chrome. I don't like how it doesn't tie in with native services like Keychain, I don't like how it logs me into the browser when I log into a website (Google)> Lastly Chrome is power hungry. When I need to use Chrome for work, I go through my battery almost 2 - 3 times faster than when using Safari. I much prefer the integrated experience I get with Safari and how it feels like it fits in with the rest of the OS over Chrome which does its best to tie me into Google services.
- munk-a 5y ago
  > I much prefer the integrated experience I get with Safari and how it feels like it fits in with the rest of the OS over Chrome which does its best to tie me into Google services. That sentence is weird to me - you appreciate Safari for binding you into using in-house Apple built functionality but you begrudge Chrome trying to do the same with Google build functionality.
  - ArchOversight 5y ago
    Yeah, I appreciate Safari for fitting in with the rest of the OS and integrating with the services it provides. I can easily share my passwords with other apps/devices I own, and use it as a password manager. I don't want to cede that to another service. So yes I begrudge Google for forcing me to use their services instead.
simion314 5y ago
>you can bet anything that Google is going to go bananas with marketing Chromium-based Chrome for iOS But Apple is a Pro at PR so Google PR should not work, the only issue would be if Safari is garbage or Google attempts to use some non standard APIs on their pages - but in this case Apple could give everyone a hand by using their expsensive lawyers and doing once in their life something good and go after Google.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > Google attempts to use some non standard APIs on their pages Google pushes their APIs and calls them standard. And then employs "developer advocates" to bash iOS and Safari. Here's a non-exhaustive list of APIs that are "standard" even though both Safari and Firefox are against them: https://webapicontroversy.com/ https://webapicontroversy.com/
  - blacktriangle 5y ago
    What's sad is, the current duopoly actually has a nice division of labor. Google tossing any brain drippings of some random web dev into Chrome to experiment with, Apple plays the conservative role examining what is going on and waiting for things to go through a committee. The only place this breaks down is where the Google missionaries go around and lambast Apple for not rushing out to implement every half-assed feature that ships in Chrome.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      OMG I never thought about it this way. That's a very interesting and quite accurate description, thank you!

mhh__ 5y ago

If you want to hedge against a hegemony why not allow an actual compiler...

w0mbat 5y ago
Because the hedgehog won’t share the hedge.

arvinsim 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Klonoar 5y ago
This comment could be slapped on either side of the fanboys in this thread and it would still do nothing except be inflammatory.

fingerlocks 5y ago

Upvoting you because I don’t think many people in this thread understand what kind of dangerous privilege is given to third party JIT web renderers. On iOS, third party JIT is blocked by disabling mprotect + PROT_EXEC syscall, which allows execution of arbitrary blocks of memory. No thank you, I don’t want rando apps to have that kind of power. Especially given the trade-off is some marginally different browser experience.

saagarjha 5y ago
This is not a dangerous privilege, given that you can already ship pretty much arbitrary code to users…