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How is Apple still getting away with banning competing browsers on iOS? They should have been blasted by anti-trust for it a long time ago.
by shmerl 5y ago
How is Apple still getting away with banning competing browsers on iOS? They should have been blasted by anti-trust for it a long time ago.
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoWhile Apple is definitely a monopolist, this is probably the one monopoly we all have to hope they're allowed to maintain. Safari on iOS is basically the sole defense of the open web. Once Apple is forced to fold on this, every website will be built solely to run on the Chromium code base exclusively. The fact web developers have to use open standards to support iOS is basically the only reason we have open standards on the web today.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoImagine if Firefox had been allowed 16 years to become the premier iOS browser.
- root_axis 5y agoI'd hardly call it "a defense of the open web", Apple has hamstrung Safari for years to keep the App Store on iOS competitive with the exploding capabilities of every other modern browser. Chromium is popular because people like it.
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoThis is exactly the narrative that Google's marketing folks have screamed to the heavens and any shill outlet that will publish it, yes. :) Chrome is not popular because people like it. Chrome is popular because Google forces over 80% of phones on the planet to ship with it as default, and because people trying to install Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash Player would suddenly discover their default browser was now Google Chrome. And then, once they had a decent install base... a lot of other people installed Chrome because some poorly written website that didn't follow web standards told them it'd only work well if they installed Chrome. Like Gmail, the world's most popular email client.
- Jensson 5y agoStill better than banning competing browser engines entirely like Apple does.
- lenkite 5y agoPeople can install alternative browsers (real ones not shallow skins) on both Android and Chromebook. You cannot do that on iOS.
- root_axis 5y ago> Chrome is popular because Google forces over 80% of phones on the planet to ship with it as default This is false. Yet, even if it were true, Chrome's 75% marketshare outside of mobile is strong evidence that it's pretty popular.
- Dylan16807 5y ago> This is false. What's false about it? It's either chrome or chrome-based, isn't it? Or can you actually get the play store if you have a default browser of firefox? > Chrome's 75% marketshare outside of mobile Is covered by the rest of the sentence.
- adam_arthur 5y agoIt became popular because it was faster and better, despite the memory hog memes. One of the rare cases where a non default option overtook the defaults.
- disgruntledphd2 5y agoNope. It became popular because Google advertised it on their homepage for years.
- adam_arthur 5y agoDoesn't matter, Safari and IE were defaults, no advertising needed. Chrome wouldn't have prevailed if those browsers were even close to as good at the time.
- summerlight 5y agoIt's fairly easy for Apple to prove their pure intention of "protecting the open web". Just implement web push notification and a few other top feature requests from ordinary web developers.
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago"Just implement all of what Google tells you to, then you will prove you support the open web" This is the root of the problem: Google isn't the open web, Google is the one closing it. Also, Chrome's notification API is, in practice, that thing I have to shut off when people keep asking why porn ads are constantly popping up on their PC in the bottom right corner. Probably not a great model for others to follow.
- lenkite 5y agoSafari isn't protecting the web, it's killing it https://httptoolkit.tech/blog/safari-is-killing-the-web/ https://httptoolkit.tech/blog/safari-is-killing-the-web/ The largest Safari complaint is unrelated to experimental features from the Chrome team: it's the showstopping bugs in implemented features, made worse by Safari's slow release cycle.
- cute_boi 5y agoThis assumes Google ships features that are useful to people. But, what do we get in return? A privacy-invading feature like FLoC which thankfully has been disbanded. And Google even controls specs. Thankfully, due to safari web is free from the monopoly of Chrome. Today some website doesn't work in firefox. Do you think that is good for the web? I understand the shenanigans of Apple here. They just want to make sure people make apps instead of the website so, that they can egregiously charge a yearly fee + 30% of revenue. But safari does protect the web in some way by challenging Google.
- AaronFriel 5y agoGoogle isn't the only company shipping a browser. They may be the highest by market share, but I think that Firefox, Brave, and numerous others would like to be able to compete on the merits on iOS. They cannot.
- cute_boi 5y agoBrave Engine - Google Chromium Edge - Google Chromium Vivaldi - Google Chromium Opera - Guess what? Yes its Google Chromium Electron - Google Chromium The only two other engines are: Webkit Firefox Firefox is barely surviving and is using funds from Google. If Google stop those funds, its gone. Webkit is from Apple and if you look on my apple it is only alternative till today. If IOS allow other browser then you should know web will be in hands of Google. Google can do whatever they like. And web being in hands of Google is dangerous.
- 5y ago
- jameslk 5y agoWe must have Apple's monopoly so we can prevent Google's monopoly? And if we tear down Apple's monopoly somehow we won't be able to tear down Google's? Or am I missing something in this logic
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoNo. The correct course of action is this: dismantle one monopoly, by forcing Apple to allow alternative appstores and whatever apps users want to run, them dismantle another monopoly, by, I don't know, splitting Chrome to a separate company from Google or something.
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoI agree, but we have to deal with Chrome first, and then we can deal with Apple on this issue. The moment Safari stops being required on iOS, the web is dead as an open platform, and good luck getting it back. Even spinning off Chrome might not be enough: Even if it's not Google, it'd still be the entire web platform controlled and implemented by one group.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoThe moment Safari stops being required on iOS nothing will change at all, because very few users will run to install chrome. Safari would still come pre-installed and used by default. However, it would probably develop faster. As for 'over group' - no, with the crucial advantage of Chrome bundled with Android and Google gone, other players will pick up quickly, competing for those lucrative deals with the search engines. Currently this space is dead because nobody dares competing with Alphabet.
- artez333 5y agoHey apple! Here is what I do to your safari users: if(/iPad|iPhone|iPod/.test(navigator.userAgent) && /WebKit/i.test(avigator.userAgent)) document.body.remove() If you don't support mobile PWA notifications, we don't support your users. Thank you!
- ComradePhil 5y agoI see Brave, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera on their App Store. Are they just shells for Safari or something? Does Firefox on iOS use webkit instead of gecko?
- impulser_ 5y agoI believe they are all just UIs for WebKit. Google can't bring over Blink to iOS, which they use for Chrome on Android.
- icelancer 5y ago> Does Firefox on iOS use webkit instead of gecko? Yes.
- jimbob45 5y ago> Does Firefox on iOS use webkit instead of gecko? They all do. Also only Safari can have extensions. Every other browser is blocked from doing so. Every time I bring this up, I’m told it’s okay because Apple has only 50% market share. I don’t understand why your market share matters when it comes to anti-competitive practices.
- widdershins 5y agoBecause most of competition law is written such that practices only become illegal when then they demonstrably create or increase a monopoly or dominant market position. [1] The courts don't like to interfere in these practices as long as there's competition in the market. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law#Tying_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law#Ty...
- shmerl 5y agoThey totally create damage to the market in this case. The fact that courts turned competition law into some toothless tool only highlights the problem.
- 5y ago
- rado 5y agoIt used to be faster. I still can't believe they got away with the huge performance degradation in Safari 15. Hardly anyone reported it.
- GeekyBear 5y agoFor the most part, Apple bans third party apps from downloading and executing code from random places on iOS. It's hard to write a web browser that doesn't download and execute JavaScript code from random places. There has been a bit of wiggle room added on that in recent years. Pythonista offers the ability to write and execute your own Python code, they just don't make it easy to import and run code from random places.
- shmerl 5y agoYeah, and that's a clear violation of competition law. MS didn't get away with it in the past. So how come Apple does?
- GeekyBear 5y agoWhat do you imagine that Microsoft got in trouble for? >Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued his findings of fact on November 5, 1999, which stated that Microsoft's dominance of the x86-based personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to that monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Software, RealNetworks, Linux, and others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#Judgment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...
- threeseed 5y ago> Yeah, and that's a clear violation of competition law Can you clarify your legal background and/or expertise on competition law and the technical specifics that you believe makes this definitive statement hold true.
- liamwire 5y agoPreface: I don’t know how sandboxing works on iOS beyond broad concepts, and there’s going to be implementation details I’m unaware of. As a result, please read this as curious speculation, rather than anything approximating an authoritative statement. My understanding is that WebKit is the only rendering engine permitted on iOS as a security precaution, ostensibly taking Apple at face value and in good faith. Numerous zero-days on iOS have targeted WebKit in the past, and to a large extent this makes sense to me. Browsers have become one of the most common malware vectors in the modern era, which isn’t surprising given their entire purpose is to access and execute/render external code. Given that fact, and the significant attack surface area that opens up, Apple’s stance, in my nebulous interpretation, is that having any other rendering engine permitted to run in iOS presents an unmanageable number of potential vectors for more widespread malware on the platform. (Arguments about their resources aside, we know adding engineers to a problem space doesn’t scale in linear fashion towards solving those problems.) Apple’s vocal focus on privacy and safety constitutes a significant aspect of their product marketing, and it makes sense they’d want to walk-the-walk, so to speak, to ensure their product lives up to the claims they make. Now, given that Apple already have trouble keeping up with WebKit vulnerabilities, it’s believable that they’re being entirely genuine* in arguing against the addition of additional browser engines that they’d need to keep up with, on the grounds that doing so presents a real risk to their product’s core value proposition, and by extension, their users. *However, it’s also important not to over-ascribe anthropomorphic traits to a corporation, and it’s completely valid to argue that Apple benefit heavily from this narrative. Indeed, both can be true.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago> Apple’s vocal focus on privacy and safety constitutes a significant aspect of their product marketing, and it makes sense they’d want to walk-the-walk, so to speak, to ensure their product lives up to the claims they make. The solution for anyone who wants this is to not use any browser other than Apple's. It's no excuse for not giving the customer a choice. They can still choose the existing thing if they want it; just don't install anyone else's browser.
- liamwire 5y ago