12 ms·

On the other hand, this denies me from using an actual Mozilla Firefox web browser on iOS. Imposing an artificial limit on iOS isn't how the web will move forw

by m-p-3 4y ago

On the other hand, this denies me from using an actual Mozilla Firefox web browser on iOS. Imposing an artificial limit on iOS isn't how the web will move forward. > Whatever you think of their decisions, Apple is the only thing stopping a 90%+ Chrome web. I don't see Apple making any effort to diversify the browser ecosystem by making their browser available on other operating systems, so their inaction on other fronts isn't going to reverse the trend either.

CharlesW 4y ago
> On the other hand, this denies me from using an actual Mozilla Firefox web browser on iOS. It denies you from using Gecko. You can use an actual Mozilla Firefox web browser on iOS.
- jedberg 4y ago
  A semantic nitpick that is totally irrelevant. Most people on this website usually mean Gecko when they say they want to use Firefox.
  - rPlayer6554 4y ago
    Let's not pretend all of HN is a hive mind. I for one thought that Firefox the browser had chosen not to be on IOS because to they couldn't use Gecko. This is new information to me. So no, using the proper names for things is not a semantic nitpick. The commentator didn't not try to invalidate the parent's point, just show the language issue.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    Really? You mean people don't use Firefox because: - it protects what's important - you can "Personalize your experience with new colorways." - has Facebook Container - syncs across your devices Mozilla knows the actual engine isn't the deciding factor when trying to get people to change browsers. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
    - giancarlostoro 4y ago
      You're on about regular Firefox, not iOS Firefox which is just a UI wrapped around a WebKit component.
      - judge2020 4y ago
        All of those features are possible on iOS via webkit. Regarding mobile browsers specifically, their advantage over Safari here is blocking cryptominer scripts and autoplay videos: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browsers/mobile/compare/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browsers/mobile/compar...
        ginko 4y ago
        Adblocking only works* on vanilla Safari. I haven't gotten it to work on Firefox for iOS. * For some degree of "works", ublock origin is way better
        shreyshnaccount 4y ago
        But that's not the point-we want gecko and we want it to be good!
        anonymousab 4y ago
        iOS as blocking isn't anywhere near as powerful as Firefox extensions, not what it will eventually need to be.
    - GekkePrutser 4y ago
      The colorways were an antifeature to me (seriously what's the point of introducing a feature when you're already planning to drop it 2 months later) and I'm still waiting for real containers on mobile (the fb one is useless to me as I don't use Facebook) but the other features yeah they're great
- Someone 4y ago
  If you’re going to nitpick, you can run Gecko on iOS. I see two ways that, according to the letter of Apple’s rules, would be legal: - don’t allow it to browse the web (https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines, section 2.5.6: “Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript”) - compile Gecko to JavaScript and run it in Safari. If you serve the compiled Gecko from a web server I don’t see them stopping you from doing the second, but of course, it would just be Gecko, not FireFox, and performance ‘might’ be somewhat subpar.
- mtomweb 4y ago
  The Mozillians don't think actual Firefox is available on iOS and neither should you. You can read Mozilla's submission about the #AppleBrowserBan here: https://www.regulations.gov/comment/NTIA-2022-0001-0131 https://www.regulations.gov/comment/NTIA-2022-0001-0131
- kevinmgranger 4y ago
  "actual" Firefox absolutely means using their engine.
  - briandear 4y ago
    The average consumer doesn’t know the difference nor care. They want to open webpages and have them work.
    - codedokode 4y ago
      There is a difference. Gecko might implement features that would allow sites to work and look better in Firefox (for example, smoother scrolling, better animations, new CSS/HTML/JS features and so on). But Apple doesn't allow other browser engines, and Firefox cannot use this as an advantage to compete with Safari. Also, if Apple allowed other browser engines with better support for new features, then web developers might stop caring about supporting Safari. This might be another reason why Apple doesn't want other browsers on their devices.
      - Spivak 4y ago
        Apple wants to make sure that all websites work on their phones out of the box the horror. Like take the alternative world where the first thing you have to do after setting up your iPhone is installing Chrome because developers found it less effort to just target Chrome. Are we better off?
    - gernb 4y ago
      Plenty of webpages don't work in Safari because Safari doesn't ship the APIs that other browsers have been shipping for years.
      - dmitriid 4y ago
        Safari is my primary browser day in day out. The only pages that don't work in it are developed by people who believe that Chrome-only APIs are standard.
- JamesSwift 4y ago
  Right, so you can use a Firefox-themed safari, nothing "actual" about it. Coming from Firefox on Android to Firefox on iOS, I can assure you the experiences are in no way similar. The main reason I even use Firefox on iOS is for the sync integration. I honestly can't think of another thing that Firefox is able to do on iOS that makes it "Firefox" at all.
tshaddox 4y ago
> On the other hand, this denies me from using an actual Mozilla Firefox web browser on iOS. At the same time, most desktop computer users are able to use Firefox and we can see how often they choose to do so.
- jakub_g 4y ago
  According to stats from GitHub, 12% of their traffic is from Firefox. 3x more than Safari. https://github.blog/2022-06-10-how-we-think-about-browsers/ https://github.blog/2022-06-10-how-we-think-about-browsers/ Of course this is just part of the story. In every country it's different. In some EU countries Firefox is up to 20%. In UK it's almost non-existent. Local markets shape the browser support. If a few major websites are too lazy to support a browser properly, users will leave, and then others can say "there are no users, so we can stop supporting!".
  - techdragon 4y ago
    GitHub visitors are definitely not a representative sample of the web browsing public.
    - jenny91 4y ago
      Absolutely. Including the 2% from Python scripts :P
      - asdff 4y ago
        Those are probably running headless chrome though
    - threeseed 4y ago
  - acdha 4y ago
    It's more traffic than Safari, but Firefox also runs on platforms like Windows or Linux and has disproportionately large mindshare among open source developers. Give how much higher that number was 10 years ago, I think this counts in support of the original point: Google has poured a ton of effort into promoting Chrome and “accidentally”[1] offering a worse experience for other browsers in their site and nobody other than Apple seems to have been successful at resisting this. 1. Whether this is an overt policy or simply choosing to skimp on testing, it's a choice.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
Apple owns their platform and not you. They aren't forcing you to choose it as a platform or telling you that you can't buy an Android phone in order to use Firefox.
- kristiandupont 4y ago
  In my opinion, the free market argument falls flat when we're speaking of a duopoly. The existence of one competitor whose policies are at least as bad or worse is not really choice.
toast0 4y ago
Safari for Windows did exist (it was supremely terrible, IMHO). Apple says 5.1.7 was the last version of that; if versioning matches the Mac OS builds, that was from 10 years ago.
- MBCook 4y ago
  I love Safari. I tried to use it. Garbage. As far as I’ve ever been able to tell it only existed to help people test the fake “apps” and their sites without buying an iPhone. As real apps were allowed and the iPhone became more popular (so devs had them for testing sites) that need went away. And so did Safari.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    It’s wild to have such huge differences in experience, I bought my iPhone because I borrowed my friends and was shocked at how fast Safari was compared to mobile Chrome.
    - m-p-3 4y ago
      There were some limitations for third-party browsers on iOS that made them slower than Safari in the past, notably that they couldn't use the Nitro JavaScript Engine. https://9to5mac.com/2014/06/03/ios-8-webkit-changes-finally-allow-all-apps-to-have-the-same-performance-as-safari/ https://9to5mac.com/2014/06/03/ios-8-webkit-changes-finally-...
    - toast0 4y ago
      Safari on iOS (or MacOS) is a different beast than Safari for Windows.
      - MBCook 4y ago
        Right. That’s what I meant. I use Safari on Mac/iOS because it’s so fast (among other things). I’ve always assumed the Windows version ran on a port of all of Apple’s libraries on top of the Windows libraries, making it so much slower. Much like how iTunes/QuickTime on Windows was way slower than iTunes/QuickTime on Mac.
marricks 4y ago
No one is using Firefox on mobile so it’s good for you, but not web on the whole. Also while an independent entity having a larger presence is better than Apple at least Apple having a large market share makes Google need to consider what happens in safari before they do something particularly shady with web standards
- mikedelago 4y ago
  I use Firefox on Android, it works great. Desktop-based extensions integrate pretty seamlessly, which I love
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    You are unfortunately part of the "no one" segment, that half a percent of mobile browser users internationally / across platforms - even less than Firefox's desktop share
    - GekkePrutser 4y ago
      You have to start somewhere
      - marricks 4y ago
        That's not where they're starting, that's where they've fallen to... They've grown from 0.5% to 0.85% over three years[1]. I don't see how they're going to increase beyond that. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/272664/market-share-held-by-mobile-browsers-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/272664/market-share-held...
        GekkePrutser 4y ago
        I know, but if you don't believe it's the start of new growth there's no point even trying :) Today is the first day of the rest of your life :)
- 4y ago
GekkePrutser 4y ago
In fact Apple doesn't even bother supporting Firefox on some sites. Case in point https://business.apple.com https://business.apple.com
- depressedpanda 4y ago
  That's honestly the first site I can remember visiting where Firefox mobile doesn't work. It was blocked in Chrome too until I toggled desktop mode on. What are they doing, blocking based on the user agent string? How mediocre. They're clearly not doing feature detection.
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    Yes the weird thing is that on mobile it actually mentions Firefox as a supported browser, it just says you must have the latest version. Which I do but it still won't work. On desktop it doesn't even list Firefox as an option at all.. It's pretty annoying for me because I use that portal a lot for work and I use FF on everything. Safari is not an option for me because I use Mac, FreeBSD, Windows, Linux, Android all mixed and I need the sync. And yeah I think they're just blocking the agent. I haven't tried bypassing it. I kinda was afraid something would go wrong (I don't want to wipe 10.000 iPhones from the portal instead of 1 - lol)
- gandalfgreybeer 4y ago
  It’s funny how I’m on Safari on iOS and I’m also getting the “Your browser is not supported” error
beautifulfreak 4y ago
>I don't see Apple making any effort to diversify the browser ecosystem by making their browser available on other operating systems... What about Webkit?
- gime_tree_fiddy 4y ago
  Not sure average individual can take webkit source and turn it into a browser. Forcing users to a prebuilt Webkit, that they cannot change is definitely not the same.
phs318u 4y ago
They used to have a port of Safari for Windows. It was as popular as you'd expect. Having said that, WebKit - the engine underpinning Safari - is open source with BSD and LGPL 2.1 compatible licensing (https://webkit.org/project/ https://webkit.org/project/). In addition, they make the engine available for use on Linux (https://webkit.org/downloads/ https://webkit.org/downloads/). Gnome Epiphany is a browser based on WebKit (https://github.com/GNOME/epiphany https://github.com/GNOME/epiphany). According to their manifesto, they support Simplicity, Standards Compliance and Software Freedom. Specifically, "Epiphany opposes the dominance of the web by proprietary software web browsers. Today's chief offender is Google Chrome, a browser that purports to be open source, yet actually includes several proprietary components." https://github.com/GNOME/epiphany https://github.com/GNOME/epiphany
mr_toad 4y ago
> this denies me from using an actual Mozilla Firefox web browser on iOS. If Chrome became as dominant as IE was then using Firefox on any platform might become impractical.

by m-p-3 4y ago

CharlesW 4y ago

> On the other hand, this denies me from using an actual Mozilla Firefox web browser on iOS. It denies you from using Gecko. You can use an actual Mozilla Firefox web browser on iOS.

jedberg 4y ago
A semantic nitpick that is totally irrelevant. Most people on this website usually mean Gecko when they say they want to use Firefox.
- rPlayer6554 4y ago
  Let's not pretend all of HN is a hive mind. I for one thought that Firefox the browser had chosen not to be on IOS because to they couldn't use Gecko. This is new information to me. So no, using the proper names for things is not a semantic nitpick. The commentator didn't not try to invalidate the parent's point, just show the language issue.
- judge2020 4y ago
  Really? You mean people don't use Firefox because: - it protects what's important - you can "Personalize your experience with new colorways." - has Facebook Container - syncs across your devices Mozilla knows the actual engine isn't the deciding factor when trying to get people to change browsers. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
  - giancarlostoro 4y ago
    You're on about regular Firefox, not iOS Firefox which is just a UI wrapped around a WebKit component.
    - judge2020 4y ago
      All of those features are possible on iOS via webkit. Regarding mobile browsers specifically, their advantage over Safari here is blocking cryptominer scripts and autoplay videos: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browsers/mobile/compare/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browsers/mobile/compar...
      - ginko 4y ago
        Adblocking only works* on vanilla Safari. I haven't gotten it to work on Firefox for iOS. * For some degree of "works", ublock origin is way better
      - shreyshnaccount 4y ago
        But that's not the point-we want gecko and we want it to be good!
      - anonymousab 4y ago
        iOS as blocking isn't anywhere near as powerful as Firefox extensions, not what it will eventually need to be.
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    The colorways were an antifeature to me (seriously what's the point of introducing a feature when you're already planning to drop it 2 months later) and I'm still waiting for real containers on mobile (the fb one is useless to me as I don't use Facebook) but the other features yeah they're great
Someone 4y ago
If you’re going to nitpick, you can run Gecko on iOS. I see two ways that, according to the letter of Apple’s rules, would be legal: - don’t allow it to browse the web (https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines, section 2.5.6: “Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript”) - compile Gecko to JavaScript and run it in Safari. If you serve the compiled Gecko from a web server I don’t see them stopping you from doing the second, but of course, it would just be Gecko, not FireFox, and performance ‘might’ be somewhat subpar.
mtomweb 4y ago
The Mozillians don't think actual Firefox is available on iOS and neither should you. You can read Mozilla's submission about the #AppleBrowserBan here: https://www.regulations.gov/comment/NTIA-2022-0001-0131 https://www.regulations.gov/comment/NTIA-2022-0001-0131
kevinmgranger 4y ago
"actual" Firefox absolutely means using their engine.
- briandear 4y ago
  The average consumer doesn’t know the difference nor care. They want to open webpages and have them work.
  - codedokode 4y ago
    There is a difference. Gecko might implement features that would allow sites to work and look better in Firefox (for example, smoother scrolling, better animations, new CSS/HTML/JS features and so on). But Apple doesn't allow other browser engines, and Firefox cannot use this as an advantage to compete with Safari. Also, if Apple allowed other browser engines with better support for new features, then web developers might stop caring about supporting Safari. This might be another reason why Apple doesn't want other browsers on their devices.
    - Spivak 4y ago
      Apple wants to make sure that all websites work on their phones out of the box the horror. Like take the alternative world where the first thing you have to do after setting up your iPhone is installing Chrome because developers found it less effort to just target Chrome. Are we better off?
  - gernb 4y ago
    Plenty of webpages don't work in Safari because Safari doesn't ship the APIs that other browsers have been shipping for years.
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      Safari is my primary browser day in day out. The only pages that don't work in it are developed by people who believe that Chrome-only APIs are standard.
JamesSwift 4y ago
Right, so you can use a Firefox-themed safari, nothing "actual" about it. Coming from Firefox on Android to Firefox on iOS, I can assure you the experiences are in no way similar. The main reason I even use Firefox on iOS is for the sync integration. I honestly can't think of another thing that Firefox is able to do on iOS that makes it "Firefox" at all.

tshaddox 4y ago

> On the other hand, this denies me from using an actual Mozilla Firefox web browser on iOS. At the same time, most desktop computer users are able to use Firefox and we can see how often they choose to do so.

jakub_g 4y ago
According to stats from GitHub, 12% of their traffic is from Firefox. 3x more than Safari. https://github.blog/2022-06-10-how-we-think-about-browsers/ https://github.blog/2022-06-10-how-we-think-about-browsers/ Of course this is just part of the story. In every country it's different. In some EU countries Firefox is up to 20%. In UK it's almost non-existent. Local markets shape the browser support. If a few major websites are too lazy to support a browser properly, users will leave, and then others can say "there are no users, so we can stop supporting!".
- techdragon 4y ago
  GitHub visitors are definitely not a representative sample of the web browsing public.
  - jenny91 4y ago
    Absolutely. Including the 2% from Python scripts :P
    - asdff 4y ago
      Those are probably running headless chrome though
  - threeseed 4y ago
- acdha 4y ago
  It's more traffic than Safari, but Firefox also runs on platforms like Windows or Linux and has disproportionately large mindshare among open source developers. Give how much higher that number was 10 years ago, I think this counts in support of the original point: Google has poured a ton of effort into promoting Chrome and “accidentally”[1] offering a worse experience for other browsers in their site and nobody other than Apple seems to have been successful at resisting this. 1. Whether this is an overt policy or simply choosing to skimp on testing, it's a choice.

stjohnswarts 4y ago

Apple owns their platform and not you. They aren't forcing you to choose it as a platform or telling you that you can't buy an Android phone in order to use Firefox.

kristiandupont 4y ago
In my opinion, the free market argument falls flat when we're speaking of a duopoly. The existence of one competitor whose policies are at least as bad or worse is not really choice.

toast0 4y ago

Safari for Windows did exist (it was supremely terrible, IMHO). Apple says 5.1.7 was the last version of that; if versioning matches the Mac OS builds, that was from 10 years ago.

MBCook 4y ago
I love Safari. I tried to use it. Garbage. As far as I’ve ever been able to tell it only existed to help people test the fake “apps” and their sites without buying an iPhone. As real apps were allowed and the iPhone became more popular (so devs had them for testing sites) that need went away. And so did Safari.
- Spivak 4y ago
  It’s wild to have such huge differences in experience, I bought my iPhone because I borrowed my friends and was shocked at how fast Safari was compared to mobile Chrome.
  - m-p-3 4y ago
    There were some limitations for third-party browsers on iOS that made them slower than Safari in the past, notably that they couldn't use the Nitro JavaScript Engine. https://9to5mac.com/2014/06/03/ios-8-webkit-changes-finally-allow-all-apps-to-have-the-same-performance-as-safari/ https://9to5mac.com/2014/06/03/ios-8-webkit-changes-finally-...
  - toast0 4y ago
    Safari on iOS (or MacOS) is a different beast than Safari for Windows.
    - MBCook 4y ago
      Right. That’s what I meant. I use Safari on Mac/iOS because it’s so fast (among other things). I’ve always assumed the Windows version ran on a port of all of Apple’s libraries on top of the Windows libraries, making it so much slower. Much like how iTunes/QuickTime on Windows was way slower than iTunes/QuickTime on Mac.

marricks 4y ago

No one is using Firefox on mobile so it’s good for you, but not web on the whole. Also while an independent entity having a larger presence is better than Apple at least Apple having a large market share makes Google need to consider what happens in safari before they do something particularly shady with web standards

mikedelago 4y ago
I use Firefox on Android, it works great. Desktop-based extensions integrate pretty seamlessly, which I love
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  You are unfortunately part of the "no one" segment, that half a percent of mobile browser users internationally / across platforms - even less than Firefox's desktop share
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    You have to start somewhere
    - marricks 4y ago
      That's not where they're starting, that's where they've fallen to... They've grown from 0.5% to 0.85% over three years[1]. I don't see how they're going to increase beyond that. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/272664/market-share-held-by-mobile-browsers-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/272664/market-share-held...
      - GekkePrutser 4y ago
        I know, but if you don't believe it's the start of new growth there's no point even trying :) Today is the first day of the rest of your life :)
4y ago

GekkePrutser 4y ago

In fact Apple doesn't even bother supporting Firefox on some sites. Case in point https://business.apple.com https://business.apple.com

depressedpanda 4y ago
That's honestly the first site I can remember visiting where Firefox mobile doesn't work. It was blocked in Chrome too until I toggled desktop mode on. What are they doing, blocking based on the user agent string? How mediocre. They're clearly not doing feature detection.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  Yes the weird thing is that on mobile it actually mentions Firefox as a supported browser, it just says you must have the latest version. Which I do but it still won't work. On desktop it doesn't even list Firefox as an option at all.. It's pretty annoying for me because I use that portal a lot for work and I use FF on everything. Safari is not an option for me because I use Mac, FreeBSD, Windows, Linux, Android all mixed and I need the sync. And yeah I think they're just blocking the agent. I haven't tried bypassing it. I kinda was afraid something would go wrong (I don't want to wipe 10.000 iPhones from the portal instead of 1 - lol)
gandalfgreybeer 4y ago
It’s funny how I’m on Safari on iOS and I’m also getting the “Your browser is not supported” error

beautifulfreak 4y ago

>I don't see Apple making any effort to diversify the browser ecosystem by making their browser available on other operating systems... What about Webkit?

gime_tree_fiddy 4y ago
Not sure average individual can take webkit source and turn it into a browser. Forcing users to a prebuilt Webkit, that they cannot change is definitely not the same.

phs318u 4y ago

They used to have a port of Safari for Windows. It was as popular as you'd expect. Having said that, WebKit - the engine underpinning Safari - is open source with BSD and LGPL 2.1 compatible licensing (https://webkit.org/project/ https://webkit.org/project/). In addition, they make the engine available for use on Linux (https://webkit.org/downloads/ https://webkit.org/downloads/). Gnome Epiphany is a browser based on WebKit (https://github.com/GNOME/epiphany https://github.com/GNOME/epiphany). According to their manifesto, they support Simplicity, Standards Compliance and Software Freedom. Specifically, "Epiphany opposes the dominance of the web by proprietary software web browsers. Today's chief offender is Google Chrome, a browser that purports to be open source, yet actually includes several proprietary components." https://github.com/GNOME/epiphany https://github.com/GNOME/epiphany

mr_toad 4y ago

> this denies me from using an actual Mozilla Firefox web browser on iOS. If Chrome became as dominant as IE was then using Firefox on any platform might become impractical.