5 ms·

@dang The title is misleading. Apple is not banning other browsers (there are over 100+ browsers on iOS). Apple is restricting iOS browsers to using the WebKit

@dang The title is misleading. Apple is not banning other browsers (there are over 100+ browsers on iOS). Apple is restricting iOS browsers to using the WebKit rendering engine which is an entirely different matter. Edit: Apple is also not claiming what the title suggests (source would be needed), the author of the tweet seems to just interpret it this way.

cromwellian 4y ago
This is misleading because the Rendering Engine is the browser. Everything else is a skin. The rendering engine determines pretty much everything related to we standards. Third party iOS browsers are little more than third party themes/skins.
- freediver 4y ago
  I understand how it may appear to look like that to someone who never tried to build a browser. See this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31897294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31897294
mtomweb 4y ago
It's not misleading. Firefox, Edge and Chrome have all been banned on iOS. Instead Apple has forced them to produce separate browsers around a locked WebView that they exclusively control. Mozilla, Microsoft and Google have all spoken out against the ban in regulatory submission, and browser engineers at each vendor consider it a ban. The REAL browsers have been banned.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > Firefox, Edge and Chrome have all been banned on iOS. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-private-safe-browser/id989804926 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-private-safe-browser/i... https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-edge-web-browser/id1288723196 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-edge-web-browser/id1... https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome/id535886823 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome/id535886823 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brave-private-web-browser/id1052879175 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brave-private-web-browser/id10... https://apps.apple.com/us/app/duckduckgo-privacy-browser/id663592361 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/duckduckgo-privacy-browser/id6... https://apps.apple.com/us/app/opera-browser-fast-private/id1411869974 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/opera-browser-fast-private/id1... Etc.
  - warning26 4y ago
    All of these are Safari skins. If you really want your Safari to look like Firefox then you're fine, but if you'd like to actually use Firefox you're out of luck.
    - CharlesW 4y ago
      That's like saying all DAWs are skins of CoreAudio. Also, it assumes that Firefox's only value is Gecko.
      - mtomweb 4y ago
        Quote: Mozilla believes that major platforms should be under an on-going duty to: Stop practices that distort competition on the merits and inhibit consumer choice, such as: ● interfering with consumer selection of alternative browsers and use of those browsers to access the internet from links and queries on their devices; and ● dictating or controlling browser components, such as browser engines, which prevent consumers from accessing and using their preferred browser across all operating systems and devices.
        CharlesW 4y ago
        Mozilla is the Hiroo Onoda of browser makers. They should decommission Gecko and adopt WebKit, or just move to Blink and stop pretending to fight for web standards.
        lenkite 4y ago
        Yeah, everyone should kneel to Apple - they are the Real Web Gods. Of-course the Apple fanatics can continue to love and use bug-ridden Safari. The folks who want a choice can use something else.
  - dcow 4y ago
    Those aren't the actual browsers. They're a reskinned Safari because they have to be.
- thewebcount 4y ago
  > Firefox, Edge and Chrome have all been banned on iOS. No they haven't! You can download each one here: [0], [1], [2]. They have been forbidden from using their own rendering engines. But they can still add all the chrome they want to the UI and do all their usual tracking like they do on the desktop. [0]https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-browser/id1055677337 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-browser/... [1]https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-edge-web-browser/id1288723196 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-edge-web-browser/id1... [2]https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome/id535886823 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome/id535886823
  - lenkite 4y ago
    Good thing that regulation mentions browser engines and not the cardboard wrapping. You can use any browser you want as long it is ONLY Apple WebKit behind the scenes is a true dystopian fascist power-play.
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      > Good thing that regulation mentions browser engines and not the cardboard wrapping. Then why doesn't it target Chromium as the vastly dominant engine that has ~80% of global market? Or in the case of Chromium the cardboard wrapping like Edge etc. are different engines all of a sudden?
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        > Then why doesn't it target Chromium as the vastly dominant engine that has ~80% of global market? Because WebKit sucks! I don't intend to be vitriolic here, but this really is the status quo of rendering engines. You have Blink, which is capable of making complex webapps and fully-featured browser experiences, and then you have WebKit, which is almost exclusively capable of breaking them. I'm not mad that WebKit sucks though, we need sucky browser engines! Sucky browser engines like WebKit run great on terrible hardware like Smart TVs or WiFi Fridges or portable game consoles that wouldn't be running a browser engine otherwise. The problem is that Apple forces mobile users onto a browser that's behind the rest of the world's web technologies. They can make sucky browsers all day long, and they won't hear a peep out of me as long as I can replace it with a Chromium-based browser. WebKit is holding Safari, and by extension the rest of the internet, back. That's the problem, and arguably an abuse of market position considering Apple directly profits off the failure of webapps.
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, Blink when they say Chrome, etc. You and I both know the headline means allowing other rendering engines.
- freediver 4y ago
  I strongly disagree. It is not semantic at all. Difference between a browser and a web rendering engine is huge. I am in a business of building a browser and although we get rendering engine for free, three years later and thousands of dev hours later, our browser is still in beta and half finished. [1] Building a general purpose web browser is one of the most challanging software development projects. This may not be the case if one is cloning Chromium/Firefox where you get both the rendering angine and the browser app for free. If you are using WebKit, you are writing the browser application from scratch. [1] https://browser.kagi.com https://browser.kagi.com
  - JamesSwift 4y ago
    Thats not the argument though, and its a bit of a difficult argument for Kagi specifically because it appears to be based on webkit I believe? The argument is: lets assume Kagi uses a non-webkit engine and is finished and live on desktop today. How much work would it be to now run against webkit? What is your feature set if you assume you are not able to modify the engine in any way?
    - freediver 4y ago
      We have a desktop WebKit browser and the amount of work needed for iOS browser is astonishing. So much that we didn’t even start working on the iPad version yet after three years. macOS, iOS and iPadOS are like three different operating systems with completely different UI/UX paradigms. But we are not a good example. Take Firefox or Chrome on iOS, teams with hundreds of engineers. They are terrible mobile browsers. They feel completely out of place on an iPhone. Not because WebKit is bad, but because building a good, native, iOS browser is incredibly hard.
Pakdef 4y ago
Apple can block any web feature that they don't like, regardless of "browser"...

cromwellian 4y ago

This is misleading because the Rendering Engine is the browser. Everything else is a skin. The rendering engine determines pretty much everything related to we standards. Third party iOS browsers are little more than third party themes/skins.

freediver 4y ago
I understand how it may appear to look like that to someone who never tried to build a browser. See this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31897294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31897294

mtomweb 4y ago

It's not misleading. Firefox, Edge and Chrome have all been banned on iOS. Instead Apple has forced them to produce separate browsers around a locked WebView that they exclusively control. Mozilla, Microsoft and Google have all spoken out against the ban in regulatory submission, and browser engineers at each vendor consider it a ban. The REAL browsers have been banned.

CharlesW 4y ago
> Firefox, Edge and Chrome have all been banned on iOS. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-private-safe-browser/id989804926 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-private-safe-browser/i... https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-edge-web-browser/id1288723196 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-edge-web-browser/id1... https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome/id535886823 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome/id535886823 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brave-private-web-browser/id1052879175 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brave-private-web-browser/id10... https://apps.apple.com/us/app/duckduckgo-privacy-browser/id663592361 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/duckduckgo-privacy-browser/id6... https://apps.apple.com/us/app/opera-browser-fast-private/id1411869974 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/opera-browser-fast-private/id1... Etc.
- warning26 4y ago
  All of these are Safari skins. If you really want your Safari to look like Firefox then you're fine, but if you'd like to actually use Firefox you're out of luck.
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    That's like saying all DAWs are skins of CoreAudio. Also, it assumes that Firefox's only value is Gecko.
    - mtomweb 4y ago
      Quote: Mozilla believes that major platforms should be under an on-going duty to: Stop practices that distort competition on the merits and inhibit consumer choice, such as: ● interfering with consumer selection of alternative browsers and use of those browsers to access the internet from links and queries on their devices; and ● dictating or controlling browser components, such as browser engines, which prevent consumers from accessing and using their preferred browser across all operating systems and devices.
      - CharlesW 4y ago
        Mozilla is the Hiroo Onoda of browser makers. They should decommission Gecko and adopt WebKit, or just move to Blink and stop pretending to fight for web standards.
        lenkite 4y ago
        Yeah, everyone should kneel to Apple - they are the Real Web Gods. Of-course the Apple fanatics can continue to love and use bug-ridden Safari. The folks who want a choice can use something else.
- dcow 4y ago
  Those aren't the actual browsers. They're a reskinned Safari because they have to be.
thewebcount 4y ago
> Firefox, Edge and Chrome have all been banned on iOS. No they haven't! You can download each one here: [0], [1], [2]. They have been forbidden from using their own rendering engines. But they can still add all the chrome they want to the UI and do all their usual tracking like they do on the desktop. [0]https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-browser/id1055677337 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-browser/... [1]https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-edge-web-browser/id1288723196 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-edge-web-browser/id1... [2]https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome/id535886823 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome/id535886823
- lenkite 4y ago
  Good thing that regulation mentions browser engines and not the cardboard wrapping. You can use any browser you want as long it is ONLY Apple WebKit behind the scenes is a true dystopian fascist power-play.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > Good thing that regulation mentions browser engines and not the cardboard wrapping. Then why doesn't it target Chromium as the vastly dominant engine that has ~80% of global market? Or in the case of Chromium the cardboard wrapping like Edge etc. are different engines all of a sudden?
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      > Then why doesn't it target Chromium as the vastly dominant engine that has ~80% of global market? Because WebKit sucks! I don't intend to be vitriolic here, but this really is the status quo of rendering engines. You have Blink, which is capable of making complex webapps and fully-featured browser experiences, and then you have WebKit, which is almost exclusively capable of breaking them. I'm not mad that WebKit sucks though, we need sucky browser engines! Sucky browser engines like WebKit run great on terrible hardware like Smart TVs or WiFi Fridges or portable game consoles that wouldn't be running a browser engine otherwise. The problem is that Apple forces mobile users onto a browser that's behind the rest of the world's web technologies. They can make sucky browsers all day long, and they won't hear a peep out of me as long as I can replace it with a Chromium-based browser. WebKit is holding Safari, and by extension the rest of the internet, back. That's the problem, and arguably an abuse of market position considering Apple directly profits off the failure of webapps.

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, Blink when they say Chrome, etc. You and I both know the headline means allowing other rendering engines.

freediver 4y ago
I strongly disagree. It is not semantic at all. Difference between a browser and a web rendering engine is huge. I am in a business of building a browser and although we get rendering engine for free, three years later and thousands of dev hours later, our browser is still in beta and half finished. [1] Building a general purpose web browser is one of the most challanging software development projects. This may not be the case if one is cloning Chromium/Firefox where you get both the rendering angine and the browser app for free. If you are using WebKit, you are writing the browser application from scratch. [1] https://browser.kagi.com https://browser.kagi.com
- JamesSwift 4y ago
  Thats not the argument though, and its a bit of a difficult argument for Kagi specifically because it appears to be based on webkit I believe? The argument is: lets assume Kagi uses a non-webkit engine and is finished and live on desktop today. How much work would it be to now run against webkit? What is your feature set if you assume you are not able to modify the engine in any way?
  - freediver 4y ago
    We have a desktop WebKit browser and the amount of work needed for iOS browser is astonishing. So much that we didn’t even start working on the iPad version yet after three years. macOS, iOS and iPadOS are like three different operating systems with completely different UI/UX paradigms. But we are not a good example. Take Firefox or Chrome on iOS, teams with hundreds of engineers. They are terrible mobile browsers. They feel completely out of place on an iPhone. Not because WebKit is bad, but because building a good, native, iOS browser is incredibly hard.

Pakdef 4y ago

Apple can block any web feature that they don't like, regardless of "browser"...