4 ms·

Not to burst your bubble but if you are leaving the Android ecosystem because of Chrome manifest v3 I definitely urge you to see what you're getting yourself in

by jchw 4y ago

Not to burst your bubble but if you are leaving the Android ecosystem because of Chrome manifest v3 I definitely urge you to see what you're getting yourself into. Not only does Apple enforce that you use their browser engine, it also abuses this position to disable features that they keep enabled on desktop Safari where users have an actual browser engine choice. Also, Safari imposes limitations on extensions that aren't all that different from manifest v3. I spent years hoping for Apple to see the light, allow other browser engines, AT LEAST give us proper WebM and Opus support. Yet, today, it is no sooner to happening. I finally got fed up and switched back to Android where I grabbed Fennec F-Droid, installed uBlock Origin and finally had a decent mobile browser.

chii 4y ago
> I spent years hoping for Apple to see the light, allow other browser engines as soon as apple tried to remove flash, they've shown their hand tbh. While it was generally considered good, the ideology behind removal of flash is the same ideology for their policy to not allow other browser engines.
- simondotau 4y ago
  Strong disagree here. Flash represented a proprietary takeover of web standards. It was bad technology with a bad license and had bad consequences. Apple’s ideology resulted in a pure gain for the open web. Apple’s dictatorial control over browser engines on iOS represents, somewhat ironically, the last significant defense in the cause of browser engine diversity. While Apple’s motives might be less pure here, the outcomes are no less of a win for the open web.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    They could allow firefox though. Wouldn't that be entertaining.
    - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
      Came to mention that you don't need a rooted Android to run uBlock Origin, SponsorBlock, Enhancer for YouTube, Augmented Steam, Decentraleyes, I Don't Care About Cookies, Violentmonkey, or Darkreader... you just need FF Nightly: https://www.ghacks.net/2020/10/01/you-can-now-install-any-add-on-in-firefox-nightly-for-android-but-it-is-complicated/ https://www.ghacks.net/2020/10/01/you-can-now-install-any-ad... Note one thing, if your collection name contains spaces, you need to use the hyphenated version - basically the url segment that is in the collection's url when viewing it in the browser. That's not said in the article and it wasted some time for me.
  - jchw 4y ago
    The outcomes are definitely less of a win for the open web in many cases. It is astounding that I have to deal with Apple proponents unironically trying to argue that WebM and Opus are bad things. Of course Safari on iOS supports Opus, but it just doesn't support it in any standard container... which is one of the most pointless things I can think of. Wikimedia doesn't care. They just load a polyfill with WebAssembly-compiled codecs for VP8/9/AV1/Opus/etc. and do it on CPU. The net effect is that iPhone users get a worse Wikipedia experience for basically no reason.
    - simondotau 4y ago
      I don't disagree that support for open codecs should be more of a priority for Apple/Safari/WebKit. But you're missing the bigger picture. The web should be resilient to clients which don't support all of the latest features. It shouldn't be necessary to be using a bleeding edge version of Google Chrome (or its clones) in order to have a first class web browsing experience. While one might complain about the inconvenience of supporting the few gaps in Safari on iOS, this complaint is actually of having to support people who don't (or can't) run the latest software because they (for example) haven't chosen to pay money to upgrade their computing device to something which supports Windows 10 or a recent release of MacOS. The fact that Safari on iOS isn't bleeding edge is actually an under-appreciated gift to people who choose to/are forced to run older software. It's one of the last vectors forcing lazy web developers (i.e. most web developers) to continue taking browser diversity seriously.
  - leni536 4y ago
    > it was bad technology Was it really?
    - b112 4y ago
      It was horrible. Completely and totally horrible. Adobe very poorly maintained it, it had constant security issues, it was poorly coded, and was abused as an ad platform. When Linux moved to amd64 / 64bit exes, it took them years to port it from 32bit to 64bit. Why? The codebase was a mess, and they put one dude on it, and his complaints leaked all over the place (I'm sorry it's taking me so long, but this codebase is a mess of spaghetti, I'm having to re-write the whole thing, etc).. As with everything Adobe buys, their only goal was to ride it into the ground. It is a testament to how popular flash was, that they even updated it at all, ever! Apple/Jobs may have had fiscal reasons for this move, but it was a great benefit for all regardless.
      - HeckFeck 4y ago
        I had no idea it was this bad behind the curtain. My association with Flash is positive, though entirely for the animation culture it engendered and not the problems like these. I wonder whether Director/Shockwave was any better? Also, mad respect to the developers at http://ruffle.rs http://ruffle.rs, who are having to do it _again_! Maybe they have a chance to implement the Flash runtime cleanly.
    - simondotau 4y ago
      Heck yes. This shouldn't even be a controversial statement. Flash was famous for its seemingly perpetual conga line of serious security vulnerabilities. It laughed at the browser security model. The web is a much, much, much, much, much better place because it was forced to die. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash_Player#Security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash_Player#Security
- eitland 4y ago
  Flash was a kind of devious problem in the same way as IE was and Chrome is: Those who depended on it got benefits while messing up the lives for everyone else. To be fair to IE and its modern replacement Chrome, if you develop and test mostly on IE and Chrome you can make things cross browser if you put effort into it, something you couldn't with Flash. Getting rid of Flash - whatever the reasons was - was a huge gift to the web and by extension people like me who develop on and for an open web.
freediver 4y ago
While all this is true, one should look it also from a motivation standpoint. Why is Apple doing things it is doing and why is Google? That thought experiment will help extrapolate the far-out future for both companies and the version of the future they are building towards.
- jchw 4y ago
  This isn't reasonable. Today on iPhone, even if you pay $100/year to be able to run unsigned code, you can't get a copy of Firefox running, because nobody maintains the port. That kind of crippling grasp on the ecosystem is difficult to tolerate, and simply nothing compared to what's going on with Google. Today with Pixel phones, you can secure boot third party OSes without even voiding your warranty. You can unlock the bootloader. Even if this ever were to go away, Android still has multiple ecosystems and you can sideload apps as long as your OEM doesn't disable this, and Google doesn't. Apple isn't getting more consumer friendly. iOS is less private than ever, not more, and Apple seems intent on making it worse; they dropped the needless CSAM debacle, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored. Apple has made their position clear: an iPhone is not your phone. It's Apple's phone. You may borrow it on their terms. The law may say otherwise, but Apple thwarts your attempts to work around it. Android is imperfect; it's definitely not good for privacy if you use stock ROMs, it's behind on security in many fronts, and Play Store lock-in has definitely put a damper on innovation. That having been said, though, at the end of the day, Google gives you options that lets you take control over the device. The future of being able to control your own devices is unclear with remote attestation once again on the horizon, but being able to control what software runs on your device to a decent degree is absolutely an important feature for me, especially after hoping and praying that Apple would eventually fix the problems I had with iOS. But they were not bugs to Apple, they were features, and Apple knows if people could run their own code, those features wouldn't work very well. That left a bad taste in my mouth. Until it's fixed, I don't think I can consider phones that Apple sells today as serious options as they are a different class of device to Android phones the way that a game console is a different class of device to a typical laptop.
  - freediver 4y ago
solardev 4y ago
How does content blocking in iOS Safari (like with Adguard) work? Is it any better or worse than Chrome with manifest v3?
- nopcode 4y ago
  Apple offers a Content Blocking API which is leveraged by most apps and similar to mv3. Most of these apps (now) also include a JavaScript extension to block the harder ads (eg youtube). This a recent development that apple seems to encourage. Some apps also offer network-level adblocking by using a local VPN server, which allows for blocking in apps.
chrismorgan 4y ago
> proper WebM and Opus support It’s worth noting that from Safari 14.1 on macOS 11.3 and from Safari 16 on all macOS they do support WebM fully. (Source: https://caniuse.com/webm https://caniuse.com/webm.) Still not on iOS, and still no Opus outside of CAF packaging, but one can continue to hope.
Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
> I finally got fed up and switched back to Android where I grabbed Fennec F-Droid, installed uBlock Origin and finally had a decent mobile browser. Just to note, There's a full-desktop Firefox available with mobile layout in PostmarketOS for Linux Phones. Here's the device I drive daily[1]. [1] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Xiaomi_Poco_F1_(xiaomi-beryllium) https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Xiaomi_Poco_F1_(xiaomi-be...
- jchw 4y ago
  postmarketOS is incredibly promising, but unfortunately the devices I've tried it on are still very unstable. Full-fat Firefox felt surprisingly usable on Pinephone under Phosh though. Even then: Fennec F-Droid is a compelling choice. It has a pretty good mobile experience.
  - Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
    SDM 845 devices, Especially OP6/6T and Xiaomi Poco F1 has changed the landscape for PostmarketOS(Still is not for everyone though). Firefox/Fennec F-Droid is indeed great (Especially since UBO is supported), But unfortunately in Android almost every enthusiast project involves privilege escalation and in this case F-Droid auto update apps requires one too.

by jchw 4y ago

chii 4y ago

> I spent years hoping for Apple to see the light, allow other browser engines as soon as apple tried to remove flash, they've shown their hand tbh. While it was generally considered good, the ideology behind removal of flash is the same ideology for their policy to not allow other browser engines.

simondotau 4y ago
Strong disagree here. Flash represented a proprietary takeover of web standards. It was bad technology with a bad license and had bad consequences. Apple’s ideology resulted in a pure gain for the open web. Apple’s dictatorial control over browser engines on iOS represents, somewhat ironically, the last significant defense in the cause of browser engine diversity. While Apple’s motives might be less pure here, the outcomes are no less of a win for the open web.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  They could allow firefox though. Wouldn't that be entertaining.
  - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
    Came to mention that you don't need a rooted Android to run uBlock Origin, SponsorBlock, Enhancer for YouTube, Augmented Steam, Decentraleyes, I Don't Care About Cookies, Violentmonkey, or Darkreader... you just need FF Nightly: https://www.ghacks.net/2020/10/01/you-can-now-install-any-add-on-in-firefox-nightly-for-android-but-it-is-complicated/ https://www.ghacks.net/2020/10/01/you-can-now-install-any-ad... Note one thing, if your collection name contains spaces, you need to use the hyphenated version - basically the url segment that is in the collection's url when viewing it in the browser. That's not said in the article and it wasted some time for me.
- jchw 4y ago
  The outcomes are definitely less of a win for the open web in many cases. It is astounding that I have to deal with Apple proponents unironically trying to argue that WebM and Opus are bad things. Of course Safari on iOS supports Opus, but it just doesn't support it in any standard container... which is one of the most pointless things I can think of. Wikimedia doesn't care. They just load a polyfill with WebAssembly-compiled codecs for VP8/9/AV1/Opus/etc. and do it on CPU. The net effect is that iPhone users get a worse Wikipedia experience for basically no reason.
  - simondotau 4y ago
    I don't disagree that support for open codecs should be more of a priority for Apple/Safari/WebKit. But you're missing the bigger picture. The web should be resilient to clients which don't support all of the latest features. It shouldn't be necessary to be using a bleeding edge version of Google Chrome (or its clones) in order to have a first class web browsing experience. While one might complain about the inconvenience of supporting the few gaps in Safari on iOS, this complaint is actually of having to support people who don't (or can't) run the latest software because they (for example) haven't chosen to pay money to upgrade their computing device to something which supports Windows 10 or a recent release of MacOS. The fact that Safari on iOS isn't bleeding edge is actually an under-appreciated gift to people who choose to/are forced to run older software. It's one of the last vectors forcing lazy web developers (i.e. most web developers) to continue taking browser diversity seriously.
- leni536 4y ago
  > it was bad technology Was it really?
  - b112 4y ago
    It was horrible. Completely and totally horrible. Adobe very poorly maintained it, it had constant security issues, it was poorly coded, and was abused as an ad platform. When Linux moved to amd64 / 64bit exes, it took them years to port it from 32bit to 64bit. Why? The codebase was a mess, and they put one dude on it, and his complaints leaked all over the place (I'm sorry it's taking me so long, but this codebase is a mess of spaghetti, I'm having to re-write the whole thing, etc).. As with everything Adobe buys, their only goal was to ride it into the ground. It is a testament to how popular flash was, that they even updated it at all, ever! Apple/Jobs may have had fiscal reasons for this move, but it was a great benefit for all regardless.
    - HeckFeck 4y ago
      I had no idea it was this bad behind the curtain. My association with Flash is positive, though entirely for the animation culture it engendered and not the problems like these. I wonder whether Director/Shockwave was any better? Also, mad respect to the developers at http://ruffle.rs http://ruffle.rs, who are having to do it _again_! Maybe they have a chance to implement the Flash runtime cleanly.
  - simondotau 4y ago
    Heck yes. This shouldn't even be a controversial statement. Flash was famous for its seemingly perpetual conga line of serious security vulnerabilities. It laughed at the browser security model. The web is a much, much, much, much, much better place because it was forced to die. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash_Player#Security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash_Player#Security
eitland 4y ago
Flash was a kind of devious problem in the same way as IE was and Chrome is: Those who depended on it got benefits while messing up the lives for everyone else. To be fair to IE and its modern replacement Chrome, if you develop and test mostly on IE and Chrome you can make things cross browser if you put effort into it, something you couldn't with Flash. Getting rid of Flash - whatever the reasons was - was a huge gift to the web and by extension people like me who develop on and for an open web.

freediver 4y ago

While all this is true, one should look it also from a motivation standpoint. Why is Apple doing things it is doing and why is Google? That thought experiment will help extrapolate the far-out future for both companies and the version of the future they are building towards.

jchw 4y ago
This isn't reasonable. Today on iPhone, even if you pay $100/year to be able to run unsigned code, you can't get a copy of Firefox running, because nobody maintains the port. That kind of crippling grasp on the ecosystem is difficult to tolerate, and simply nothing compared to what's going on with Google. Today with Pixel phones, you can secure boot third party OSes without even voiding your warranty. You can unlock the bootloader. Even if this ever were to go away, Android still has multiple ecosystems and you can sideload apps as long as your OEM doesn't disable this, and Google doesn't. Apple isn't getting more consumer friendly. iOS is less private than ever, not more, and Apple seems intent on making it worse; they dropped the needless CSAM debacle, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored. Apple has made their position clear: an iPhone is not your phone. It's Apple's phone. You may borrow it on their terms. The law may say otherwise, but Apple thwarts your attempts to work around it. Android is imperfect; it's definitely not good for privacy if you use stock ROMs, it's behind on security in many fronts, and Play Store lock-in has definitely put a damper on innovation. That having been said, though, at the end of the day, Google gives you options that lets you take control over the device. The future of being able to control your own devices is unclear with remote attestation once again on the horizon, but being able to control what software runs on your device to a decent degree is absolutely an important feature for me, especially after hoping and praying that Apple would eventually fix the problems I had with iOS. But they were not bugs to Apple, they were features, and Apple knows if people could run their own code, those features wouldn't work very well. That left a bad taste in my mouth. Until it's fixed, I don't think I can consider phones that Apple sells today as serious options as they are a different class of device to Android phones the way that a game console is a different class of device to a typical laptop.
- freediver 4y ago

solardev 4y ago

How does content blocking in iOS Safari (like with Adguard) work? Is it any better or worse than Chrome with manifest v3?

nopcode 4y ago
Apple offers a Content Blocking API which is leveraged by most apps and similar to mv3. Most of these apps (now) also include a JavaScript extension to block the harder ads (eg youtube). This a recent development that apple seems to encourage. Some apps also offer network-level adblocking by using a local VPN server, which allows for blocking in apps.

chrismorgan 4y ago

> proper WebM and Opus support It’s worth noting that from Safari 14.1 on macOS 11.3 and from Safari 16 on all macOS they do support WebM fully. (Source: https://caniuse.com/webm https://caniuse.com/webm.) Still not on iOS, and still no Opus outside of CAF packaging, but one can continue to hope.

Abishek_Muthian 4y ago

> I finally got fed up and switched back to Android where I grabbed Fennec F-Droid, installed uBlock Origin and finally had a decent mobile browser. Just to note, There's a full-desktop Firefox available with mobile layout in PostmarketOS for Linux Phones. Here's the device I drive daily[1]. [1] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Xiaomi_Poco_F1_(xiaomi-beryllium) https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Xiaomi_Poco_F1_(xiaomi-be...

jchw 4y ago
postmarketOS is incredibly promising, but unfortunately the devices I've tried it on are still very unstable. Full-fat Firefox felt surprisingly usable on Pinephone under Phosh though. Even then: Fennec F-Droid is a compelling choice. It has a pretty good mobile experience.
- Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
  SDM 845 devices, Especially OP6/6T and Xiaomi Poco F1 has changed the landscape for PostmarketOS(Still is not for everyone though). Firefox/Fennec F-Droid is indeed great (Especially since UBO is supported), But unfortunately in Android almost every enthusiast project involves privilege escalation and in this case F-Droid auto update apps requires one too.