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Apple attempting to stop investigation into its practices involving browsers

275 points by samwillis 4y ago

ommz 4y ago
> Apple will reportedly receive 20 billion USD for having Google as the default search engine. Presumably, this is why they are fighting so hard against having any meaningful competition on iOS. Dizzying rent-seeking fees
- mtomweb 4y ago
  It's also 20 billion Apple has to do almost nothing for, except ban the other browsers and set google as the default search engine in Safari. It's a significant proportion of their yearly profit.
  - steve_taylor 4y ago
    This doesn’t make sense. There are other browsers on the App Store and, although they have to use Safari’s browser engine, they’re free to prioritise search engine preferences as they see fit.
    - mtomweb 4y ago
      The real versions of Firefox, Chrome and Edge etc have been banned. Instead Apple forces them to create new browsers which use their controlled, locked and unmodifiable WebView removing the majority of the ways that these browsers can differentiate themselves while providing features exclusive to Safari (like the ability to install Web Apps). This ensures that none of the "browsers" can compete on iOS and this obvious by comparing browser market share of the same browser between iOS and Android.
      - noirscape 4y ago
        To be precise, the thing that makes a browser meaningfully different (the engine, Firefox has Gecko, Chrome has Blink, Edge also uses Blink, although Blink is often identified as chromium) isn't allowed to exist on iOS. As you say, Apple only allows their own WebView to exist on iOS, which is an engine they both control entirely and is heavily locked down. Not helping matters is that WebView runs on WebKit (Safari uses WebKit as well), which is these days pretty much the equivalent of Internet Explorer in terms of browser shenanigans[0]. The result is that the only real thing you get from Firefox/Chrome/Edge on iOS is access to your synchronized bookmarks. Apple doesn't offer any form of a WebExtension implementation either to these engines (instead rolling their own version, which they confusingly also call WebExtension), and none of the previously mentioned browsers are even allowed to add the universal form of WebExtension support to WebKit. The result is that iOS also remains one of the few platforms where meaningful adblocking remains a crapshoot (entirely beneficial to Apple of course). [0]: To be somewhat fair here, WebKit *is* very useful for more embedded/low powered devices that aren't intended to access a lot of websites to begin with. There are some uses for WebKit, IE had none near the end.
      - hauxir 4y ago
        You're all misunderstanding his point. True that the underlying engine is the same but they do still have control over the default search engine.
        mtomweb 4y ago
        Control over engine = browser differentiation = market share = search engine revenue
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - izacus 4y ago
      There are no other browsers on iOS. They're all Safari wearing a different surface mask. And even those exist only on sufferance of Apples reviewers.
    - lwansbrough 4y ago
      (Unless of course they prioritize something that Apple deems to be against their rules.)
    - rejhgadellaa 4y ago
      You couldn't set any if these alternative browsers as the default until fairly recently. That ensured their market share was kept to a minimum and people have gotten so used to Safari few people find it worth switching now. Also, Safari has some super powers compared to the others on iOS (things the other browsers are simply not allowed or even able to do like Add to homescreen)
- TimCTRL 4y ago
  I have a naive question..what would happen if google simply stopped paying this money, and let the user decide?...I guess it wouldn't affect them much, google is still the best search engine.
  - lillecarl 4y ago
    Except Google rarely/barely is the best search engine anymore.
  - yreg 4y ago
    Bing was the default 2012 - 2017. Apparently Google found that it is well worth it to them to pay these massive amounts.
  - pasc1878 4y ago
    Google is worried that Apple would then release a search engine and that would be worse for them than the somple payment.
xiphias2 4y ago
,,In addition, Apple has been underfunding Safari for the past decade leading to missing critical functionality and a buggy experience for Web App developers thus ensuring that Native Apps, another Apple revenue source, are the only viable solution.'' It's not just funding. Apple changed webapps to delete indexedDB periodically even if they are inatalled on the home screen. There's no way to have a great experience if you can't store data permanently.
- mtomweb 4y ago
  xiphias2: Are you sure about it deleting IDB data even if they are installed on the homescreen? We've not come across that before. If so this is something we really need to follow up.
  - xiphias2 4y ago
    I'm not sure, I just read it somewhere some time ago, somewhere I read that iOS deletes it weekly or something like that. But I'm happy that I was wrong about it.
    - mtomweb 4y ago
      Oh right, yeah, I think there's an exception for home screen apps. Now it's worse for Web Apps to have the data deleted, but I do understand the privacy reasons why Apple is deleting the IDB data.
  - saurik 4y ago
    https://webkit.org/blog/10218/full-third-party-cookie-blocking-and-more/ https://webkit.org/blog/10218/full-third-party-cookie-blocki... > As mentioned, the seven-day cap on script-writable storage is gated on “after seven days of Safari use without user interaction on the site.” That is the case in Safari. Web applications added to the home screen are not part of Safari and thus have their own counter of days of use. Their days of use will match actual use of the web application which resets the timer. We do not expect the first-party in such a web application to have its website data deleted. > If your web application does experience website data deletion, please let us know since we would consider it a serious bug. It is not the intention of Intelligent Tracking Prevention to delete website data for first parties in web applications. So, while adding it to the home screen still involves this mechanism, the "first-party"--which I understand to be the website which was actually added to the home screen, differentiating it from all of the third-party websites that it might link you to--is presumably going to be used every time you use that icon on the home screen and since that icon also has its own usage counter it won't ever be counting up when you aren't using it, so you are "good" (unless the user manages to use your home screen added app for seven days without ever ending up back at the "first-party" site somehow, which seems like an oddity and maybe one they mitigated directly).
Gunax 4y ago
And yet Microsoft is a monopoly just for including IE. Nevermind that they never stopped anyone from installing what they wanted on Windows.
- shmde 4y ago
  > including IE And also making it the default web browser.
  - girvo 4y ago
    And making it such a key part of the underlying OS it was impossible to escape.
- BirAdam 4y ago
  Microsoft had almost the entire PC market. Apple doesn’t have over 90% in any market afaik.
  - samwillis 4y ago
    iPhone market share in the UK and US is a little over 50%, but in some demographics significantly higher. The point is though, you can't install an alternative browser engine on iOS, you could on windows. So it's a bit of an Apples to Oranges of a comparison (no pun intended). There is clear anti-competitive behaviour, even if they aren't a "true monopoly".
    - parasubvert 4y ago
      Not all anti-competitive acts are illegal, nor should they be. Building a sustainable competitive advantage is business school 101 for 60 years. Vertical or horizontal restraints are typically evaluated case by case based on whether the actor is a monopoly.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    You don't need to have 100% of a market to abuse your size with anticompetitive behavior. The judge mentioned this during the Epic v. Apple lawsuit.
BirAdam 4y ago
I feel 2 ways about this. If Apple is forced to open up, Chrome will take everything. If Apple can keep Safari in place, there are at least 2 browsers. OTOH, it’s a crap thing to do to your customers, forcing a browser on them.
- mtomweb 4y ago
  Safari still has very good market share on MacOS so I don't think that is true. Additionally while Safari remains underfunded and full of bugs it's not placing little competitive pressure on Chrome while ensuring that browsers that actually compete like Firefox are starved of search engine revenue. Apple's position is bad for the Web, bad for Web Apps and bad for Safari. If they have competition then Apple will be forced to fund Safari/Webkit properly and deliver a reliable/feature rich browser.
- gonzo41 4y ago
  Apple customers don't care. They have money to burn on a luxury good, and the apple cult is just like the Tesla cult. People cannot physically hear the criticisms. There will be no consequences.
- samwillis 4y ago
  I used to feel like this, however I think it's more important for consumers to have choice on this rather than not. I've come to the conclusion that competition is the only way to solve the issues around Safari not supporting all PWA features. Even if that result is a greater move to a Blink as the dominant engine.
  - Conan_Kudo 4y ago
    There are no cross-platform WebKit based browsers anymore anyway. When QtWebKit was eliminated, the last remaining ones switched to QtWebEngine (Blink/Chromium). For there to be effective competition, there needs to be WebKit based browsers on all platforms (Windows, Android, macOS, Linux, iOS). Otherwise, it's a non-starter.
- summerlight 4y ago
xlii 4y ago
I’m truly scared of Chrome. It pushes proprietary features, from what I know it starts enforcing some analytics/ads without possibility to block it out and there are other thing too, but since I’m not really an user I don’t track them deeply. Based on my personal experiences with IE, ActiveX, Adobe Flash and not being able to fill my taxes without Microsoft license (that was around 800$ back then for me not adjusted for inflation) I am afraid the same will happen with Chrome once it gets enough ground. “Hey, sorry but we can’t sell you toothbrush because you’re using Safari/Firefox/Vivaldi/whatever. Please switch to Chrome and continue with your tracked and dissected purchase route.” Is there any other anti-Chrome bastion than iOS’ Safari? Old E2E runner installed Google Chrome on my machine (didn’t even ask but that’s user space on dev machine so whatever) which grew into my MacOS machine. It cannot run in background but there is another daemon that constantly updates it. Multiple times a day I get notification that new service has been installed to run in background. I’m not sure if that’s something I want to fight for.
- simonebrunozzi 4y ago
  > once it gets enough ground. I think that Chrome is way past that, being at ~70% browser market share.
- onli 4y ago
  Fighting Apple's monopoly behaviour around Safari is not fighting for chrome. Since you asked, Firefox is the browser to use if you do not want chrome.
  - boxed 4y ago
    I mean.. not intentionally maybe.
  - kristiandupont 4y ago
    As a Firefox user who is very upset with Apple for (clearly intentionally) lacking support for PWA features, I am still happy that Safari exists as a counter-weight to Chrome. Any contribution counts.
xkcd1963 4y ago
Safari is way faster than Chrome on iOS
- knolan 4y ago
  Chrome on iOS is just a skin on top of WebKit.
  - parasubvert 4y ago
    Try to build a web browser with WebKit. I assure you it’s a lot more work than a skin.
    - postalrat 4y ago
      Can you make webkit behave like chrome or firefox behaves on android or desktop?
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- sccxy 4y ago
  Chrome on iOS is Safari but with Chrome skin. Apple does not allow other browser engines or does not even allow most Safari features to other browsers...
  - parasubvert 4y ago
    Chrome and Firefox may use WebKit but have very different looks and feels and some different functionality. They’re not just “skins”.
    - nobleach 4y ago
      They use a Cocoa feature called [WkWebView] (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/wkwebview https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/wkwebview) which is an embedded webkit browser. Any functionality that differs from Safari is not part of the actual "browser". It's just "skin" on top of it. (Bookmark syncing, etc)
mikymoothrowa 4y ago
Browser vendors are free to choose their own default search engines and get paid for it just like how Brave search is the default search on brave private This tweet thread is unnecessarily confusing the two. How does restricting browser engine to webkit decide what browser engines they use?
- mtomweb 4y ago
  Short answer: No market share = no search engine revenue By: 1. Eliminating browsers ability to differentiate itself 2. Forcing additional costs on the browser vendors to have to develop a second browser specifically for iOS 3. By reserving functionality exclusively for Safari 4. By eroding third party browsers market share by self-preferencing Safari (default install, couldn't set another default browser until recently etc etc)
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    Ah you mean unlike Google which pushed its browser through its dominant search, dominant mail, dominant video hosting etc. Which sabotaged Firefox. Which still conveniently "forgets" user choice of browsers in its apps and defaults to Chrome?
    - mtomweb 4y ago
      Yes, exactly like Google.
samwillis 4y ago
One of the things the UK Competition Commission is also looking into as part of this investigation is "In App Browsers" (IABs). They need to die in a fire. In app browsers are designed to lock the user into the app they are currently using, allowing it to track the user after they have followed a link, and coerce them to come back. For the websites being visited (on iOS) this is a separate session, no shared cookies with the main browser. This fundamentally breaks shopping carts on online stores, and I have seen it result in a 50% drop out rate at checkout (users often don't have access to their stored card details). I frankly can't understand why there has not been more push back from advertisers using platforms such as Facebook, they are only a net negative for them.
- djxfade 4y ago
  Yeah, it would be nice if we could at least have a system preference that forced the iab api to open the url as a regular browser tab.
Lio 4y ago
This is the original link (vs a tweet including the link): https://www.catribunal.org.uk/cases/157661223-apple-inc-others https://www.catribunal.org.uk/cases/157661223-apple-inc-othe...
FpUser 4y ago
>"I’m truly scared of Chrome." Then do not use it. I have it only for testing. My default browser is Brave.
- sbuk 4y ago
  ...which uses Blink, which is controlled by Google. And that is the problem. Same as when it was IE.
  - gunwd 4y ago
    > … which uses Blink … which is open source and therefore forkable. Google forked Blink from Webkit. What makes you think that Brave and Microsoft can’t do the same?
    - forgetfulness 4y ago
      That nobody will code against forks that lack Google proprietary features.
    - fsflover 4y ago
      And the cost to support this fork is increasing with time as Google constantly adds anti-features.
    - nemothekid 4y ago
      >which is open source and therefore forkable Unless you have the resources of FAANG, forking Blink is a pipedream. Brave doesn't have the resources, and Microsoft already gave up that dream. Web Browsers are insanely complex and fast moving; and maintaining a "living" fork of Blink is difficult as upstream doesn't make it particularly easy to downstream changes after you've made any sort of modifications.
      - Spivak 4y ago
        > Web Browsers are insanely complex and fast moving Which ironically, if say a major platform that everyone had to support slowed down their pace of development to be more conservative so you couldn't jump on features released two weeks ago that would be better for the browser landscape as a whole.
rejhgadellaa 4y ago
For anyone making the "Apple is the last bastion against Chrome dominance"-argument: Apple is not in it for the web. Quite the opposite, more likely. They are all about control, not letting you choose a browser. Also, I don't see how fighting a potential monoculture with an actual monoculture is a solution. For further reading: https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-browser-engine-choice/ https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-brow...
- forgetfulness 4y ago
  Because it's not about what you can run in the iPhone that you may not even buy. By keeping Safari alive this way, web developers, including those at Google, are forced to code against "web browsers" instead of just Chrome. The mass of iOS users "forced" to use the browser that comes with the device they buy gives you more chances that a given website will work on Firefox on your personal computer. That link is a blog from a Chrome engineer and shows a chart of Chrome cornerning the browser market with the caption of "Destkop OSes have long created a vibrant market for browser choice, enabling competitors not tied to OS defaults to flourish over the years.", it's ridiculous.
- asddubs 4y ago
  I think most people making that argument know this. It's just a case of politics makes for strange bedfellows. What apple is doing here is wrong and obviously if google did the same thing on android, it would make the bad chrome situation even worse. But despite that not being what apple is trying to do, it's also acting as a buffer of chrome getting closer still to just having near-100% of the market share, which is sort of the doomsday scenario for interoperability, because at that point the standard people code against will just be "whatever works in chrome, proprietary or not". I personally do not support apple not allowing other browser engines, just as I do not support them not allowing other ways of installing apps besides the app store, but I also think that them allowing other browser engines will ultimately make the web worse as a side effect.
- hbn 4y ago
  I don't care what their reasoning is, I know it's not out of the goodness of their hearts. I just like that web developers have to be mindful about making sure their stuff works on a browser that isn't Chromium. Myself and Apple happen to want the same thing but for different reasons. As of now, the effect is still net good for the open web. I assume they'll be forced to allow other browser engines on iOS at some point in the next few years, at which point the floodgates will be opened for Google to have free rein on web standards and further cement themselves as owners of the internet.
FpUser 4y ago
I want to move one of my applications to web platform. Guess what, not possible unless I ignore Jesus Phone and I think I will ignore it even though it will hurt sales.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  There's no need to cut off one's nose to spite one's face. There are literally millions of minimally-wrapped web apps in the App Store, which is where people search for apps.
  - FpUser 4y ago
    I want app to run in a browser and have access to Bluetooth LE. Not possible on iOS.
kgbcia 4y ago
We are going backwards in the browser wars. Peek Firefox was the best of times. I heard they restarted the servo project so let's see where that goes.
honeybadger1 4y ago
The worst browser experience I have had continues to be webkit based browsers. They just don't work in enough situations for me to justify leaving Firefox.
- neonsunset 4y ago
  That's the fault of devs targeting Chromium implementation rather than the specification itself. You shouldn't use products that do that if you can help it.
  - uni_rule 4y ago
    How does that relate to WebKit being worse than Firefox specifically if they're both on the same ground of not being Chromium?
IndySun 4y ago
Why post the tweet and not the article?
zimpenfish 4y ago
> starved several browsers of funding Do we know which browsers? Certainly not Firefox and Chrome.
fleddr 4y ago
"Apple will reportedly receive 20 billion USD for having Google as the default search engine." Now there's some easy money. Receiving 20 billion for doing absolutely nothing. To literally keeps things as-is. No product moved, no labor performed, no service provided. Just leave it. And we wire you 20 billion USD. Simply buying the market in the open, without a care in the world. The things we let companies get away with. Astounding.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > Simply buying the market in the open… This is slightly hyperbolic. Google is buying a default¹. It can be changed. https://appletoolbox.com/change-default-search-engine-iphone-browser/ https://appletoolbox.com/change-default-search-engine-iphone...
  - cma 4y ago
    Choose from their payola based list of preferences. You can't chose any search engine like on other platforms.
    - CharlesW 4y ago
      > You can't chose any search engine like on other platforms With Safari, yes, but Firefox for iOS (for example) allows you to add arbitrary search engines. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/change-your-default-search-engine-firefox-ios https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/change-your-default-sea...
    - SllX 4y ago
      Or just install and use xSearch: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/xsearch-for-safari/id1579902068 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/xsearch-for-safari/id157990206...
- coryfklein 4y ago
  > No product moved, no labor performed, no service provided. That's a bit of a myopic view. Apple has invested billions in building a platform and user base, and that is what Google is buying.
xkcd1963 4y ago
Safari is way faster than Chrome on macOS
neonsunset 4y ago
I do not care if Apple's practice anti-competitive, as long as the investigation isn't targeting Chromium its efforts are grossly misplaced.
bob1029 4y ago
I feel like Apple has been quietly & slowly releasing its death grip on PWA use cases. We've been shipping a B2B, PWA-enabled web app to iOS Safari users for almost 2 years and it all mostly "just works" now. We even have a customer using hand-written provisioning profiles via Azure InTune to roll out PWA web apps to their iPad home screens automatically. To be fair, figuring out how to do this is not documented in any meaningful way whatsoever. I had to reverse engineer another PWA that already worked on iOS/Safari in order to figure out the right path. If anything, Apple should be punished for intentionally obfuscating the capabilities of their products. I feel like this is where they are going to weasel their way out of trouble in court - "Oh look if you do this <performs elaborate ceremony no rational person could conceive> then you can actually achieve an open application ecosystem on apple devices".
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > To be fair, figuring out how to do this is not documented in any meaningful way whatsoever. Are there resources you can recommend to other PWA developers? It sounds like there are many people in this thread that haven't pieced it together like you've been able to.
  - bob1029 4y ago
    The most effective documentation for me was looking at app.starbucks.com in dev tools. You can see the experience yourself - Grab an iOS device and navigate to app.starbucks.com. Add it to your Home Screen. Open the new shortcut. Observe this desired behavior. Dev tools will explain how to get there. I'd pay special attention to the meta tags.
pjfin123 4y ago
On Android you can still install Brave or other browsers.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  Brave for iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brave-private-web-browser/id1052879175 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brave-private-web-browser/id10... Many other browsers are available for iOS too. (Not to be confused with rendering engines, of course.)
  - yamazakiwi 4y ago
    But they're not available in actuality are they? So why even share this information as if these browsers exist in full on iOS when they dont? The pedantry is deceitful in this case.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
Eh, I think the article and title are really meant to drive "engagement." Any company, individual, or government will discourage investigation. Sometimes, because they have something to hide, sometimes, because they want to avoid precedent, and sometimes, just because it's a big fat pain in the butt, and they have the resources to interfere. I'm not saying that Apple is right or wrong, here; just that this particular thing isn't really something to get all worked up over. The people pushing this, have an agenda (as does Apple, or any corporation). They are framing the matter in terms that will fit their perspective.
pwinnski 4y ago
I am truly torn on this. If Chrome were controlled by an independent company, I would 100% agree. Shame on Apple for dictating the use of the Safari engine on iOS! But Chrome is not controlled by an independent company. It's controlled by the largest company in the search, video, and advertising markets, and has repeatedly abused that power to degrade functionality for non-Chromium browsers, all while extending Chrome in non-standard non-secure ways. And this: > In addition, Apple has been underfunding Safari for the past decade leading to missing critical functionality and a buggy experience for Web App developers thus ensuring that Native Apps, another Apple revenue source, are the only viable solution. That just seems like nonsense. The Safari team seems to be well-funded, they just have different ideas from Google about what PWAs should be allowed to do. This caused Google to fork the webkit project, and is why things like push notifications are not supported today. It's not that they can't, it's that they won't.
- rejhgadellaa 4y ago
  > The Safari team seems to be well-funded [...] Meh. Safari is owned by Apple, the richest company in the world and they're beaten by a non-profit(!) who spends ~500 million / yr? Apple only started properly funding Safari and catching up with Firefox and Chrome when regulators started looking into their practices.
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    > Safari is owned by Apple, the richest company in the world and they're beaten by a non-profit(!) who spends ~500 million / yr? How can one of the richest men in the world eat peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, as Bill Gates did while being interviewed for My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman? Shouldn't he be eating something with truffle oil, or caviar? To me, Apple having the highest market value of any company doesn't seem like it should be related to the quality of their free web browser at all. I've never heard them answer a question about Safari with "we don't have the money for that," which would make the relationship relevant. It seems like the same sort of reasoning as: "Apple is the richest company in the world and their company sweatshirts aren't even as good as this sweatshirt company's?" I mean, yeah, a company devoted to the sole purpose of a single thing, with no shareholders even, should expect to be number one at that single thing. I guess it's pretty embarrassing for the Firefox team that they're considered a number two to Google. As I said in my first comment, Apple disagrees with some others on what should and shouldn't be in a web browser. They haven't implemented push notification because they disagree with their inclusion, not because they can't afford to do it. > Apple only started properly funding Safari and catching up with Firefox and Chrome when regulators started looking into their practices. I'm not sure what you're basing this on. Safari was the first browser to achieve 100% Acid3 compliance back in 2008, which was a thing they seemed to care about more than anyone else, although the rest of the browsers caught up soon after. Again, and it doesn't seem I can say this enough: Apple has different priorities than Google or Mozilla do. Those priorities change over time, which might lead you to think they're either pulling ahead of falling behind in the areas on which you're focusing, but they've been pretty steadily developing Safari while keeping memory usage and energy usage low and avoiding what they see as security pitfalls. They don't deliver the same PWA functionality that Chrome does on purpose, not due to lack of funds or effort.

275 points by samwillis 4y ago

ommz 4y ago

> Apple will reportedly receive 20 billion USD for having Google as the default search engine. Presumably, this is why they are fighting so hard against having any meaningful competition on iOS. Dizzying rent-seeking fees

mtomweb 4y ago
It's also 20 billion Apple has to do almost nothing for, except ban the other browsers and set google as the default search engine in Safari. It's a significant proportion of their yearly profit.
- steve_taylor 4y ago
  This doesn’t make sense. There are other browsers on the App Store and, although they have to use Safari’s browser engine, they’re free to prioritise search engine preferences as they see fit.
  - mtomweb 4y ago
    The real versions of Firefox, Chrome and Edge etc have been banned. Instead Apple forces them to create new browsers which use their controlled, locked and unmodifiable WebView removing the majority of the ways that these browsers can differentiate themselves while providing features exclusive to Safari (like the ability to install Web Apps). This ensures that none of the "browsers" can compete on iOS and this obvious by comparing browser market share of the same browser between iOS and Android.
    - noirscape 4y ago
      To be precise, the thing that makes a browser meaningfully different (the engine, Firefox has Gecko, Chrome has Blink, Edge also uses Blink, although Blink is often identified as chromium) isn't allowed to exist on iOS. As you say, Apple only allows their own WebView to exist on iOS, which is an engine they both control entirely and is heavily locked down. Not helping matters is that WebView runs on WebKit (Safari uses WebKit as well), which is these days pretty much the equivalent of Internet Explorer in terms of browser shenanigans[0]. The result is that the only real thing you get from Firefox/Chrome/Edge on iOS is access to your synchronized bookmarks. Apple doesn't offer any form of a WebExtension implementation either to these engines (instead rolling their own version, which they confusingly also call WebExtension), and none of the previously mentioned browsers are even allowed to add the universal form of WebExtension support to WebKit. The result is that iOS also remains one of the few platforms where meaningful adblocking remains a crapshoot (entirely beneficial to Apple of course). [0]: To be somewhat fair here, WebKit *is* very useful for more embedded/low powered devices that aren't intended to access a lot of websites to begin with. There are some uses for WebKit, IE had none near the end.
    - hauxir 4y ago
      You're all misunderstanding his point. True that the underlying engine is the same but they do still have control over the default search engine.
      - mtomweb 4y ago
        Control over engine = browser differentiation = market share = search engine revenue
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - izacus 4y ago
    There are no other browsers on iOS. They're all Safari wearing a different surface mask. And even those exist only on sufferance of Apples reviewers.
  - lwansbrough 4y ago
    (Unless of course they prioritize something that Apple deems to be against their rules.)
  - rejhgadellaa 4y ago
    You couldn't set any if these alternative browsers as the default until fairly recently. That ensured their market share was kept to a minimum and people have gotten so used to Safari few people find it worth switching now. Also, Safari has some super powers compared to the others on iOS (things the other browsers are simply not allowed or even able to do like Add to homescreen)
TimCTRL 4y ago
I have a naive question..what would happen if google simply stopped paying this money, and let the user decide?...I guess it wouldn't affect them much, google is still the best search engine.
- lillecarl 4y ago
  Except Google rarely/barely is the best search engine anymore.
- yreg 4y ago
  Bing was the default 2012 - 2017. Apparently Google found that it is well worth it to them to pay these massive amounts.
- pasc1878 4y ago
  Google is worried that Apple would then release a search engine and that would be worse for them than the somple payment.

xiphias2 4y ago

,,In addition, Apple has been underfunding Safari for the past decade leading to missing critical functionality and a buggy experience for Web App developers thus ensuring that Native Apps, another Apple revenue source, are the only viable solution.'' It's not just funding. Apple changed webapps to delete indexedDB periodically even if they are inatalled on the home screen. There's no way to have a great experience if you can't store data permanently.

mtomweb 4y ago
xiphias2: Are you sure about it deleting IDB data even if they are installed on the homescreen? We've not come across that before. If so this is something we really need to follow up.
- xiphias2 4y ago
  I'm not sure, I just read it somewhere some time ago, somewhere I read that iOS deletes it weekly or something like that. But I'm happy that I was wrong about it.
  - mtomweb 4y ago
    Oh right, yeah, I think there's an exception for home screen apps. Now it's worse for Web Apps to have the data deleted, but I do understand the privacy reasons why Apple is deleting the IDB data.
- saurik 4y ago
  https://webkit.org/blog/10218/full-third-party-cookie-blocking-and-more/ https://webkit.org/blog/10218/full-third-party-cookie-blocki... > As mentioned, the seven-day cap on script-writable storage is gated on “after seven days of Safari use without user interaction on the site.” That is the case in Safari. Web applications added to the home screen are not part of Safari and thus have their own counter of days of use. Their days of use will match actual use of the web application which resets the timer. We do not expect the first-party in such a web application to have its website data deleted. > If your web application does experience website data deletion, please let us know since we would consider it a serious bug. It is not the intention of Intelligent Tracking Prevention to delete website data for first parties in web applications. So, while adding it to the home screen still involves this mechanism, the "first-party"--which I understand to be the website which was actually added to the home screen, differentiating it from all of the third-party websites that it might link you to--is presumably going to be used every time you use that icon on the home screen and since that icon also has its own usage counter it won't ever be counting up when you aren't using it, so you are "good" (unless the user manages to use your home screen added app for seven days without ever ending up back at the "first-party" site somehow, which seems like an oddity and maybe one they mitigated directly).

Gunax 4y ago

And yet Microsoft is a monopoly just for including IE. Nevermind that they never stopped anyone from installing what they wanted on Windows.

shmde 4y ago
> including IE And also making it the default web browser.
- girvo 4y ago
  And making it such a key part of the underlying OS it was impossible to escape.
BirAdam 4y ago
Microsoft had almost the entire PC market. Apple doesn’t have over 90% in any market afaik.
- samwillis 4y ago
  iPhone market share in the UK and US is a little over 50%, but in some demographics significantly higher. The point is though, you can't install an alternative browser engine on iOS, you could on windows. So it's a bit of an Apples to Oranges of a comparison (no pun intended). There is clear anti-competitive behaviour, even if they aren't a "true monopoly".
  - parasubvert 4y ago
    Not all anti-competitive acts are illegal, nor should they be. Building a sustainable competitive advantage is business school 101 for 60 years. Vertical or horizontal restraints are typically evaluated case by case based on whether the actor is a monopoly.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  You don't need to have 100% of a market to abuse your size with anticompetitive behavior. The judge mentioned this during the Epic v. Apple lawsuit.

BirAdam 4y ago

I feel 2 ways about this. If Apple is forced to open up, Chrome will take everything. If Apple can keep Safari in place, there are at least 2 browsers. OTOH, it’s a crap thing to do to your customers, forcing a browser on them.

mtomweb 4y ago
Safari still has very good market share on MacOS so I don't think that is true. Additionally while Safari remains underfunded and full of bugs it's not placing little competitive pressure on Chrome while ensuring that browsers that actually compete like Firefox are starved of search engine revenue. Apple's position is bad for the Web, bad for Web Apps and bad for Safari. If they have competition then Apple will be forced to fund Safari/Webkit properly and deliver a reliable/feature rich browser.
gonzo41 4y ago
Apple customers don't care. They have money to burn on a luxury good, and the apple cult is just like the Tesla cult. People cannot physically hear the criticisms. There will be no consequences.
samwillis 4y ago
I used to feel like this, however I think it's more important for consumers to have choice on this rather than not. I've come to the conclusion that competition is the only way to solve the issues around Safari not supporting all PWA features. Even if that result is a greater move to a Blink as the dominant engine.
- Conan_Kudo 4y ago
  There are no cross-platform WebKit based browsers anymore anyway. When QtWebKit was eliminated, the last remaining ones switched to QtWebEngine (Blink/Chromium). For there to be effective competition, there needs to be WebKit based browsers on all platforms (Windows, Android, macOS, Linux, iOS). Otherwise, it's a non-starter.
summerlight 4y ago

xlii 4y ago

I’m truly scared of Chrome. It pushes proprietary features, from what I know it starts enforcing some analytics/ads without possibility to block it out and there are other thing too, but since I’m not really an user I don’t track them deeply. Based on my personal experiences with IE, ActiveX, Adobe Flash and not being able to fill my taxes without Microsoft license (that was around 800$ back then for me not adjusted for inflation) I am afraid the same will happen with Chrome once it gets enough ground. “Hey, sorry but we can’t sell you toothbrush because you’re using Safari/Firefox/Vivaldi/whatever. Please switch to Chrome and continue with your tracked and dissected purchase route.” Is there any other anti-Chrome bastion than iOS’ Safari? Old E2E runner installed Google Chrome on my machine (didn’t even ask but that’s user space on dev machine so whatever) which grew into my MacOS machine. It cannot run in background but there is another daemon that constantly updates it. Multiple times a day I get notification that new service has been installed to run in background. I’m not sure if that’s something I want to fight for.

simonebrunozzi 4y ago
> once it gets enough ground. I think that Chrome is way past that, being at ~70% browser market share.
onli 4y ago
Fighting Apple's monopoly behaviour around Safari is not fighting for chrome. Since you asked, Firefox is the browser to use if you do not want chrome.
- boxed 4y ago
  I mean.. not intentionally maybe.
- kristiandupont 4y ago
  As a Firefox user who is very upset with Apple for (clearly intentionally) lacking support for PWA features, I am still happy that Safari exists as a counter-weight to Chrome. Any contribution counts.

xkcd1963 4y ago

Safari is way faster than Chrome on iOS

knolan 4y ago
Chrome on iOS is just a skin on top of WebKit.
- parasubvert 4y ago
  Try to build a web browser with WebKit. I assure you it’s a lot more work than a skin.
  - postalrat 4y ago
    Can you make webkit behave like chrome or firefox behaves on android or desktop?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
sccxy 4y ago
Chrome on iOS is Safari but with Chrome skin. Apple does not allow other browser engines or does not even allow most Safari features to other browsers...
- parasubvert 4y ago
  Chrome and Firefox may use WebKit but have very different looks and feels and some different functionality. They’re not just “skins”.
  - nobleach 4y ago
    They use a Cocoa feature called [WkWebView] (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/wkwebview https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/wkwebview) which is an embedded webkit browser. Any functionality that differs from Safari is not part of the actual "browser". It's just "skin" on top of it. (Bookmark syncing, etc)

mikymoothrowa 4y ago

Browser vendors are free to choose their own default search engines and get paid for it just like how Brave search is the default search on brave private This tweet thread is unnecessarily confusing the two. How does restricting browser engine to webkit decide what browser engines they use?

mtomweb 4y ago
Short answer: No market share = no search engine revenue By: 1. Eliminating browsers ability to differentiate itself 2. Forcing additional costs on the browser vendors to have to develop a second browser specifically for iOS 3. By reserving functionality exclusively for Safari 4. By eroding third party browsers market share by self-preferencing Safari (default install, couldn't set another default browser until recently etc etc)
- dmitriid 4y ago
  Ah you mean unlike Google which pushed its browser through its dominant search, dominant mail, dominant video hosting etc. Which sabotaged Firefox. Which still conveniently "forgets" user choice of browsers in its apps and defaults to Chrome?
  - mtomweb 4y ago
    Yes, exactly like Google.

samwillis 4y ago

One of the things the UK Competition Commission is also looking into as part of this investigation is "In App Browsers" (IABs). They need to die in a fire. In app browsers are designed to lock the user into the app they are currently using, allowing it to track the user after they have followed a link, and coerce them to come back. For the websites being visited (on iOS) this is a separate session, no shared cookies with the main browser. This fundamentally breaks shopping carts on online stores, and I have seen it result in a 50% drop out rate at checkout (users often don't have access to their stored card details). I frankly can't understand why there has not been more push back from advertisers using platforms such as Facebook, they are only a net negative for them.

djxfade 4y ago
Yeah, it would be nice if we could at least have a system preference that forced the iab api to open the url as a regular browser tab.

Lio 4y ago

This is the original link (vs a tweet including the link): https://www.catribunal.org.uk/cases/157661223-apple-inc-others https://www.catribunal.org.uk/cases/157661223-apple-inc-othe...

FpUser 4y ago

>"I’m truly scared of Chrome." Then do not use it. I have it only for testing. My default browser is Brave.

sbuk 4y ago
...which uses Blink, which is controlled by Google. And that is the problem. Same as when it was IE.
- gunwd 4y ago
  > … which uses Blink … which is open source and therefore forkable. Google forked Blink from Webkit. What makes you think that Brave and Microsoft can’t do the same?
  - forgetfulness 4y ago
    That nobody will code against forks that lack Google proprietary features.
  - fsflover 4y ago
    And the cost to support this fork is increasing with time as Google constantly adds anti-features.
  - nemothekid 4y ago
    >which is open source and therefore forkable Unless you have the resources of FAANG, forking Blink is a pipedream. Brave doesn't have the resources, and Microsoft already gave up that dream. Web Browsers are insanely complex and fast moving; and maintaining a "living" fork of Blink is difficult as upstream doesn't make it particularly easy to downstream changes after you've made any sort of modifications.
    - Spivak 4y ago
      > Web Browsers are insanely complex and fast moving Which ironically, if say a major platform that everyone had to support slowed down their pace of development to be more conservative so you couldn't jump on features released two weeks ago that would be better for the browser landscape as a whole.

rejhgadellaa 4y ago

For anyone making the "Apple is the last bastion against Chrome dominance"-argument: Apple is not in it for the web. Quite the opposite, more likely. They are all about control, not letting you choose a browser. Also, I don't see how fighting a potential monoculture with an actual monoculture is a solution. For further reading: https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-browser-engine-choice/ https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-brow...

forgetfulness 4y ago
Because it's not about what you can run in the iPhone that you may not even buy. By keeping Safari alive this way, web developers, including those at Google, are forced to code against "web browsers" instead of just Chrome. The mass of iOS users "forced" to use the browser that comes with the device they buy gives you more chances that a given website will work on Firefox on your personal computer. That link is a blog from a Chrome engineer and shows a chart of Chrome cornerning the browser market with the caption of "Destkop OSes have long created a vibrant market for browser choice, enabling competitors not tied to OS defaults to flourish over the years.", it's ridiculous.
asddubs 4y ago
I think most people making that argument know this. It's just a case of politics makes for strange bedfellows. What apple is doing here is wrong and obviously if google did the same thing on android, it would make the bad chrome situation even worse. But despite that not being what apple is trying to do, it's also acting as a buffer of chrome getting closer still to just having near-100% of the market share, which is sort of the doomsday scenario for interoperability, because at that point the standard people code against will just be "whatever works in chrome, proprietary or not". I personally do not support apple not allowing other browser engines, just as I do not support them not allowing other ways of installing apps besides the app store, but I also think that them allowing other browser engines will ultimately make the web worse as a side effect.
hbn 4y ago
I don't care what their reasoning is, I know it's not out of the goodness of their hearts. I just like that web developers have to be mindful about making sure their stuff works on a browser that isn't Chromium. Myself and Apple happen to want the same thing but for different reasons. As of now, the effect is still net good for the open web. I assume they'll be forced to allow other browser engines on iOS at some point in the next few years, at which point the floodgates will be opened for Google to have free rein on web standards and further cement themselves as owners of the internet.

FpUser 4y ago

I want to move one of my applications to web platform. Guess what, not possible unless I ignore Jesus Phone and I think I will ignore it even though it will hurt sales.

CharlesW 4y ago
There's no need to cut off one's nose to spite one's face. There are literally millions of minimally-wrapped web apps in the App Store, which is where people search for apps.
- FpUser 4y ago
  I want app to run in a browser and have access to Bluetooth LE. Not possible on iOS.

kgbcia 4y ago

We are going backwards in the browser wars. Peek Firefox was the best of times. I heard they restarted the servo project so let's see where that goes.

honeybadger1 4y ago

The worst browser experience I have had continues to be webkit based browsers. They just don't work in enough situations for me to justify leaving Firefox.

neonsunset 4y ago
That's the fault of devs targeting Chromium implementation rather than the specification itself. You shouldn't use products that do that if you can help it.
- uni_rule 4y ago
  How does that relate to WebKit being worse than Firefox specifically if they're both on the same ground of not being Chromium?

IndySun 4y ago

Why post the tweet and not the article?

zimpenfish 4y ago

> starved several browsers of funding Do we know which browsers? Certainly not Firefox and Chrome.

fleddr 4y ago

"Apple will reportedly receive 20 billion USD for having Google as the default search engine." Now there's some easy money. Receiving 20 billion for doing absolutely nothing. To literally keeps things as-is. No product moved, no labor performed, no service provided. Just leave it. And we wire you 20 billion USD. Simply buying the market in the open, without a care in the world. The things we let companies get away with. Astounding.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
CharlesW 4y ago
> Simply buying the market in the open… This is slightly hyperbolic. Google is buying a default¹. It can be changed. https://appletoolbox.com/change-default-search-engine-iphone-browser/ https://appletoolbox.com/change-default-search-engine-iphone...
- cma 4y ago
  Choose from their payola based list of preferences. You can't chose any search engine like on other platforms.
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    > You can't chose any search engine like on other platforms With Safari, yes, but Firefox for iOS (for example) allows you to add arbitrary search engines. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/change-your-default-search-engine-firefox-ios https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/change-your-default-sea...
  - SllX 4y ago
    Or just install and use xSearch: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/xsearch-for-safari/id1579902068 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/xsearch-for-safari/id157990206...
coryfklein 4y ago
> No product moved, no labor performed, no service provided. That's a bit of a myopic view. Apple has invested billions in building a platform and user base, and that is what Google is buying.

xkcd1963 4y ago

Safari is way faster than Chrome on macOS

neonsunset 4y ago

I do not care if Apple's practice anti-competitive, as long as the investigation isn't targeting Chromium its efforts are grossly misplaced.

bob1029 4y ago

I feel like Apple has been quietly & slowly releasing its death grip on PWA use cases. We've been shipping a B2B, PWA-enabled web app to iOS Safari users for almost 2 years and it all mostly "just works" now. We even have a customer using hand-written provisioning profiles via Azure InTune to roll out PWA web apps to their iPad home screens automatically. To be fair, figuring out how to do this is not documented in any meaningful way whatsoever. I had to reverse engineer another PWA that already worked on iOS/Safari in order to figure out the right path. If anything, Apple should be punished for intentionally obfuscating the capabilities of their products. I feel like this is where they are going to weasel their way out of trouble in court - "Oh look if you do this <performs elaborate ceremony no rational person could conceive> then you can actually achieve an open application ecosystem on apple devices".

CharlesW 4y ago
> To be fair, figuring out how to do this is not documented in any meaningful way whatsoever. Are there resources you can recommend to other PWA developers? It sounds like there are many people in this thread that haven't pieced it together like you've been able to.
- bob1029 4y ago
  The most effective documentation for me was looking at app.starbucks.com in dev tools. You can see the experience yourself - Grab an iOS device and navigate to app.starbucks.com. Add it to your Home Screen. Open the new shortcut. Observe this desired behavior. Dev tools will explain how to get there. I'd pay special attention to the meta tags.

pjfin123 4y ago

On Android you can still install Brave or other browsers.

CharlesW 4y ago
Brave for iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brave-private-web-browser/id1052879175 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brave-private-web-browser/id10... Many other browsers are available for iOS too. (Not to be confused with rendering engines, of course.)
- yamazakiwi 4y ago
  But they're not available in actuality are they? So why even share this information as if these browsers exist in full on iOS when they dont? The pedantry is deceitful in this case.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

Eh, I think the article and title are really meant to drive "engagement." Any company, individual, or government will discourage investigation. Sometimes, because they have something to hide, sometimes, because they want to avoid precedent, and sometimes, just because it's a big fat pain in the butt, and they have the resources to interfere. I'm not saying that Apple is right or wrong, here; just that this particular thing isn't really something to get all worked up over. The people pushing this, have an agenda (as does Apple, or any corporation). They are framing the matter in terms that will fit their perspective.

pwinnski 4y ago

I am truly torn on this. If Chrome were controlled by an independent company, I would 100% agree. Shame on Apple for dictating the use of the Safari engine on iOS! But Chrome is not controlled by an independent company. It's controlled by the largest company in the search, video, and advertising markets, and has repeatedly abused that power to degrade functionality for non-Chromium browsers, all while extending Chrome in non-standard non-secure ways. And this: > In addition, Apple has been underfunding Safari for the past decade leading to missing critical functionality and a buggy experience for Web App developers thus ensuring that Native Apps, another Apple revenue source, are the only viable solution. That just seems like nonsense. The Safari team seems to be well-funded, they just have different ideas from Google about what PWAs should be allowed to do. This caused Google to fork the webkit project, and is why things like push notifications are not supported today. It's not that they can't, it's that they won't.

rejhgadellaa 4y ago
> The Safari team seems to be well-funded [...] Meh. Safari is owned by Apple, the richest company in the world and they're beaten by a non-profit(!) who spends ~500 million / yr? Apple only started properly funding Safari and catching up with Firefox and Chrome when regulators started looking into their practices.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  > Safari is owned by Apple, the richest company in the world and they're beaten by a non-profit(!) who spends ~500 million / yr? How can one of the richest men in the world eat peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, as Bill Gates did while being interviewed for My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman? Shouldn't he be eating something with truffle oil, or caviar? To me, Apple having the highest market value of any company doesn't seem like it should be related to the quality of their free web browser at all. I've never heard them answer a question about Safari with "we don't have the money for that," which would make the relationship relevant. It seems like the same sort of reasoning as: "Apple is the richest company in the world and their company sweatshirts aren't even as good as this sweatshirt company's?" I mean, yeah, a company devoted to the sole purpose of a single thing, with no shareholders even, should expect to be number one at that single thing. I guess it's pretty embarrassing for the Firefox team that they're considered a number two to Google. As I said in my first comment, Apple disagrees with some others on what should and shouldn't be in a web browser. They haven't implemented push notification because they disagree with their inclusion, not because they can't afford to do it. > Apple only started properly funding Safari and catching up with Firefox and Chrome when regulators started looking into their practices. I'm not sure what you're basing this on. Safari was the first browser to achieve 100% Acid3 compliance back in 2008, which was a thing they seemed to care about more than anyone else, although the rest of the browsers caught up soon after. Again, and it doesn't seem I can say this enough: Apple has different priorities than Google or Mozilla do. Those priorities change over time, which might lead you to think they're either pulling ahead of falling behind in the areas on which you're focusing, but they've been pretty steadily developing Safari while keeping memory usage and energy usage low and avoiding what they see as security pitfalls. They don't deliver the same PWA functionality that Chrome does on purpose, not due to lack of funds or effort.