6 ms·

> Once Google can offer Chrome on iOS, they will destroy Safari with the same underhanded practices I don't believe that would happen, firstly Apple would figh

> Once Google can offer Chrome on iOS, they will destroy Safari with the same underhanded practices I don't believe that would happen, firstly Apple would fight back, and secondly the competition authorities would take action against Google. Google is under scrutiny for its behaviour too. You can't fight or justify anti competitive behaviour with anti competitive behaviour back.

nlitened 4y ago
> firstly Apple would fight back With what?
girvo 4y ago
You have more faith in our competition authorities fairness and approaches to these mega corps than I do, but I hope you’re right and I am wrong.
philliphaydon 4y ago
The moment iOS is forced to give browser freedom, chrome has won. It will be a sad day for sure.
- mtomweb 4y ago
  Already passed in the EU. Recommended in Japan, Australia and the UK. Apple is not the company fighting for the web or browser diversity, they are the ones holding back.
  - sbuk 4y ago
    How? Other than Gecko (Firefox), there is just Blink, which is owned and controlled by Google, and full of proprietary extensions that many here like to claim are standards. WebKit is sadly the last hope for an open web. Pushing for Chrome now is like pushing for IE/Trident in the naughties.
    - mtomweb 4y ago
      https://open-web-advocacy.org/walled-gardens-report/#the-chromium-argument https://open-web-advocacy.org/walled-gardens-report/#the-chr...
    - rvz 4y ago
      Firefox had its chance to push back again the Chrome dominance. It survived against IE and became the dominant browser for a short time over IE but allowed Chrome to take over and eat its lunch. Now Firefox is declining into irrelevance. The EU Digital Markets Act demands for Apple to open up to more browsers with just cement Chrome's dominance and make Firefox even more irrelevant.
      - acdha 4y ago
        “Allowed” is an interesting way to describe being the target of hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and heavy promotion on several of the most popular websites in the world.
        rvz 4y ago
        Yes. 'Allowed'. After Mozilla claiming they can live without Google's money and knowing that they could not 14 years later. [0] Then getting itself sabotaged by Google for years [1] to be overtaken as the browser with the largest market share. With Firefox's declining usage and market share, they are essentially on life support with Google's money since they know they would be completely irrelevant without it. It appears that [0] has not aged well at all. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9044160/Mozilla_can_live_without_Google_s_money_Baker_says_ https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.compu... [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has...
    - izacus 4y ago
      There is no "Gecko" on Apple platforms because you keep defending monopolistic lockout. It's utterly bizarre to defend megacorporation by scaremongering with a browser that isn't allowed to exist.
- rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 4y ago
  >The moment iOS is forced to give browser freedom, chrome has won. ...because Chrome is a much better browser? That's what you're trying to say?
  - snowwrestler 4y ago
    Chrome will become the better browser for Google services, because Google will intentionally degrade them on other browsers. This is not theoretical, the playbook is obvious and has been run before, by Microsoft.
    - izacus 4y ago
      Chrome will only be the better browser if Apple refuses to improve their own. This is how free market competition works - best browser wins. You're now demanding to be forever locked into an inferior corporate owned product because you're utterly afraid that the better product would win. It's insane.
      - snowwrestler 4y ago
        This is just really naive. When Google controls the back-end and front-end, they can introduce custom functionality that simply will not run in an alternate browser, no matter how good it is. Microsoft did this extensively in IE.
        izacus 4y ago
        No, shilling for a megacorp monopoly to keep back the web because you hate another browser is naive.
        snowwrestler 4y ago
        I honestly do not understand the mental gymnastics that allow people to not count Google as (also) a megacorp. The situation is not “Apple good, Google bad” or vice versa. The benefit of the current situation is that places these two huge companies in direct opposition and competition in the browser space. Using the law to force Apple to lose would take that away and cede the entire Web to Google’s control, thereby actually creating a monopoly.
- izacus 4y ago
  That is absolute nonsense. IE hasn't won either (despite its dominance), BECAUSE you could choose another browser. This is why free markets work and command economies don't.
  - snowwrestler 4y ago
    The current browser approach on iPhones was created in a free market. Using the law to force Apple to run Google software would be an example of a command economy.
    - izacus 4y ago
      No, allowing Apple to lockout all competitors to their browsers (and letting them keep gatekeeping even skins on top of their browsers) is command economy. It outright prevents existence of new browsers and competition and it's a flagship examples of monopolistic corporations killing innovation and competition. You yourself admitted that free market was required for current iPhone browser to exist and Apple locked out free market.
      - snowwrestler 4y ago
        You’re just mistaken about basic economic terminology.
      - the_other 4y ago
        > It outright prevents existence of new browsers and competition and it's a flagship examples of monopolistic corporations killing innovation and competition. No it doesn't. Tens of new browsers appear on multiple platforms every year, in parallel with Apple's approach. All of them fail to gain significant market share, and most of them are based on Blink. The bigger obstacle for browser innovation is the complexity of making a modern browser. That complexity is actually partly driven by developers demanding constant feature expansion in browsers. It's been great having web apps explode, but also that makes browsers fiendishly complex.
      - girvo 4y ago
snowwrestler 4y ago
Apple is already fighting back, with Safari.
- super_flanker 4y ago
  No Apple is not fighting back, it's forcing everyone to use safari/webkit based browser on iOS.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Safari is quite competitive with Chrome - very noticeably faster at a fraction of the RAM and battery usage – and solidly dusted Chrome on the Interop 2022 competition all three vendors ran: https://wpt.fyi/interop-2022?stable https://wpt.fyi/interop-2022?stable
the_other 4y ago
Google already does this. G-suite is a Trojan horse for their browser, which is a Trojan horse for their advertising engine. They'll disable suite features, or make it mysteriously not run in your "outdated" browser. You'll have to move to something Google approved just to be able to collaborate with your team, or your friends. > You can't fight or justify anti competitive behaviour with anti competitive behaviour back. The way it seems to me, for this case, is that those two "anti-"s cancel out and leave you with direct competition?
- sebzim4500 4y ago
  >They'll disable suite features, or make it mysteriously not run in your "outdated" browser. Can you give an example of a G-suite (or any google product) feature that does not work in Firefox?
  - AndroidKitKat 4y ago
    While being 3 years old, this video [1] is a good example of some of the behavior Google uses when they find out you're not using Chrome. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELCq63652ig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELCq63652ig
  - error503 4y ago
    TBH most everything works fine for me (unless I just don't know what I'm missing), but there is a very clear and frustrating gap with Meet backgrounds (blur etc.), which are artificially disabled on Firefox for dubious reasons.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Meet used to say WebRTC wasn’t working and boot you out of meetings if you used Firefox. Every other service worked perfectly, but they clearly were slacking on fixing it for at least a year before we stopped using Meet. GCP periodically breaks their console logins for Firefox users.

nlitened 4y ago

> firstly Apple would fight back With what?

girvo 4y ago

You have more faith in our competition authorities fairness and approaches to these mega corps than I do, but I hope you’re right and I am wrong.

philliphaydon 4y ago

The moment iOS is forced to give browser freedom, chrome has won. It will be a sad day for sure.

mtomweb 4y ago
Already passed in the EU. Recommended in Japan, Australia and the UK. Apple is not the company fighting for the web or browser diversity, they are the ones holding back.
- sbuk 4y ago
  How? Other than Gecko (Firefox), there is just Blink, which is owned and controlled by Google, and full of proprietary extensions that many here like to claim are standards. WebKit is sadly the last hope for an open web. Pushing for Chrome now is like pushing for IE/Trident in the naughties.
  - mtomweb 4y ago
    https://open-web-advocacy.org/walled-gardens-report/#the-chromium-argument https://open-web-advocacy.org/walled-gardens-report/#the-chr...
  - rvz 4y ago
    Firefox had its chance to push back again the Chrome dominance. It survived against IE and became the dominant browser for a short time over IE but allowed Chrome to take over and eat its lunch. Now Firefox is declining into irrelevance. The EU Digital Markets Act demands for Apple to open up to more browsers with just cement Chrome's dominance and make Firefox even more irrelevant.
    - acdha 4y ago
      “Allowed” is an interesting way to describe being the target of hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and heavy promotion on several of the most popular websites in the world.
      - rvz 4y ago
        Yes. 'Allowed'. After Mozilla claiming they can live without Google's money and knowing that they could not 14 years later. [0] Then getting itself sabotaged by Google for years [1] to be overtaken as the browser with the largest market share. With Firefox's declining usage and market share, they are essentially on life support with Google's money since they know they would be completely irrelevant without it. It appears that [0] has not aged well at all. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9044160/Mozilla_can_live_without_Google_s_money_Baker_says_ https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.compu... [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has...
  - izacus 4y ago
    There is no "Gecko" on Apple platforms because you keep defending monopolistic lockout. It's utterly bizarre to defend megacorporation by scaremongering with a browser that isn't allowed to exist.
rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 4y ago
>The moment iOS is forced to give browser freedom, chrome has won. ...because Chrome is a much better browser? That's what you're trying to say?
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  Chrome will become the better browser for Google services, because Google will intentionally degrade them on other browsers. This is not theoretical, the playbook is obvious and has been run before, by Microsoft.
  - izacus 4y ago
    Chrome will only be the better browser if Apple refuses to improve their own. This is how free market competition works - best browser wins. You're now demanding to be forever locked into an inferior corporate owned product because you're utterly afraid that the better product would win. It's insane.
    - snowwrestler 4y ago
      This is just really naive. When Google controls the back-end and front-end, they can introduce custom functionality that simply will not run in an alternate browser, no matter how good it is. Microsoft did this extensively in IE.
      - izacus 4y ago
        No, shilling for a megacorp monopoly to keep back the web because you hate another browser is naive.
        snowwrestler 4y ago
        I honestly do not understand the mental gymnastics that allow people to not count Google as (also) a megacorp. The situation is not “Apple good, Google bad” or vice versa. The benefit of the current situation is that places these two huge companies in direct opposition and competition in the browser space. Using the law to force Apple to lose would take that away and cede the entire Web to Google’s control, thereby actually creating a monopoly.
izacus 4y ago
That is absolute nonsense. IE hasn't won either (despite its dominance), BECAUSE you could choose another browser. This is why free markets work and command economies don't.
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  The current browser approach on iPhones was created in a free market. Using the law to force Apple to run Google software would be an example of a command economy.
  - izacus 4y ago
    No, allowing Apple to lockout all competitors to their browsers (and letting them keep gatekeeping even skins on top of their browsers) is command economy. It outright prevents existence of new browsers and competition and it's a flagship examples of monopolistic corporations killing innovation and competition. You yourself admitted that free market was required for current iPhone browser to exist and Apple locked out free market.
    - snowwrestler 4y ago
      You’re just mistaken about basic economic terminology.
    - the_other 4y ago
      > It outright prevents existence of new browsers and competition and it's a flagship examples of monopolistic corporations killing innovation and competition. No it doesn't. Tens of new browsers appear on multiple platforms every year, in parallel with Apple's approach. All of them fail to gain significant market share, and most of them are based on Blink. The bigger obstacle for browser innovation is the complexity of making a modern browser. That complexity is actually partly driven by developers demanding constant feature expansion in browsers. It's been great having web apps explode, but also that makes browsers fiendishly complex.
    - girvo 4y ago

snowwrestler 4y ago

Apple is already fighting back, with Safari.

super_flanker 4y ago
No Apple is not fighting back, it's forcing everyone to use safari/webkit based browser on iOS.
- acdha 4y ago
  Safari is quite competitive with Chrome - very noticeably faster at a fraction of the RAM and battery usage – and solidly dusted Chrome on the Interop 2022 competition all three vendors ran: https://wpt.fyi/interop-2022?stable https://wpt.fyi/interop-2022?stable

the_other 4y ago

Google already does this. G-suite is a Trojan horse for their browser, which is a Trojan horse for their advertising engine. They'll disable suite features, or make it mysteriously not run in your "outdated" browser. You'll have to move to something Google approved just to be able to collaborate with your team, or your friends. > You can't fight or justify anti competitive behaviour with anti competitive behaviour back. The way it seems to me, for this case, is that those two "anti-"s cancel out and leave you with direct competition?

sebzim4500 4y ago
>They'll disable suite features, or make it mysteriously not run in your "outdated" browser. Can you give an example of a G-suite (or any google product) feature that does not work in Firefox?
- AndroidKitKat 4y ago
  While being 3 years old, this video [1] is a good example of some of the behavior Google uses when they find out you're not using Chrome. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELCq63652ig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELCq63652ig
- error503 4y ago
  TBH most everything works fine for me (unless I just don't know what I'm missing), but there is a very clear and frustrating gap with Meet backgrounds (blur etc.), which are artificially disabled on Firefox for dubious reasons.
- acdha 4y ago
  Meet used to say WebRTC wasn’t working and boot you out of meetings if you used Firefox. Every other service worked perfectly, but they clearly were slacking on fixing it for at least a year before we stopped using Meet. GCP periodically breaks their console logins for Firefox users.