47 ms·

Google and Mozilla are working on iOS browsers that aren't based on WebKit

791 points by Liriel 4y ago

wdb 4y ago
Sounds more like a switch of domination at the iOS platform from Webkit to Chromium. Personally, I am really happy with Safari but I am not convinced Firefox make a big dent.
- FoxBJK 4y ago
  Wonder how long it'll take for Blink to overtake WebKit on iOS in terms of usage.
  - labcomputer 4y ago
    A few weeks, at least. By that point, nearly every user should have gotten a notification that YouTube, GMail or Google Search is 100000% better with Chrome.
    - netheril96 4y ago
      On iOS I doubt people use the browser for YouTube, GMail. Those have dedicated apps.
      - acdha 4y ago
        Why do people install those apps? Because the first time they visit that site on a new phone it tells them that everything will be better in the app, without mentioning that this is mostly true only for advertisers.
        ribosometronome 4y ago
        And essentially every time you click a link in one of those apps.
        warning26 4y ago
        Ehh...I do think the native app often gives a better experience than mWeb. Don't get me wrong, a really well-written PWA with fully cached assets is often almost at a native app experience level, but that's not usually the case with most mWeb implementations.
        acdha 4y ago
        For Gmail, perhaps — I think that’s one of the best cases for push notifications on the web — but YouTube basically comes down to whether you need large offline storage and search is a non-issue. One thing I noticed about both Google and Facebook’s apps before deleting them was that in addition to using more battery, both were slower in their apps than using the web site. That was surprising but consistent & a large part of why I ditched them.
        sfink 4y ago
        For me, YouTube comes down to the fact that if I use YouTube through Firefox for Android, and install the "Video Background Play Fix" addon, then I can go for a walk with my phone in my pocket and listen to things through YouTube without having it pause as soon as the screen turns off. Well, I believe you can do that if you pay for YouTube Extortion Edition or whatever it's called. Which I used to do, until too many ads still came through and I got pissed off. (Though note: if I got to a YouTube link through anything other than going directly to the site and searching, then it would open in the app. Which would then pause when I turned off the screen. Which was irritating. Fixed by disabling the YouTube app entirely. Life is much better now.)
        acdha 4y ago
        Ah, that works in mobile Safari without an extension.
        oblio 4y ago
        Does mobile Safari block ads?
        izacus 4y ago
        So you're saying that opening the browser market will improve data collection and reduce the need to install apps, thus strenghtening the web? Sounds amazing.
        acdha 4y ago
        I’m saying that it doesn’t do the web a service to break one monopoly while doing nothing about the more successful second monopoly. I want an open App Store but I also want fair competition in the browser market.
      - twism 4y ago
        but imagine if they didn't need the app
      - latexr 4y ago
        On iOS you can block YouTube ads if you watch through the browser. That alone makes plenty of people not bother with the app.
  - madeofpalk 4y ago
    I don't think it ever would. I think the majority of users would stay with the default browser. I think that within a more tech-aware demographic, they'll see more people use Chrome.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  Mozilla is going to have to pull off some crazy marketing genius to have any chance against the coming onslaught from Google and Microsoft. Both companies are likely willing to do just about whatever it takes to convert that chunk of previously inaccessible users… growth opportunities like that don't appear in the browser space very often.
- isodev 4y ago
  A browser from an Ad company and … I don’t know what Mozilla is these days. Doesn’t sound very reassuring. I hope they’d at least try to address memory and performance issues from their desktop counterparts. One amazing (and unmatched) feature of Safari on any platform it runs on is how smooth and battery friendly it is.
  - rezonant 4y ago
    I browse the web most of the day on my Pixel 6 Pro, and battery usage indicates Chrome has taken 3% of my battery since last full charge. I'm sure iOS has a similar battery usage monitoring feature, I'm curious what percent Safari shows for you? edit: and I'm at 13% remaining (blame TikTok), so not like I just woke up with a full charge.
    - isodev 4y ago
      The % is related to the amount of time you spent in a given app (and how much battery it consumes in that period). If you don't use your browser, then of course, you will not see battery use allocated to it.
fabrice_d 4y ago
Here's a video of the GeckoKit demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE-4b082Upw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE-4b082Upw
nashashmi 4y ago
An anti antitrust move?
astlouis44 4y ago
About time. The way to free developers from the 30% app tax on iOS is through the web. Apple has been doing their best to drag their heels in order to keep grip over revenue from in-app purchases inside their walled garden, but the writing is truly on the wall at this point. As an aside, for anyone interested in WebAssembly and the future of gaming in the browser - my team and I at Wonder Interactive are bringing the full power of native gaming to the web. We're building out a platform and suite of tools that allows developers to publish, host, share, and monetize their games directly to their players online, without any middlemen. The current focus is on the Unreal Engine (4.24, 4.27) and UE5 support which is coming later this year. Other engines will follow such as Unity, Godot, Open 3D Engine, and custom engines we can provide porting for on our paid plans. We're building out a WebGPU backend for UE5, to really enable high end desktop and console quality games in HTML5. The goal is to free developers from storefronts that charge a 30% tax on distribution. Further reading, with demos attached: https://theimmersiveweb.com/blog https://theimmersiveweb.com/blog
- galleywest200 4y ago
  For what it is worth...the rumor mill seems to believe that Apple will allow side-loading as of iOS 17. https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/14/apple-will-reportedly-allow-sideloading-apps-with-ios-17/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/14/apple-will-reportedly-allo... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-13/will-apple-allow-users-to-install-third-party-app-stores-sideload-in-europe https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-13/will-appl...
  - dsissitka 4y ago
    I wonder how difficult they're going to make things. > To help protect against unsafe apps, Apple is discussing the idea of mandating certain security requirements even if software is distributed outside its store. Such apps also may need to be verified by Apple — a process that could carry a fee. Within the App Store, Apple takes a 15% to 30% cut of revenue.
    - throwawayapples 4y ago
goodSteveramos 4y ago
Why doesnt mozilla work on a privacy protecting replacement for third party cookies? Because they are funded by google.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  Because Firefox has a tiny user base and nobody is going to follow their standards as long as other browsers do enable third party cookies. Also, there are alternatives to third party cookies for most use cases, they're just more difficult to implement. Neither Google, nor Microsoft, nor Apple seem to care much about re-engineering third party cookies. Until that changes, any attempts from Mozilla to change the standards is a waste of time and effort, really.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    Apple and Mozilla did a lot to restrict the scope of third-party cookies: isolation, partitioning etc. It's hard to change them without breaking most of the web.
  - baq 4y ago
    1% of a billion is 10 million.
- yorwba 4y ago
  You might be interested in learning about state partitioning: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Privacy/State_Partitioning https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Privacy/State_P...
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  They did. about:config -> privacy.thirdparty.isolate = true
  - throwawayapples 4y ago
    at least they made that really easy to find and do.
pcdoodle 4y ago
Finally. Can't wait to use my favorite extension UBO.
someNameIG 4y ago
What surprises me about this is that they have only started this recently. At least with Google I thought they probably had an internal build of Chrome for iOS using Blink, even just for testing.
- bgirard 4y ago
  A Mozilla engineer had a working toy build in ~2011 and it didn't take them a lot of work from what I recall when they showed me.
  - christkv 4y ago
    They already have an android version so I can't imagine it will take them long to port it.
    - bpye 4y ago
      I suspect the macOS version is more useful for that than the Android version.
- orev 4y ago
  I agree. I don’t believe for a second that Google hasn’t had a secret build of Chrome for iOS going since the iPhone came out. Firefox, I can see them having one in a somewhat working state but probably not completely ready without needing some work to polish it.
drewg123 4y ago
I'm looking forward to running "real" firefox on ios. If only so that there is another alternative if a page renders poorly in webkit.
- coldpie 4y ago
  Real Firefox is the thing I miss most when I switched from Android. Browsing the web without NoScript suuuucks.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - dcow 4y ago
    I really hope firefox retains support for real web extensions through this manifest v3 bs.
    - godshatter 4y ago
      Mozilla makes $400 million a year from Google, would they really cut off this revenue stream if Google told them to only support manifest v3 or else? Mozilla should never have gotten into a situation where 90% of their funding comes from their biggest competitor.
      - kajecounterhack 4y ago
        Sadly, they're probably headed into a worse situation, where they lose most of that 90% of their funding since their browser marketshare is at an all time low of 3-4%. Renegotiation is this year.
      - sofixa 4y ago
        Google needs Mozilla though - Firefox is the last remaining Chromium competitor Google can use as a counterargument against claims about their de facto monopoly.
amelius 4y ago
> Apple could still conceivably impose limitations on the way these browsers work God damnit it's my device.
- vehemenz 4y ago
  But it's not your decision to buy an Android phone?
  - kevingadd 4y ago
    A significant % of people who buy iPhones are not able to make a truly informed decision about this at the time. They find out way later what the actual consequences of apple or google's walled gardens are, and can only escape the garden if they have an android phone with an unlocked bootloader It's not cheap to swap ecosystems
    - tehwebguy 4y ago
      > A significant % of people who buy iPhones are not able to make a truly informed decision about this at the time I mean the devices change year to year but are people seriously finding themselves surprised by what iPhone can do but Android can't or vice versa? If we were talking about a college tuition loan or a mortgage then yeah I'd say `not able to make a truly informed decision about this at the time` but this is like the lowest stakes decision possible no? > It's not cheap to swap ecosystems Is that true? Seems like there is always a nearly free phone deal out there and your network will probably migrate everything for you anyway.
      - saurik 4y ago
        FWIW, in my case, I would also lose access to all of the books, music, movies, and--very notably--apps that I have purchased over the years.
        scarface74 4y ago
        Music you purchased has been DRM free since 2008. Most of the studios participate in MoviesAnywhere meaning a movie purchased on iTunes automatically shows up in your Amazon, Google, Vudu, etc library. How many apps that you purchased that have an Android equivalent aren’t based on cross platform subscriptions?
LarryMullins 4y ago
I look forward to seeing if any of the dire predictions from Apple fanboys who once vehemently opposed this sort of thing will come true. Will confused proverbial grandmothers get tricked into using firefox and then pwned by scammers? Will everybody abandon Safari and give Google a total browser monopoly? Guess we'll find out!
- snailmailman 4y ago
  My “confused proverbial grandmother” has already been tricked away from using safari. She does all of her web browsing through the Google app. Not the Google Chrome app. The Google app. :facepalm: I’ve tried to explain why this isn’t necessary but as far as she knows, google is the internet. And I cannot say anything to convince her otherwise. After all, every search in safari will re-advertise to her “hey you should be doing this in the google app” and she will click the button without even thinking.
  - twobitshifter 4y ago
    My wife seems to only use the Google app as well. The G app has a confusing multiple back button design. The normal safari back button takes you back to Google homepage and the other back button iPad the bottom in your history. Whenever she shows me something in the Google App I always pick the wrong one.
  - echelon 4y ago
    I'd like to take a moment to appreciate how we're afraid of which search interface Grandma uses. A hundred years ago, we'd be worried about getting knifed by strangers, bear maulings, starving to death, being homeless, eating food laced with botulism and lead, influenza, tuberculosis, diphtheria ... Things are pretty good.
    - ultrarunner 4y ago
      To be fair, I think the origin of the worry may be that the elderly and less technically inclined are prone to being taken advantage of (rightly or wrongly). You're very correct that things are better than ever, as it were, but vulnerability seems to have endured in some ways.
JohnDeHope 4y ago
Technical question: What would a third party browser rendering engine allow, that using the safari renderer doesn't? I figure if you make a browser by just wrapping the safari renderer then you can make it do whatever you want it to. Why does the renderer make such that big of a difference?
- creatonez 4y ago
  Firefox addons on iOS, ported directly from the desktop versions with no modifications, will be possible. Gecko has a lot of under-the-hood knobs and dials that simply don't exist in Webkit, but are needed by the addon ecosystem.
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    That would be great! Is it currently available on FF for Android?
    - Mogzol 4y ago
      Yes, you can run standard desktop Firefox extensions on FF for Android. There was a whitelist of extensions Mozilla allowed you to install though, I'm not sure if that still exists on the most recent versions.
      - toastal 4y ago
        The hoops are far too technical, finicky, and poorly documented for the average user to curate their own add-on list for Fx. It's a real shame since I think a lot of it is to make sure the add-on's UI is responsive, but many of most used add-ons on desktop have no UI to speak of (like redirecting AMP links, skipping short links, etc.).
    - gtk40 4y ago
      You can use uBlock Origin on Firefox for Android. The biggest feature I miss when I switched to iOS, although I've found Orion beta also has this feature and is decent.
WirelessGigabit 4y ago
Safari, especially on iOS is the new IE. What I really like to see next to this is the requirement that when I tap a link in an app that it opens in the default browser. Too many apps, such as Reddit open with the WebView of Safari, which sucks. I'm not signed in there, it doesn't add to my history, and most importantly, they get to inject a whole bunch of tracks that I don't want. See [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32514793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32514793
- tristan957 4y ago
  Doesn't Android open the Chrome web view too? On F-Droid I think you can get a Bromite web view, but I'm not sure how these web views work, and if I can get a Firefox one.
  - Kwpolska 4y ago
    When you open a link in an app, you're often directed to a Custom Tab (you can recognise them by the menu in the upper right corner being the browser's). Those are handled by your default browser. I'm using Firefox Focus in that capacity and it works great.
- WirelessGigabit 4y ago
  -4? Why? Where am I wrong?
NotYourLawyer 4y ago
Would love to have real Firefox on iPhone. I hope Chrome gets banned from the App Store though.
- vhanda 4y ago
  Could you please elaborate why you hope 'Chrome gets banned'? I understand not being fond of the its ubiquity, especially with many Websites now requiring Chrome. And Google is allegedly abusing their dominant position. But banning it? Why?
  - NotYourLawyer 4y ago
    Browser monoculture = shitty internet future.
    - lxgr 4y ago
      And the solution to that is (almost certainly illegal, under the new regulations) market manipulation by a direct competitor?
      - NotYourLawyer 4y ago
        Hey I’m just dreaming here, not like offering legal advice.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      So the solution to a browser monoculture is to... approve fewer browsers? Seems backwards to me.
      - NotYourLawyer 4y ago
        Yes, that’s right. Not fewer at random though.
spandrew 4y ago
Cross browser compatibility is already such a slog. This is going to make that much worse. Maybe that's OK given WebKit's firm grip on things. I've been using Arc browser since December and it's... strange? But good. Lots of interesting ideas.
- malermeister 4y ago
  Why would that make it worse? It's not like they would use new rendering engines, they'd just use the same ones they're already using on desktop. You should make sure your site is compatible with those engines anyways.
  - nicce 4y ago
    It depends. Power efficiency on Safari with iOS is quite optimized and many features are integrated to iOS. E.g. some authentication workflows to Apple services.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      Why does that matter, though? Web developers don't assume the entire world is "Safari on iOS". They have to handle all the various desktop browsers, as well as everything that runs on Android. If it's not possible to do a particular Apple-specific authentication workflow in Firefox on iOS, then users will fall back to whatever else is already implemented for other platforms. If users don't like how Firefox or Chrome on iOS drain their battery, then they'll stop using them and go back to Safari. Giving people more choice doesn't hurt.
      - nicce 4y ago
        > Why does that matter, though? Web developers don't assume the entire world is "Safari on iOS". They have to handle all the various desktop browsers, as well as everything that runs on Android. My comment might have been in wrong place, but the point was that it is difficult to be competitive with Firefox or Chrome on iOS if Safari integrates better on Apple systems. And what if implementing these impacts other platforms.
rektide 4y ago
Brilliant move. Show what is possible. Let individual developers download the source & build themselves, and run it. Make it real, make the only obstruction a legal one, one that is increasingly full of holes as a small exterior/outside hobbyist community bypasses the longstanding trenchancy Apple has dug, has moated themselves in with. Give people that first whiff of freedom. And if someday hopefully some of the anti-trust anti-competitive legal moats do get torn down, Google will be ready.
- EMIRELADERO 4y ago
  This has already happened. The walls have already been torn down. The EU's Digital Markets Act has made it mandatory for Apple to implement those changes by Q1 2024
  - voakbasda 4y ago
    Anyone care to speculate as to whether Apple will take that opportunity to permit users in other regions that same liberty? Personally, I would not bet on that outcome without similar legislation forcing the issue.
    - EMIRELADERO 4y ago
      They probably will. Google "Brussels Effect"
      - voakbasda 4y ago
        I can see how that applies for hardware manufacturers that don't want to build multiple versions of their products; however, software can easily be region locked using a simple flag without the same economic consequences.
        sofixa 4y ago
        The issue with that is the resulting negative PR. And of course other countries are taking notes and sometimes use EU regulations for inspiration.
shmerl 4y ago
Good. But Apple shouldn't get away with just allowing it. They should pay for violating competition law for years. Otherwise this law is a joke.
- the_solenoid 4y ago
  I see this argument all the time - how is it anti competitive if you have to buy a device from apple to use the apps? Its not like anyone can just make an iphone, it's not like the PC market, it's not even like the macOS market. If people (consumers) in general gave a rats ass about it they would pick an alternative. It's not even on their radar. Price is 95% of why androids sold at all, and they had all the time in the world to make something better. I personally love the idea, but professionally hate it. IT shops chose apple for it being locked down, and burdening 3rd parties with extra support costs if the platform is wide open is a crappy thing to do.
  - realusername 4y ago
    The anticompetitive aspect is obvious, right now Safari development picked up full steam again after years of being half abandoned. Because of regulations, they can't just afford to rely on the browser monopoly anymore.
scottlamb 4y ago
> The correlated activity from Google and Mozilla could suggest that they're expecting Apple to drop its restrictions on third-party browser engines in the near future, or the companies could simply be hedging their bets. Ugh, imagine being an engineer on the project if it's the latter. At a company strategy level, it may be wise to put resources into having this ready to go. [1] At an individual level, putting tons of effort into something like this with less than average hopes of launching seems extremely demotivating (and doesn't look so hot for "impact" in perf either). I wonder how much effort it is combine the iOS UI layer and the non-iOS blink layer. I'm terrible at estimating effort even for my own projects so it's hard to speculate. [1] A bit less wise to do speculative projects while simultaneously laying off 12,000 people with no warning.
- tgv 4y ago
  > Ugh, imagine being an engineer on the project if it's the latter. OTOH, no users means no bugs.
  - Birkeholm 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - sigmoid10 4y ago
    Yeah. This seems like a dream job for mediocre developers who are just at google for the paycheck and the creds. And considering the layoffs, they don't seem to have a shortage of those.
    - saagarjha 4y ago
      I’d love to work on this, and I certainly hope I’m not mediocre :P Porting projects are always fun.
aidenn0 4y ago
It seems that the way iOS implements W^X protection would prevent a performant JS JIT from being created. It will be interesting to see if/how this is worked around.
- kccqzy 4y ago
  Regulations would force Apple to provide the same entitlements it uses to JIT code in Safari to other browsers.
- saagarjha 4y ago
  W^X (with permission flipping) is fine for JIT, the problem is that Apple doesn’t really allow these kinds of JITs on the App Store.
  - fomine3 4y ago
    It seems that pthread_jit_write_protect_np isn't public on iOS so perhaps JIT can't be implemented regardless of AppStore
    - saagarjha 4y ago
      The implementation of that is not actually very difficult to do yourself (though I wouldn’t recommend it). The problem is you can’t actually flip the mask to execute unless you have permission to JIT which Apple currently doesn’t provide to third party apps.
- mmis1000 4y ago
  Basically every JIT javascript engine now use W^X protection by default. So it is probably a non-issue. I think the problem is 'does apple even allow you to toggle the w and x bit?'.
fabrice_d 4y ago
Here's a demo of the Gecko port from some years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE-4b082Upw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE-4b082Upw Most of the code needed is still in Gecko's repo at https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/widget/uikit https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/widget/uikit but probably doesn't build anymore. Would not be surprising if someone had an up to date branch in a private tree somewhere though...
chadlavi 4y ago
oh good I can't wait to have to support more mobile browsers, great
katscradle_1989 4y ago
The number of people (even in the field) that don't know Chrome on iOS isn't actually chrome is staggeringly high. Maybe this will change that, lol.
XorNot 4y ago
I am cheering on Mozilla doing this. They are the only bastion of a free internet left: we need a browser option, a good option, which isn't beholden to advertising dollars at every turn.
smm11 4y ago
Doesn't matter. Google is done. Mozilla's thing will be trying to out-race Apple on Privacy. Mozilla should stick with WebKit, only allow more granular control.
summerlight 4y ago
I don't know any details on this project, but what I read from space between lines is that this could be a handy tool to have a better position on the annual negotiations of default search engine setup. If you can have just a 5% discount from Apple by having this choice, the whole engineering cost would be immediately paid off.
tormeh 4y ago
Honestly I think this is bad. We'll end up with Blink everywhere.
- mirthflat83 4y ago
  Yep. We will end up with a singular “standard” set up by Google.
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    From the perspective of users or developers, what's bad about this? I mean, we generally take it as axiomatic that it must be bad, but the dream of anybody being able to come along and make a Web browser is long dead.
    - petesergeant 4y ago
      That the network effects of everything only being tested on Chrome will mean that for some sites you have to use (eg Government, e-commerce you can’t do without), you’ll no longer have a choice of browser, and that that dominant position will be maintained even if Chrome starts to really suck, or Google decide to lean in to “you need a trackable Google account to use this”. Google releases Chrome in order to show you ads.
      - emodendroket 4y ago
        I am not 100% convinced that the existence of Safari exclusively on Apple platforms is all that effective at preventing this -- for instance, if you don't particularly care about mobile users you're pretty much already living in this world today.
        petesergeant 4y ago
        > if you don't particularly care about mobile users I think this is a small share
pipeline_peak 4y ago
I’m optimistic about Google. I think SJZilla is gonna have to make a performant browser first.
- koshergweilo 4y ago
  What is SJZilla
  - jocaal 4y ago
    Some combination of social justice and mozilla
TheRealPomax 4y ago
It'd be cool if the Android version of Firefox got some UI love to bring it back to where it was before they force-updated folks to the "phone only" UI.
- joenathanone 4y ago
  I fond it to be pretty buggy, often the address bar will disappear and not come back when scrolling. Also they really need to add pull to refresh.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    Pull to refresh is working for me both on nightly and release. What is not working for you?
    - superfrank 4y ago
      On Android? I just opened FF on my phone (v109.2.0) and pull to refresh does not work
      - cpeterso 4y ago
        Pull to refresh is currently only enabled in Firefox Nightly on Android. There are still some open bugs to be fixed related to pull to refresh gesture breaking some websites.
        cycomanic 4y ago
        Mmh, ok I could have sworn is was working for me on normal Firefox as well. Thanks for the correction.
  - pedrogpimenta 4y ago
    Pull to refresh was one of the reasons I moved to Firefox on Android. I hate it. I can't count how many times I just wanted to scroll up and ended up refreshing the page.
fleddr 4y ago
When you pay close attention to things like web standards, one would have noticed how during the last 2 years the Webkit team seems to have woken up from a decade-long hibernation. They're actually releasing things, and in a pretty decent pace. As the article implies, very likely due to regulatory pressure building up. And that tells you everything you need to know about Apple's stance on the web: they hate it, as they hate anything that is interoperable and uncontrollable. They'll starve the web to the maximum they can get away with and now that maximum is reducing, hopefully.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  safari has been implementing new spec faster than firefox in some cases! they’ve really gotten their act together
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    A lot of the specs firefox hasn't added are of questionable value like WebUSB which exists to make chromebooks less useless.
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    It's a different thing. Apple doesn't care about implementing them whereas Mozilla wants to strangle Google with their bare hands and would rather die before they implement them out of principle.
  - fleddr 4y ago
    That's what I said, Webkit has recently sped up their development, for all the wrong reasons. As for Firefox, as much as I sentimentally align with it and still use it, it's a dead browser. I have access to some analytics of websites with a billion+ views/year and it doesn't even show up. It has like 0.5% market share on mobile. They're irrelevant in this iteration of the browser wars.
vbezhenar 4y ago
If Safari weren't shoehorned through iOS user throats, webkit would cease to exist. Right now web developers are forced to support webkit because they can't tell iOS users to install Chrome for better experience. If they could, they would drop webkit and provide blink-only experience. Many websites do that to Firefox nowadays. And if webkit can't render website, Apple would replace it with blink. So Safari would become another Chromium reskin and Web would finally settle on a single engine.
- kdmccormick 4y ago
  > Web would finally settle on a single engine. You say that like it's a desirable thing? Being a spec with multiple implementations is a feature of a good platform, not a bug. It pushes the Web towards consensus-driven evolution rather than design by one actor (in the past, Microsoft; now, Google).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - cageface 4y ago
    If Apple wants to position WebKit as an important independent implementation of web standards it needs to run on more than just Apple hardware. I shouldn’t have to own a Mac an an iPhone to test my code on Safari.
    - pertymcpert 4y ago
      Why? All that matters is user count. Who says it needs to be cross platform?
  - vbezhenar 4y ago
    I have no idea if it's a good or bad thing. Having single engine for a web developer is a good thing. Having no competition is a bad thing. Having engine controlled by a greedy ad-driven corporation is a bad thing. Blink is open source and theoretically could be forked by anyone, so that's a good thing. Blink is the most advanced engine, so that's a good thing. It's better than IE situation, that's for sure.
boywitharupee 4y ago
If anyone's interested in following progress of or building this: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1411704 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=141170...
RedComet 4y ago
Hopefully Mozilla takes security seriously with mobile Firefox, finally. Otherwise Apple will appear justified in their regulations. The Android version of Firefox doesn't even support IsolatedProcess yet.
- thinknubpad 4y ago
  The Android version of Firefox does support NoScript and ad blocker extensions, though. Releasing it on iOS would be huge. No more almost-functional Safari ad blockers with multiple pricing tiers! No more all-or-nothing JavaScript toggle button! Honestly, the only thing keeping me from iOS is its inability to run a browser with a decent extensions ecosystem.
the_duke 4y ago
There is some important information missing: recent EU legislation ( Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act , aka DMA and DSA) will force the big providers to open up their platforms. That includes chat service interoperability, allowing app side loading and alternative app stores, .... and a mandate to not restrict any significant functionality to first party only solutions, like JITs on iOS. So this will become reality soon, at least in the EU. The interesting thing will be if Apple opens up globally, or if they restrict this regionally. ps: companies will definitely delay and fight opening up however they can, but the regulation at least avoids many problems that GDPR had and should be easier to enforce.
- vxNsr 4y ago
  Can anyone explain how chat interoperability could work while maintaining meaningful encryption?
  - Kbelicius 4y ago
    I don't know but at least now will find out.
  - weberer 4y ago
    You send your friend your public key. He sends you his public key. You can now chat over any protocol as long as you encrypt the payload using your keys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography
    - vxNsr 4y ago
      How does this for people who aren’t security experts? Most people will at some point lose their private key.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    > meaningful encryption I don't think that was table stakes for SMS, iMessage or RCS. "Encryption", with the caveat that all first-world law enforcement can peek inside if they want, is not meaningful. Sorry.
floatinglotus 4y ago
I don’t want alternate browsers for one small device.
- palata 4y ago
  I do.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
josephcsible 4y ago
As much as I hate Apple's walled garden, I have to admit that the inability to do this is the only thing stopping Google from having complete dominance in the Web browser space.
- edude03 4y ago
  Yeah I’m really worried it’s going to lead to, or at least encourage a browser monoculture like back in the IE days. I idly wonder if being the default will cement safari as the most popular browser on iOS though.
- spartanatreyu 4y ago
  This is a false dilemma. The choice isn't Apple's walled garden OR Google's web dominance. The choice is: Apple makes a broken browser with no available substitutes to make more money off the app store, OR they will need to actually invest in their browser and compete with Google. The EU has wisely decided that Apple forcing people to use a broken browser is anti-consumer. So now, Apple will need to compete in the browser space as well. It's amazing how fast Apple has started to fix it's many problems in Safari all of a sudden, <sarcasm>I wonder what the reason could be...</sarcasm>
  - acdha 4y ago
    You’re greatly overstating the problem of using Safari. Google’s devrel team has astroturfed a lot about that but if you’re the average working web developer it’s been easy to support all of the evergreen browsers for years - the big win was dropping IE11 support — and you’ll see a significant performance or battery life win by dropping Chrome, which the average user will appreciate a lot more than not having WebMIDI or sites nagging them to enable push notifications. The mistake here is seeing only one company abusing its market position when it’s really two. While I don’t like how Apple handled this — Firefox deserved better — it’s also the case that Google used their dominant positions in search, email, maps, and video to promote Chrome. I’d be a lot more comfortable allowing Chrome on iOS if it was accompanied by regulatory action banning that and requiring Google to do real QA on other browsers and not use proprietary Chrome APIs on their production sites, which held back Firefox and Safari performance on YouTube for ages because they were using the web components standard instead.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
Two engines down from three. One to go until the next IE.
petarb 4y ago
I assume this might be available on the alternative app stores as a result of EUs rulings on anti-trust?
leoc 4y ago
The arrival of third-party app stores will make it possible to run GPLed apps on non-jailbroken iPhones, right?
- oneplane 4y ago
  I don't think the license matters at all, but you may not be able to upload something you can't prove ownership of, and there is still the notary requirement to run, it only changes the distribution channel after all. What you could maybe do is do reproducible builds, staple the notarised x509 on it afterwards. Then you can 'prove' it is the same app, but still have the signed version in distribution.
- noirscape 4y ago
  Most likely, yes. The entire iOS GPL ban to my understanding only exists due to a combination of an iOS App Store policy that's weirdly enforced (who is surprised...) and the fact that Apple's own code signer is required to be able to distribute an iOS app, and that one is proprietary because Apple, which means you can't use other people's GPL libraries in your apps.
  - madeofpalk 4y ago
    It's highly likely that apps will still required to be signed by Apple, even if distributed outside the Apple App Store, just like Gatekeeper on the Mac.
- saagarjha 4y ago
  You can do this already.
  - leoc 4y ago
    It does looks as if the situation is a lot more complex than I thought I remembered. Apparently the uncertainties seem to affect GPLv2 code more?
HNAbusesUsers 4y ago
I once wanted this. Now I realize that this will complete Chrome's takeover of the Web, and that sucks.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  How will enabling alternative browsers from Safari's takeover of Apple-based products, somehow bring the end of other browsers elsewhere? If anything this helps prevent that and since Chromium is open source, app creators can distribute their own browsers if so desired. Lots of people like to complain about the lack of having 100 different browsers to choose from with different backend engines, but if it is so easy then feel free to get started on it.
  - HNAbusesUsers 4y ago
    You're not thinking it through. Take a look at browser dominance on the desktop: https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/browser-market-share https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/browser-market-share Some sources have it even more skewed. And when you throw in Edge, it's definitely more skewed. "If anything this helps prevent that" How? "Lots of people like to complain about the lack of having 100 different browsers" I've never heard one of them. Regardless, what's your point?
- warning26 4y ago
  I think that says more about how awful Safari is than anything else. I personally hate Google's anticompetitive nonsense, but I hate Safari's glitchy rendering even more.
YPPH 4y ago
I am happy with Apple keeping WebKit as the only option. Although it might seem counterintuitive, it is good for competition. If we aren't there already, we are at a real risk of Blink having a complete monopoly like IE had in the early 2000s. It's good that web developers need to think about other browsers and not just target Chrome.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  Monopolization of WebKit on iOS does not cause competition. You are deluded.
zefei 4y ago
Some comments seem to be optimistic about the potential change from Apple. But once Apple relax webkit requirement from app store, it will mean all "do not track" cookie enforcement would be easily worked around.
- raro11 4y ago
  What do you mean?
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    How would Apple enforce "do not track" for non-webkit implementations? Chrome and Firefox might certainly implement it into their browsers, but can we expect Facebook, for instance, to do it in their in-app browsers?
    - raro11 4y ago
      Did not think about in-app browsers. Good point
- smoldesu 4y ago
  The default can still be Safari, not "all" enforcement will be worked around. We simply can't trust Apple to do the right thing without supervision, though. As we've seen with the App Store, Apple uses these positions of de-facto authority to disempower the user and reinforce their own profit margins. We let them fly by the seat of their pants for too long, regulation is long overdue for this business (and app distribution sector as a whole). If you want to opt-in to Apple's protective blanket, do so. It's not an excuse to weld over the safety hatch for the rest of us.
  - zefei 4y ago
    The default _browser_ will mostly be Safari. But the moment webkit requirement is relaxed, all in-app browsers for Facebook, TikTok, Youtube, Instagram, etc will be replaced with their own forks without any respect for "do not track". They will become the second most used browsers on iPhone, not Firefox or Chrome.
antman 4y ago
Let's hope they also add extensions. In the meantime let's hope mozilla readds extensions in android in a meaningful way which might stop its downward spiral
lynx23 4y ago
Oh yeah, bye bye Accessibility! Firefox has become mostly unusable under Windows if you are using a screen reader, in the past 2 years. And Android took almost a decade to catch up to what Apple did with iOS. So I am guessing, this new browser will need at least 5 years to be looked at by blind users :-)
- ChickenNugger 4y ago
  This is one thing that the big dogs, Microsoft, and Apple have been good at since the early '90s. For all their faults, they take accessibility seriously. I know a blind guy who uses iPhones exclusively. How he manages to understand speech that fast is beyond me, but dedicating resources to accessibility when it's such a tiny market share is nice of them. But now that I think about it, are they being mandated under ADA? I honestly don't know.
  - lynx23 4y ago
    No, they are not being mandated. It basically boils down to Jobs declaring that accessibility is an exceiption to ROI. IOW, realising its a kind of social responsibility. Besides, Microsoft took a long time to provide something by default, they let other third parties sell screen readers for big money to poor people. Apple always did both built-in, the API and the screen reader (frontend). Microsoft created Narrator, their own front-end, just a few years ago.
    - ChickenNugger 4y ago
      My memories of Windows' screen reader telling me "MY ROFLCOPTER GOES SOI SOI SOI SOI SOI" when I was a teen may have exaggerated Microsoft's efforts. But at least it was there.
      - idonotknowwhy 4y ago
        Same. Microsoft SAM was fun in high school. Foreground window untitled notepad Editible text soi soi soi soi soi
sandGorgon 4y ago
very interesting times. a few months back, i started contributing to a mobile browser app (OPEN-SOURCE) that has an integrated wallet. I think browsers are going to have many more usecases than just browsing the web. Payments is going to be a key enabler - web2 or web3. https://github.com/wootzapp/wootz-browser https://github.com/wootzapp/wootz-browser
- ChickenNugger 4y ago
  I think for this to catch on, they're going to have to make a real business unit out of it. People are accustomed to their money in the bank being managed by humans that they can call. A wallet on one browser on one device isn't going to cut it for the layman.
  - sandGorgon 4y ago
    not focusing on money. mostly NFT and web3 usecases.
- return_to_monke 4y ago
  > no extensions why is that a feature and not a drawback?
  - sandGorgon 4y ago
    target demographic. its not meant for you. its meant for mobile-only, non-tech-savvy people. Think Asia or even the American Midwest. Not for the HN crowd TBH.
atarian 4y ago
There is no way Apple is going to allow for this.
- Kelteseth 4y ago
  They must, see https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_6423 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_...
  - amelius 4y ago
    They can still bully others by e.g. putting memory restrictions on other browsers.
shultays 4y ago
Is Apple updating their policy or what? What is the point of this if it is not going to be released
- gabelschlager 4y ago
  Due to upcoming EU regulations they most likely have to update their policy.
jraph 4y ago
If only a real Firefox for iOS 9.3 was released. It would make the unused iPad 2 I retrieved way more useful than it is now. That could be the thing that would motivate me to create an Apple account to download it. And, I bet, would reduce e-waste by a lot by allowing older iThings Apple is not willing to support anymore to be useful again.
radiKal07 4y ago
As they should. Great stuff - even though I will keep using Safari, I love seeing more options
aryeshalev 4y ago
Push Notifications PWA
- twism 4y ago
  this is the main if not singular reason why apple prevents a standards compliant browser in their app store.
MariaElisabeth8 4y ago
[dead]
elnatro 4y ago
Do we know if Apple have a calendar for allowing different web browser engines in iOS?
- stefandesu 4y ago
  Nope, but if Google and Mozilla are putting this many resources into it, they might know more than we do, and I could imagine this coming with iOS 17 in September.
- lopis 4y ago
  The EU has passed a law forcing Apple to open up, threatening fines up to 20% of their revenue [0]. They have until (the end of?) 2024 to follow up. [0] https://techhq.com/2022/12/apple-bows-to-eu-demands-with-plans-to-open-up-its-app-store-by-2024/ https://techhq.com/2022/12/apple-bows-to-eu-demands-with-pla...
bratwurst3000 4y ago
Finally!!! Full firefox is the step that my iphone needs to be barely usable
simonebrunozzi 4y ago
I am deeply interested in Orion [0], the browser developed by the team behind Kagi search. It is not widely used, but it's quite impressive. I feel this is the time for a better browser for the masses. I am not sure Google + Mozilla are the right actors to bring it alive. [0]: https://browser.kagi.com/ https://browser.kagi.com/
- dotancohen 4y ago
  The minute that browser has a Linux build I'm going to try to make it my default browser. I have not been this excited for an unreleased software package since KSP 2.
jcpham2 4y ago
Unpopular opinion: I hate Safari, it's slow, and I refuse to use for anything.

791 points by Liriel 4y ago

wdb 4y ago

Sounds more like a switch of domination at the iOS platform from Webkit to Chromium. Personally, I am really happy with Safari but I am not convinced Firefox make a big dent.

FoxBJK 4y ago
Wonder how long it'll take for Blink to overtake WebKit on iOS in terms of usage.
- labcomputer 4y ago
  A few weeks, at least. By that point, nearly every user should have gotten a notification that YouTube, GMail or Google Search is 100000% better with Chrome.
  - netheril96 4y ago
    On iOS I doubt people use the browser for YouTube, GMail. Those have dedicated apps.
    - acdha 4y ago
      Why do people install those apps? Because the first time they visit that site on a new phone it tells them that everything will be better in the app, without mentioning that this is mostly true only for advertisers.
      - ribosometronome 4y ago
        And essentially every time you click a link in one of those apps.
      - warning26 4y ago
        Ehh...I do think the native app often gives a better experience than mWeb. Don't get me wrong, a really well-written PWA with fully cached assets is often almost at a native app experience level, but that's not usually the case with most mWeb implementations.
        acdha 4y ago
        For Gmail, perhaps — I think that’s one of the best cases for push notifications on the web — but YouTube basically comes down to whether you need large offline storage and search is a non-issue. One thing I noticed about both Google and Facebook’s apps before deleting them was that in addition to using more battery, both were slower in their apps than using the web site. That was surprising but consistent & a large part of why I ditched them.
        sfink 4y ago
        For me, YouTube comes down to the fact that if I use YouTube through Firefox for Android, and install the "Video Background Play Fix" addon, then I can go for a walk with my phone in my pocket and listen to things through YouTube without having it pause as soon as the screen turns off. Well, I believe you can do that if you pay for YouTube Extortion Edition or whatever it's called. Which I used to do, until too many ads still came through and I got pissed off. (Though note: if I got to a YouTube link through anything other than going directly to the site and searching, then it would open in the app. Which would then pause when I turned off the screen. Which was irritating. Fixed by disabling the YouTube app entirely. Life is much better now.)
        acdha 4y ago
        Ah, that works in mobile Safari without an extension.
        oblio 4y ago
        Does mobile Safari block ads?
      - izacus 4y ago
        So you're saying that opening the browser market will improve data collection and reduce the need to install apps, thus strenghtening the web? Sounds amazing.
        acdha 4y ago
        I’m saying that it doesn’t do the web a service to break one monopoly while doing nothing about the more successful second monopoly. I want an open App Store but I also want fair competition in the browser market.
    - twism 4y ago
      but imagine if they didn't need the app
    - latexr 4y ago
      On iOS you can block YouTube ads if you watch through the browser. That alone makes plenty of people not bother with the app.
- madeofpalk 4y ago
  I don't think it ever would. I think the majority of users would stay with the default browser. I think that within a more tech-aware demographic, they'll see more people use Chrome.
kitsunesoba 4y ago
Mozilla is going to have to pull off some crazy marketing genius to have any chance against the coming onslaught from Google and Microsoft. Both companies are likely willing to do just about whatever it takes to convert that chunk of previously inaccessible users… growth opportunities like that don't appear in the browser space very often.
isodev 4y ago
A browser from an Ad company and … I don’t know what Mozilla is these days. Doesn’t sound very reassuring. I hope they’d at least try to address memory and performance issues from their desktop counterparts. One amazing (and unmatched) feature of Safari on any platform it runs on is how smooth and battery friendly it is.
- rezonant 4y ago
  I browse the web most of the day on my Pixel 6 Pro, and battery usage indicates Chrome has taken 3% of my battery since last full charge. I'm sure iOS has a similar battery usage monitoring feature, I'm curious what percent Safari shows for you? edit: and I'm at 13% remaining (blame TikTok), so not like I just woke up with a full charge.
  - isodev 4y ago
    The % is related to the amount of time you spent in a given app (and how much battery it consumes in that period). If you don't use your browser, then of course, you will not see battery use allocated to it.

fabrice_d 4y ago

Here's a video of the GeckoKit demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE-4b082Upw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE-4b082Upw

nashashmi 4y ago

An anti antitrust move?

astlouis44 4y ago

About time. The way to free developers from the 30% app tax on iOS is through the web. Apple has been doing their best to drag their heels in order to keep grip over revenue from in-app purchases inside their walled garden, but the writing is truly on the wall at this point. As an aside, for anyone interested in WebAssembly and the future of gaming in the browser - my team and I at Wonder Interactive are bringing the full power of native gaming to the web. We're building out a platform and suite of tools that allows developers to publish, host, share, and monetize their games directly to their players online, without any middlemen. The current focus is on the Unreal Engine (4.24, 4.27) and UE5 support which is coming later this year. Other engines will follow such as Unity, Godot, Open 3D Engine, and custom engines we can provide porting for on our paid plans. We're building out a WebGPU backend for UE5, to really enable high end desktop and console quality games in HTML5. The goal is to free developers from storefronts that charge a 30% tax on distribution. Further reading, with demos attached: https://theimmersiveweb.com/blog https://theimmersiveweb.com/blog

galleywest200 4y ago
For what it is worth...the rumor mill seems to believe that Apple will allow side-loading as of iOS 17. https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/14/apple-will-reportedly-allow-sideloading-apps-with-ios-17/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/14/apple-will-reportedly-allo... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-13/will-apple-allow-users-to-install-third-party-app-stores-sideload-in-europe https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-13/will-appl...
- dsissitka 4y ago
  I wonder how difficult they're going to make things. > To help protect against unsafe apps, Apple is discussing the idea of mandating certain security requirements even if software is distributed outside its store. Such apps also may need to be verified by Apple — a process that could carry a fee. Within the App Store, Apple takes a 15% to 30% cut of revenue.
  - throwawayapples 4y ago

goodSteveramos 4y ago

Why doesnt mozilla work on a privacy protecting replacement for third party cookies? Because they are funded by google.

jeroenhd 4y ago
Because Firefox has a tiny user base and nobody is going to follow their standards as long as other browsers do enable third party cookies. Also, there are alternatives to third party cookies for most use cases, they're just more difficult to implement. Neither Google, nor Microsoft, nor Apple seem to care much about re-engineering third party cookies. Until that changes, any attempts from Mozilla to change the standards is a waste of time and effort, really.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  Apple and Mozilla did a lot to restrict the scope of third-party cookies: isolation, partitioning etc. It's hard to change them without breaking most of the web.
- baq 4y ago
  1% of a billion is 10 million.
yorwba 4y ago
You might be interested in learning about state partitioning: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Privacy/State_Partitioning https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Privacy/State_P...
LarryMullins 4y ago
They did. about:config -> privacy.thirdparty.isolate = true
- throwawayapples 4y ago
  at least they made that really easy to find and do.

pcdoodle 4y ago

Finally. Can't wait to use my favorite extension UBO.

someNameIG 4y ago

What surprises me about this is that they have only started this recently. At least with Google I thought they probably had an internal build of Chrome for iOS using Blink, even just for testing.

bgirard 4y ago
A Mozilla engineer had a working toy build in ~2011 and it didn't take them a lot of work from what I recall when they showed me.
- christkv 4y ago
  They already have an android version so I can't imagine it will take them long to port it.
  - bpye 4y ago
    I suspect the macOS version is more useful for that than the Android version.
orev 4y ago
I agree. I don’t believe for a second that Google hasn’t had a secret build of Chrome for iOS going since the iPhone came out. Firefox, I can see them having one in a somewhat working state but probably not completely ready without needing some work to polish it.

drewg123 4y ago

I'm looking forward to running "real" firefox on ios. If only so that there is another alternative if a page renders poorly in webkit.

coldpie 4y ago
Real Firefox is the thing I miss most when I switched from Android. Browsing the web without NoScript suuuucks.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dcow 4y ago
  I really hope firefox retains support for real web extensions through this manifest v3 bs.
  - godshatter 4y ago
    Mozilla makes $400 million a year from Google, would they really cut off this revenue stream if Google told them to only support manifest v3 or else? Mozilla should never have gotten into a situation where 90% of their funding comes from their biggest competitor.
    - kajecounterhack 4y ago
      Sadly, they're probably headed into a worse situation, where they lose most of that 90% of their funding since their browser marketshare is at an all time low of 3-4%. Renegotiation is this year.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      Google needs Mozilla though - Firefox is the last remaining Chromium competitor Google can use as a counterargument against claims about their de facto monopoly.

amelius 4y ago

> Apple could still conceivably impose limitations on the way these browsers work God damnit it's my device.

vehemenz 4y ago
But it's not your decision to buy an Android phone?
- kevingadd 4y ago
  A significant % of people who buy iPhones are not able to make a truly informed decision about this at the time. They find out way later what the actual consequences of apple or google's walled gardens are, and can only escape the garden if they have an android phone with an unlocked bootloader It's not cheap to swap ecosystems
  - tehwebguy 4y ago
    > A significant % of people who buy iPhones are not able to make a truly informed decision about this at the time I mean the devices change year to year but are people seriously finding themselves surprised by what iPhone can do but Android can't or vice versa? If we were talking about a college tuition loan or a mortgage then yeah I'd say `not able to make a truly informed decision about this at the time` but this is like the lowest stakes decision possible no? > It's not cheap to swap ecosystems Is that true? Seems like there is always a nearly free phone deal out there and your network will probably migrate everything for you anyway.
    - saurik 4y ago
      FWIW, in my case, I would also lose access to all of the books, music, movies, and--very notably--apps that I have purchased over the years.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        Music you purchased has been DRM free since 2008. Most of the studios participate in MoviesAnywhere meaning a movie purchased on iTunes automatically shows up in your Amazon, Google, Vudu, etc library. How many apps that you purchased that have an Android equivalent aren’t based on cross platform subscriptions?

LarryMullins 4y ago

I look forward to seeing if any of the dire predictions from Apple fanboys who once vehemently opposed this sort of thing will come true. Will confused proverbial grandmothers get tricked into using firefox and then pwned by scammers? Will everybody abandon Safari and give Google a total browser monopoly? Guess we'll find out!

snailmailman 4y ago
My “confused proverbial grandmother” has already been tricked away from using safari. She does all of her web browsing through the Google app. Not the Google Chrome app. The Google app. :facepalm: I’ve tried to explain why this isn’t necessary but as far as she knows, google is the internet. And I cannot say anything to convince her otherwise. After all, every search in safari will re-advertise to her “hey you should be doing this in the google app” and she will click the button without even thinking.
- twobitshifter 4y ago
  My wife seems to only use the Google app as well. The G app has a confusing multiple back button design. The normal safari back button takes you back to Google homepage and the other back button iPad the bottom in your history. Whenever she shows me something in the Google App I always pick the wrong one.
- echelon 4y ago
  I'd like to take a moment to appreciate how we're afraid of which search interface Grandma uses. A hundred years ago, we'd be worried about getting knifed by strangers, bear maulings, starving to death, being homeless, eating food laced with botulism and lead, influenza, tuberculosis, diphtheria ... Things are pretty good.
  - ultrarunner 4y ago
    To be fair, I think the origin of the worry may be that the elderly and less technically inclined are prone to being taken advantage of (rightly or wrongly). You're very correct that things are better than ever, as it were, but vulnerability seems to have endured in some ways.

JohnDeHope 4y ago

Technical question: What would a third party browser rendering engine allow, that using the safari renderer doesn't? I figure if you make a browser by just wrapping the safari renderer then you can make it do whatever you want it to. Why does the renderer make such that big of a difference?

creatonez 4y ago
Firefox addons on iOS, ported directly from the desktop versions with no modifications, will be possible. Gecko has a lot of under-the-hood knobs and dials that simply don't exist in Webkit, but are needed by the addon ecosystem.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  That would be great! Is it currently available on FF for Android?
  - Mogzol 4y ago
    Yes, you can run standard desktop Firefox extensions on FF for Android. There was a whitelist of extensions Mozilla allowed you to install though, I'm not sure if that still exists on the most recent versions.
    - toastal 4y ago
      The hoops are far too technical, finicky, and poorly documented for the average user to curate their own add-on list for Fx. It's a real shame since I think a lot of it is to make sure the add-on's UI is responsive, but many of most used add-ons on desktop have no UI to speak of (like redirecting AMP links, skipping short links, etc.).
  - gtk40 4y ago
    You can use uBlock Origin on Firefox for Android. The biggest feature I miss when I switched to iOS, although I've found Orion beta also has this feature and is decent.

WirelessGigabit 4y ago

Safari, especially on iOS is the new IE. What I really like to see next to this is the requirement that when I tap a link in an app that it opens in the default browser. Too many apps, such as Reddit open with the WebView of Safari, which sucks. I'm not signed in there, it doesn't add to my history, and most importantly, they get to inject a whole bunch of tracks that I don't want. See [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32514793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32514793

tristan957 4y ago
Doesn't Android open the Chrome web view too? On F-Droid I think you can get a Bromite web view, but I'm not sure how these web views work, and if I can get a Firefox one.
- Kwpolska 4y ago
  When you open a link in an app, you're often directed to a Custom Tab (you can recognise them by the menu in the upper right corner being the browser's). Those are handled by your default browser. I'm using Firefox Focus in that capacity and it works great.
WirelessGigabit 4y ago
-4? Why? Where am I wrong?

NotYourLawyer 4y ago

Would love to have real Firefox on iPhone. I hope Chrome gets banned from the App Store though.

vhanda 4y ago
Could you please elaborate why you hope 'Chrome gets banned'? I understand not being fond of the its ubiquity, especially with many Websites now requiring Chrome. And Google is allegedly abusing their dominant position. But banning it? Why?
- NotYourLawyer 4y ago
  Browser monoculture = shitty internet future.
  - lxgr 4y ago
    And the solution to that is (almost certainly illegal, under the new regulations) market manipulation by a direct competitor?
    - NotYourLawyer 4y ago
      Hey I’m just dreaming here, not like offering legal advice.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    So the solution to a browser monoculture is to... approve fewer browsers? Seems backwards to me.
    - NotYourLawyer 4y ago
      Yes, that’s right. Not fewer at random though.

spandrew 4y ago

Cross browser compatibility is already such a slog. This is going to make that much worse. Maybe that's OK given WebKit's firm grip on things. I've been using Arc browser since December and it's... strange? But good. Lots of interesting ideas.

malermeister 4y ago
Why would that make it worse? It's not like they would use new rendering engines, they'd just use the same ones they're already using on desktop. You should make sure your site is compatible with those engines anyways.
- nicce 4y ago
  It depends. Power efficiency on Safari with iOS is quite optimized and many features are integrated to iOS. E.g. some authentication workflows to Apple services.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Why does that matter, though? Web developers don't assume the entire world is "Safari on iOS". They have to handle all the various desktop browsers, as well as everything that runs on Android. If it's not possible to do a particular Apple-specific authentication workflow in Firefox on iOS, then users will fall back to whatever else is already implemented for other platforms. If users don't like how Firefox or Chrome on iOS drain their battery, then they'll stop using them and go back to Safari. Giving people more choice doesn't hurt.
    - nicce 4y ago
      > Why does that matter, though? Web developers don't assume the entire world is "Safari on iOS". They have to handle all the various desktop browsers, as well as everything that runs on Android. My comment might have been in wrong place, but the point was that it is difficult to be competitive with Firefox or Chrome on iOS if Safari integrates better on Apple systems. And what if implementing these impacts other platforms.

rektide 4y ago

Brilliant move. Show what is possible. Let individual developers download the source & build themselves, and run it. Make it real, make the only obstruction a legal one, one that is increasingly full of holes as a small exterior/outside hobbyist community bypasses the longstanding trenchancy Apple has dug, has moated themselves in with. Give people that first whiff of freedom. And if someday hopefully some of the anti-trust anti-competitive legal moats do get torn down, Google will be ready.

EMIRELADERO 4y ago
This has already happened. The walls have already been torn down. The EU's Digital Markets Act has made it mandatory for Apple to implement those changes by Q1 2024
- voakbasda 4y ago
  Anyone care to speculate as to whether Apple will take that opportunity to permit users in other regions that same liberty? Personally, I would not bet on that outcome without similar legislation forcing the issue.
  - EMIRELADERO 4y ago
    They probably will. Google "Brussels Effect"
    - voakbasda 4y ago
      I can see how that applies for hardware manufacturers that don't want to build multiple versions of their products; however, software can easily be region locked using a simple flag without the same economic consequences.
      - sofixa 4y ago
        The issue with that is the resulting negative PR. And of course other countries are taking notes and sometimes use EU regulations for inspiration.

shmerl 4y ago

Good. But Apple shouldn't get away with just allowing it. They should pay for violating competition law for years. Otherwise this law is a joke.

the_solenoid 4y ago
I see this argument all the time - how is it anti competitive if you have to buy a device from apple to use the apps? Its not like anyone can just make an iphone, it's not like the PC market, it's not even like the macOS market. If people (consumers) in general gave a rats ass about it they would pick an alternative. It's not even on their radar. Price is 95% of why androids sold at all, and they had all the time in the world to make something better. I personally love the idea, but professionally hate it. IT shops chose apple for it being locked down, and burdening 3rd parties with extra support costs if the platform is wide open is a crappy thing to do.
- realusername 4y ago
  The anticompetitive aspect is obvious, right now Safari development picked up full steam again after years of being half abandoned. Because of regulations, they can't just afford to rely on the browser monopoly anymore.

scottlamb 4y ago

> The correlated activity from Google and Mozilla could suggest that they're expecting Apple to drop its restrictions on third-party browser engines in the near future, or the companies could simply be hedging their bets. Ugh, imagine being an engineer on the project if it's the latter. At a company strategy level, it may be wise to put resources into having this ready to go. [1] At an individual level, putting tons of effort into something like this with less than average hopes of launching seems extremely demotivating (and doesn't look so hot for "impact" in perf either). I wonder how much effort it is combine the iOS UI layer and the non-iOS blink layer. I'm terrible at estimating effort even for my own projects so it's hard to speculate. [1] A bit less wise to do speculative projects while simultaneously laying off 12,000 people with no warning.

tgv 4y ago
> Ugh, imagine being an engineer on the project if it's the latter. OTOH, no users means no bugs.
- Birkeholm 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- sigmoid10 4y ago
  Yeah. This seems like a dream job for mediocre developers who are just at google for the paycheck and the creds. And considering the layoffs, they don't seem to have a shortage of those.
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    I’d love to work on this, and I certainly hope I’m not mediocre :P Porting projects are always fun.

aidenn0 4y ago

It seems that the way iOS implements W^X protection would prevent a performant JS JIT from being created. It will be interesting to see if/how this is worked around.

kccqzy 4y ago
Regulations would force Apple to provide the same entitlements it uses to JIT code in Safari to other browsers.
saagarjha 4y ago
W^X (with permission flipping) is fine for JIT, the problem is that Apple doesn’t really allow these kinds of JITs on the App Store.
- fomine3 4y ago
  It seems that pthread_jit_write_protect_np isn't public on iOS so perhaps JIT can't be implemented regardless of AppStore
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    The implementation of that is not actually very difficult to do yourself (though I wouldn’t recommend it). The problem is you can’t actually flip the mask to execute unless you have permission to JIT which Apple currently doesn’t provide to third party apps.
mmis1000 4y ago
Basically every JIT javascript engine now use W^X protection by default. So it is probably a non-issue. I think the problem is 'does apple even allow you to toggle the w and x bit?'.

fabrice_d 4y ago

Here's a demo of the Gecko port from some years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE-4b082Upw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE-4b082Upw Most of the code needed is still in Gecko's repo at https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/widget/uikit https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/widget/uikit but probably doesn't build anymore. Would not be surprising if someone had an up to date branch in a private tree somewhere though...

chadlavi 4y ago

oh good I can't wait to have to support more mobile browsers, great

katscradle_1989 4y ago

The number of people (even in the field) that don't know Chrome on iOS isn't actually chrome is staggeringly high. Maybe this will change that, lol.

XorNot 4y ago

I am cheering on Mozilla doing this. They are the only bastion of a free internet left: we need a browser option, a good option, which isn't beholden to advertising dollars at every turn.

smm11 4y ago

Doesn't matter. Google is done. Mozilla's thing will be trying to out-race Apple on Privacy. Mozilla should stick with WebKit, only allow more granular control.

summerlight 4y ago

I don't know any details on this project, but what I read from space between lines is that this could be a handy tool to have a better position on the annual negotiations of default search engine setup. If you can have just a 5% discount from Apple by having this choice, the whole engineering cost would be immediately paid off.

tormeh 4y ago

Honestly I think this is bad. We'll end up with Blink everywhere.

mirthflat83 4y ago
Yep. We will end up with a singular “standard” set up by Google.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  From the perspective of users or developers, what's bad about this? I mean, we generally take it as axiomatic that it must be bad, but the dream of anybody being able to come along and make a Web browser is long dead.
  - petesergeant 4y ago
    That the network effects of everything only being tested on Chrome will mean that for some sites you have to use (eg Government, e-commerce you can’t do without), you’ll no longer have a choice of browser, and that that dominant position will be maintained even if Chrome starts to really suck, or Google decide to lean in to “you need a trackable Google account to use this”. Google releases Chrome in order to show you ads.
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      I am not 100% convinced that the existence of Safari exclusively on Apple platforms is all that effective at preventing this -- for instance, if you don't particularly care about mobile users you're pretty much already living in this world today.
      - petesergeant 4y ago
        > if you don't particularly care about mobile users I think this is a small share

pipeline_peak 4y ago

I’m optimistic about Google. I think SJZilla is gonna have to make a performant browser first.

koshergweilo 4y ago
What is SJZilla
- jocaal 4y ago
  Some combination of social justice and mozilla

TheRealPomax 4y ago

It'd be cool if the Android version of Firefox got some UI love to bring it back to where it was before they force-updated folks to the "phone only" UI.

joenathanone 4y ago
I fond it to be pretty buggy, often the address bar will disappear and not come back when scrolling. Also they really need to add pull to refresh.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  Pull to refresh is working for me both on nightly and release. What is not working for you?
  - superfrank 4y ago
    On Android? I just opened FF on my phone (v109.2.0) and pull to refresh does not work
    - cpeterso 4y ago
      Pull to refresh is currently only enabled in Firefox Nightly on Android. There are still some open bugs to be fixed related to pull to refresh gesture breaking some websites.
      - cycomanic 4y ago
        Mmh, ok I could have sworn is was working for me on normal Firefox as well. Thanks for the correction.
- pedrogpimenta 4y ago
  Pull to refresh was one of the reasons I moved to Firefox on Android. I hate it. I can't count how many times I just wanted to scroll up and ended up refreshing the page.

fleddr 4y ago

When you pay close attention to things like web standards, one would have noticed how during the last 2 years the Webkit team seems to have woken up from a decade-long hibernation. They're actually releasing things, and in a pretty decent pace. As the article implies, very likely due to regulatory pressure building up. And that tells you everything you need to know about Apple's stance on the web: they hate it, as they hate anything that is interoperable and uncontrollable. They'll starve the web to the maximum they can get away with and now that maximum is reducing, hopefully.

micromacrofoot 4y ago
safari has been implementing new spec faster than firefox in some cases! they’ve really gotten their act together
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Gigachad 4y ago
  A lot of the specs firefox hasn't added are of questionable value like WebUSB which exists to make chromebooks less useless.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  It's a different thing. Apple doesn't care about implementing them whereas Mozilla wants to strangle Google with their bare hands and would rather die before they implement them out of principle.
- fleddr 4y ago
  That's what I said, Webkit has recently sped up their development, for all the wrong reasons. As for Firefox, as much as I sentimentally align with it and still use it, it's a dead browser. I have access to some analytics of websites with a billion+ views/year and it doesn't even show up. It has like 0.5% market share on mobile. They're irrelevant in this iteration of the browser wars.

vbezhenar 4y ago

If Safari weren't shoehorned through iOS user throats, webkit would cease to exist. Right now web developers are forced to support webkit because they can't tell iOS users to install Chrome for better experience. If they could, they would drop webkit and provide blink-only experience. Many websites do that to Firefox nowadays. And if webkit can't render website, Apple would replace it with blink. So Safari would become another Chromium reskin and Web would finally settle on a single engine.

kdmccormick 4y ago
> Web would finally settle on a single engine. You say that like it's a desirable thing? Being a spec with multiple implementations is a feature of a good platform, not a bug. It pushes the Web towards consensus-driven evolution rather than design by one actor (in the past, Microsoft; now, Google).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cageface 4y ago
  If Apple wants to position WebKit as an important independent implementation of web standards it needs to run on more than just Apple hardware. I shouldn’t have to own a Mac an an iPhone to test my code on Safari.
  - pertymcpert 4y ago
    Why? All that matters is user count. Who says it needs to be cross platform?
- vbezhenar 4y ago
  I have no idea if it's a good or bad thing. Having single engine for a web developer is a good thing. Having no competition is a bad thing. Having engine controlled by a greedy ad-driven corporation is a bad thing. Blink is open source and theoretically could be forked by anyone, so that's a good thing. Blink is the most advanced engine, so that's a good thing. It's better than IE situation, that's for sure.

boywitharupee 4y ago

If anyone's interested in following progress of or building this: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1411704 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=141170...

RedComet 4y ago

Hopefully Mozilla takes security seriously with mobile Firefox, finally. Otherwise Apple will appear justified in their regulations. The Android version of Firefox doesn't even support IsolatedProcess yet.

thinknubpad 4y ago
The Android version of Firefox does support NoScript and ad blocker extensions, though. Releasing it on iOS would be huge. No more almost-functional Safari ad blockers with multiple pricing tiers! No more all-or-nothing JavaScript toggle button! Honestly, the only thing keeping me from iOS is its inability to run a browser with a decent extensions ecosystem.

the_duke 4y ago

There is some important information missing: recent EU legislation ( Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act , aka DMA and DSA) will force the big providers to open up their platforms. That includes chat service interoperability, allowing app side loading and alternative app stores, .... and a mandate to not restrict any significant functionality to first party only solutions, like JITs on iOS. So this will become reality soon, at least in the EU. The interesting thing will be if Apple opens up globally, or if they restrict this regionally. ps: companies will definitely delay and fight opening up however they can, but the regulation at least avoids many problems that GDPR had and should be easier to enforce.

vxNsr 4y ago
Can anyone explain how chat interoperability could work while maintaining meaningful encryption?
- Kbelicius 4y ago
  I don't know but at least now will find out.
- weberer 4y ago
  You send your friend your public key. He sends you his public key. You can now chat over any protocol as long as you encrypt the payload using your keys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography
  - vxNsr 4y ago
    How does this for people who aren’t security experts? Most people will at some point lose their private key.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  > meaningful encryption I don't think that was table stakes for SMS, iMessage or RCS. "Encryption", with the caveat that all first-world law enforcement can peek inside if they want, is not meaningful. Sorry.

floatinglotus 4y ago

I don’t want alternate browsers for one small device.

palata 4y ago
I do.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

josephcsible 4y ago

As much as I hate Apple's walled garden, I have to admit that the inability to do this is the only thing stopping Google from having complete dominance in the Web browser space.

edude03 4y ago
Yeah I’m really worried it’s going to lead to, or at least encourage a browser monoculture like back in the IE days. I idly wonder if being the default will cement safari as the most popular browser on iOS though.
spartanatreyu 4y ago
This is a false dilemma. The choice isn't Apple's walled garden OR Google's web dominance. The choice is: Apple makes a broken browser with no available substitutes to make more money off the app store, OR they will need to actually invest in their browser and compete with Google. The EU has wisely decided that Apple forcing people to use a broken browser is anti-consumer. So now, Apple will need to compete in the browser space as well. It's amazing how fast Apple has started to fix it's many problems in Safari all of a sudden, <sarcasm>I wonder what the reason could be...</sarcasm>
- acdha 4y ago
  You’re greatly overstating the problem of using Safari. Google’s devrel team has astroturfed a lot about that but if you’re the average working web developer it’s been easy to support all of the evergreen browsers for years - the big win was dropping IE11 support — and you’ll see a significant performance or battery life win by dropping Chrome, which the average user will appreciate a lot more than not having WebMIDI or sites nagging them to enable push notifications. The mistake here is seeing only one company abusing its market position when it’s really two. While I don’t like how Apple handled this — Firefox deserved better — it’s also the case that Google used their dominant positions in search, email, maps, and video to promote Chrome. I’d be a lot more comfortable allowing Chrome on iOS if it was accompanied by regulatory action banning that and requiring Google to do real QA on other browsers and not use proprietary Chrome APIs on their production sites, which held back Firefox and Safari performance on YouTube for ages because they were using the web components standard instead.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago

Two engines down from three. One to go until the next IE.

petarb 4y ago

I assume this might be available on the alternative app stores as a result of EUs rulings on anti-trust?

leoc 4y ago

The arrival of third-party app stores will make it possible to run GPLed apps on non-jailbroken iPhones, right?

oneplane 4y ago
I don't think the license matters at all, but you may not be able to upload something you can't prove ownership of, and there is still the notary requirement to run, it only changes the distribution channel after all. What you could maybe do is do reproducible builds, staple the notarised x509 on it afterwards. Then you can 'prove' it is the same app, but still have the signed version in distribution.
noirscape 4y ago
Most likely, yes. The entire iOS GPL ban to my understanding only exists due to a combination of an iOS App Store policy that's weirdly enforced (who is surprised...) and the fact that Apple's own code signer is required to be able to distribute an iOS app, and that one is proprietary because Apple, which means you can't use other people's GPL libraries in your apps.
- madeofpalk 4y ago
  It's highly likely that apps will still required to be signed by Apple, even if distributed outside the Apple App Store, just like Gatekeeper on the Mac.
saagarjha 4y ago
You can do this already.
- leoc 4y ago
  It does looks as if the situation is a lot more complex than I thought I remembered. Apparently the uncertainties seem to affect GPLv2 code more?

HNAbusesUsers 4y ago

I once wanted this. Now I realize that this will complete Chrome's takeover of the Web, and that sucks.

encryptluks2 4y ago
How will enabling alternative browsers from Safari's takeover of Apple-based products, somehow bring the end of other browsers elsewhere? If anything this helps prevent that and since Chromium is open source, app creators can distribute their own browsers if so desired. Lots of people like to complain about the lack of having 100 different browsers to choose from with different backend engines, but if it is so easy then feel free to get started on it.
- HNAbusesUsers 4y ago
  You're not thinking it through. Take a look at browser dominance on the desktop: https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/browser-market-share https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/browser-market-share Some sources have it even more skewed. And when you throw in Edge, it's definitely more skewed. "If anything this helps prevent that" How? "Lots of people like to complain about the lack of having 100 different browsers" I've never heard one of them. Regardless, what's your point?
warning26 4y ago
I think that says more about how awful Safari is than anything else. I personally hate Google's anticompetitive nonsense, but I hate Safari's glitchy rendering even more.

YPPH 4y ago

I am happy with Apple keeping WebKit as the only option. Although it might seem counterintuitive, it is good for competition. If we aren't there already, we are at a real risk of Blink having a complete monopoly like IE had in the early 2000s. It's good that web developers need to think about other browsers and not just target Chrome.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
Monopolization of WebKit on iOS does not cause competition. You are deluded.

zefei 4y ago

Some comments seem to be optimistic about the potential change from Apple. But once Apple relax webkit requirement from app store, it will mean all "do not track" cookie enforcement would be easily worked around.

raro11 4y ago
What do you mean?
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  How would Apple enforce "do not track" for non-webkit implementations? Chrome and Firefox might certainly implement it into their browsers, but can we expect Facebook, for instance, to do it in their in-app browsers?
  - raro11 4y ago
    Did not think about in-app browsers. Good point
smoldesu 4y ago
The default can still be Safari, not "all" enforcement will be worked around. We simply can't trust Apple to do the right thing without supervision, though. As we've seen with the App Store, Apple uses these positions of de-facto authority to disempower the user and reinforce their own profit margins. We let them fly by the seat of their pants for too long, regulation is long overdue for this business (and app distribution sector as a whole). If you want to opt-in to Apple's protective blanket, do so. It's not an excuse to weld over the safety hatch for the rest of us.
- zefei 4y ago
  The default _browser_ will mostly be Safari. But the moment webkit requirement is relaxed, all in-app browsers for Facebook, TikTok, Youtube, Instagram, etc will be replaced with their own forks without any respect for "do not track". They will become the second most used browsers on iPhone, not Firefox or Chrome.

antman 4y ago

Let's hope they also add extensions. In the meantime let's hope mozilla readds extensions in android in a meaningful way which might stop its downward spiral

lynx23 4y ago

Oh yeah, bye bye Accessibility! Firefox has become mostly unusable under Windows if you are using a screen reader, in the past 2 years. And Android took almost a decade to catch up to what Apple did with iOS. So I am guessing, this new browser will need at least 5 years to be looked at by blind users :-)

ChickenNugger 4y ago
This is one thing that the big dogs, Microsoft, and Apple have been good at since the early '90s. For all their faults, they take accessibility seriously. I know a blind guy who uses iPhones exclusively. How he manages to understand speech that fast is beyond me, but dedicating resources to accessibility when it's such a tiny market share is nice of them. But now that I think about it, are they being mandated under ADA? I honestly don't know.
- lynx23 4y ago
  No, they are not being mandated. It basically boils down to Jobs declaring that accessibility is an exceiption to ROI. IOW, realising its a kind of social responsibility. Besides, Microsoft took a long time to provide something by default, they let other third parties sell screen readers for big money to poor people. Apple always did both built-in, the API and the screen reader (frontend). Microsoft created Narrator, their own front-end, just a few years ago.
  - ChickenNugger 4y ago
    My memories of Windows' screen reader telling me "MY ROFLCOPTER GOES SOI SOI SOI SOI SOI" when I was a teen may have exaggerated Microsoft's efforts. But at least it was there.
    - idonotknowwhy 4y ago
      Same. Microsoft SAM was fun in high school. Foreground window untitled notepad Editible text soi soi soi soi soi

sandGorgon 4y ago

very interesting times. a few months back, i started contributing to a mobile browser app (OPEN-SOURCE) that has an integrated wallet. I think browsers are going to have many more usecases than just browsing the web. Payments is going to be a key enabler - web2 or web3. https://github.com/wootzapp/wootz-browser https://github.com/wootzapp/wootz-browser

ChickenNugger 4y ago
I think for this to catch on, they're going to have to make a real business unit out of it. People are accustomed to their money in the bank being managed by humans that they can call. A wallet on one browser on one device isn't going to cut it for the layman.
- sandGorgon 4y ago
  not focusing on money. mostly NFT and web3 usecases.
return_to_monke 4y ago
> no extensions why is that a feature and not a drawback?
- sandGorgon 4y ago
  target demographic. its not meant for you. its meant for mobile-only, non-tech-savvy people. Think Asia or even the American Midwest. Not for the HN crowd TBH.

atarian 4y ago

There is no way Apple is going to allow for this.

Kelteseth 4y ago
They must, see https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_6423 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_...
- amelius 4y ago
  They can still bully others by e.g. putting memory restrictions on other browsers.

shultays 4y ago

Is Apple updating their policy or what? What is the point of this if it is not going to be released

gabelschlager 4y ago
Due to upcoming EU regulations they most likely have to update their policy.

jraph 4y ago

If only a real Firefox for iOS 9.3 was released. It would make the unused iPad 2 I retrieved way more useful than it is now. That could be the thing that would motivate me to create an Apple account to download it. And, I bet, would reduce e-waste by a lot by allowing older iThings Apple is not willing to support anymore to be useful again.

radiKal07 4y ago

As they should. Great stuff - even though I will keep using Safari, I love seeing more options

aryeshalev 4y ago

Push Notifications PWA

twism 4y ago
this is the main if not singular reason why apple prevents a standards compliant browser in their app store.

MariaElisabeth8 4y ago

[dead]

elnatro 4y ago

Do we know if Apple have a calendar for allowing different web browser engines in iOS?

stefandesu 4y ago
Nope, but if Google and Mozilla are putting this many resources into it, they might know more than we do, and I could imagine this coming with iOS 17 in September.
lopis 4y ago
The EU has passed a law forcing Apple to open up, threatening fines up to 20% of their revenue [0]. They have until (the end of?) 2024 to follow up. [0] https://techhq.com/2022/12/apple-bows-to-eu-demands-with-plans-to-open-up-its-app-store-by-2024/ https://techhq.com/2022/12/apple-bows-to-eu-demands-with-pla...

bratwurst3000 4y ago

Finally!!! Full firefox is the step that my iphone needs to be barely usable

simonebrunozzi 4y ago

I am deeply interested in Orion [0], the browser developed by the team behind Kagi search. It is not widely used, but it's quite impressive. I feel this is the time for a better browser for the masses. I am not sure Google + Mozilla are the right actors to bring it alive. [0]: https://browser.kagi.com/ https://browser.kagi.com/

dotancohen 4y ago
The minute that browser has a Linux build I'm going to try to make it my default browser. I have not been this excited for an unreleased software package since KSP 2.

jcpham2 4y ago

Unpopular opinion: I hate Safari, it's slow, and I refuse to use for anything.