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Mozilla says Apple's new browser rules are 'as painful as possible' for Firefox
- cozzyd 3y agoThe EU should just fine apple 50 cents for each app store installation in retaliation.
- albert180 3y agoWell they need to wait a few more months before Apple will get their teeth kicked in, for this Bullshit Compliance by the EU Commission, and cry about handing over a sizeable chunk of their global turnover to them. Maximum fine under DSA is 10% of Global Turnover
- wvenable 3y agoI'm sure Apple is complying perfectly with the letter of the law.
- keleftheriou 3y agoI’m sure complying with the letter of the law while ignoring the spirit of it is the best strategy.
- bitvoid 3y agoUnlike the US, the EU cares more about the intention of the law than the letter of the law, from what I understand.
- riscy 3y agoThis is the fundamental problem with laws.
- turquoisevar 3y agoNot sure what “the EU” cares about. I can tell you that the courts in the EU mainly care about the letter of the law. Less SCOTUS-esque rollercoaster rides about intent and historical tradition, more plaintext reading of the law. Doesn’t mean they never have to interpret if something is unclear, but the DMA is actually pretty straightforward, with here and there some language that’s open for interpretation but not pertaining to browsers.
- justinclift 3y agoThat'd be a fine the EU would be happy to receive. After the several decades of wrangling in courts. ;)
- St0n3d 3y agoThis will not happen. If Apple complies, it complies. They can’t blame Apple for not following a random EU directive in jurisdictions outside of the EU to begin with. They’re even different legal entities. The EU is not going to do anything about this at all and if they try: it will be blocked. I’ll check back here in 6 months to see how this aged.
- paulddraper 3y ago> We are still reviewing the technical details but are extremely disappointed with Apple’s proposed plan to restrict the newly-announced BrowserEngineKit to EU-specific apps,” DeMonte says. “The effect of this would be to force an independent browser like Firefox to build and maintain two separate browser implementations — a burden Apple themselves will not have to bear.” I guess they were hoping that the EU's rules apply everywhere?
- albert180 3y agoWell if the EU manages to hold a hard line against Apple, other big markets will surely follow.
- nickthegreek 3y agoI feel like ‘surely follow’ will be measured in many years. The idea of not allowing competing browser engines on iOS has struck me one of Apples more egregious sins. Ideally I could be running Firefox prior to 2030 in the US, but I don’t trust our government’s pace to bet on it.
- albert180 3y agoWell if Safari wouldn't intentionally suck, more people would choose to use Progressive WebApps instead of going through all the hassle of creating a dedicated iOS App
- scarface_74 3y agoYou mean like all of the people who choose to use PWAs for Android? I’ve never once heard anyone say “you know Electron is such a great experience on the desktop, I would love to have all my mobile apps to be web based too”.
- albert180 3y agoApp Development for Android is much easier. No Bullshit recurring Fees, no need to buy specific Google Hardware etc...
- Dalewyn 3y agoYes, how can Mozilla possibly fund the development and maintenance of a derivative when they're so strapped for cash that the CEO makes $7,000,000 USD a year and after firing hundreds of developers. Cry me a river, I have no sympathies.
- smoldesu 3y agoSo your logic is that Apple deserves that money instead? Or that you refuse to empathize with any company that pays well? Their complaint seems legitimate, to me. I think you're throwing around ad-hominem to discredit a valid argument.
- meepmorp 3y agoI think the logic is that Mozilla should spend money on developers instead of their CEO.
- smoldesu 3y agoLogically, throwing more developers at this issue fixes nothing. That's the problem.
- meepmorp 3y agoSure it does, those developers can work on an EU version of FF. If they're more interested in paying executive salaries than developing a product, that's a prioritization issue, not a technical one.
- palata 3y ago> Or that you refuse to empathize with any company that pays well? That pays well? That's an indecent salary. I'm sure many people would love to have that position for a fraction of it, and they would not do a worse job. And that's only the CEO, not all the employees.
- playingalong 3y agoHow many developers you can hire for 7M? Definitely not hundreds.
- BiteCode_dev 3y agoIt's going to suck for a while, but eventually, it will be one more thing we can thank the EU for. Universal chargers, informed tracking consent, separation of accounts... US and EU balance each other pretty well.
- declan_roberts 3y ago[flagged]
- skeletal88 3y ago"I reject everything non essential" Has to be as easily clickable as the "accept all" button, otherwise sites are not compliant
- kansface 3y agoWe judge law by effect, not intent, because only it is real.
- orwin 3y agoBy effect, i can quick judge a website by its cookie banner. When i'm looking for quality content (most of the time), i know immediately if i've been clickbaited by my google search.
- BiteCode_dev 3y agoWe also judge humans depending on how they follow the law. Turns out you chose not prioritize judging the humans that run those billion dollars companies.
- Minor49er 3y agoI just adblock those like i do for every other popup
- robinsonb5 3y agoThere's just one unintended benefit: when I'm looking for in-depth information on a subject, I've found that the presence of a cookie popup seems to correlate with a site containing only superficial information; it's an indicator that the site's primary purpose is harvesting eyeballs rather than imparting knowledge, so I should keep looking.
- zokier 3y agoI agree that Apple carving out special exception for EU is indeed intentionally making sure that as few products will take advantage of it as possible. But at the same time I am somewhat saddened that it seems so far fetched that Europe could produce world-class apps, including browser, by itself for itself.
- St0n3d 3y agoThat’s also why the EU probably won’t get more strict than this. The climate is very bad for tech companies with increasingly vague and weird laws (that mostly nobody asked for I might add) and this is starting to piss some countries off as they see other continents starting to excel and we can’t catch up due to such insane amounts of red tape.
- normaler 3y agoThey can and they do. But you are missing out in revenue when they do.
- threeseed 3y agoDefinitely understand why this would be painful for Firefox given that it forces a certain architecture e.g. use of XPC, authenticated pointers and sandboxing extensions. But equally as a user my priority is the overall security of my phone over any one particular app. And we know from decades of experience that browsers are a major source of security issues. I wish Firefox instead of playing the victim card would instead do a white paper outlining technically why certain approaches are hard to implement, why their approach is more secure if it is and what steps they do take to protect user's security and privacy. Would help the overall discussion that's for sure.
- smoldesu 3y ago> instead do a white paper outlining technically why certain approaches are hard to implement https://mozilla.github.io/platform-tilt/ https://mozilla.github.io/platform-tilt/
- threeseed 3y agoAll of those deficiencies have been addressed. So would be good to understand in detail what Firefox's issues are.
- Yaina 3y agoFrom the article, I don't see Mozilla saying they don't want to comply with the technical requirements, just that they don't want to maintain two versions of Firefox for iOS (one Webkit, one Gecko). I think that is a fair complaint. It's a financial burden to maintain two versions that Apple is imposing on them.
- mawise 3y agoHas the verge always been using that typeface for article headlines? The cutouts in the letters look like ink traps[1], but are distracting as all-getup when trying to read the thing as-is. [1]: https://tosche.net/blog/ink-traps-and-pals https://tosche.net/blog/ink-traps-and-pals (first link I found describing it--I didn't know the term ink trap until just now)
- notaustinpowers 3y agoThey introduced it in late 2022 or early 2023 I think. It was part of their rebranding. I agree with you, it's distracting, especially when used in a text-heavy medium like online journalism.
- SSLy 3y agoat least since late 2022 https://web.archive.org/web/20221105212616/https://www.theverge.com/23440189/matter-launch-event-hands-on-rollout https://web.archive.org/web/20221105212616/https://www.theve...
- WWLink 3y agoYou know, I'll pay the 50 cents to run firefox on an iphone. No regrets. My goodness, that would be the best 50 cents you could spend on an iphone app. Holy shit. Better than the hot garbage you assholes peddle (especially in-app gacha hell addict bait - fuck you!)
- harrylove 3y agoThis comment was the best roller coaster I've ridden in a long time. Thank you for the great writing. I can't stop laughing.
- vdaea 3y ago>“The effect of this would be to force an independent browser like Firefox to build and maintain two separate browser implementations — a burden Apple themselves will not have to bear.” Apple doesn't have to bear that burden because they use webkit everywhere, the same thing you (Mozilla) could be doing.
- Vigorosotuna96 3y ago[flagged]
- amelius 3y agoWe really need a no-tether law. If you buy a device, then it should be possible to use it even after cutting all ties with the original vendor, otherwise it is a service, not a product. If I buy a device from company A, then want to do business with company B, why does company A have anything to say about it? Am I not the owner of my device?
- 9dev 3y agoThat is so hyperbole, it’s hard to bear. What is a ”device“, exactly? What does it mean if it ”possible“ to use the device? Not every appliance has to be a general purpose computing device.
- dns_snek 3y agoBad faith arguments never end here. This general purpose computing device that you are trying to redefine as an "appliance" for the sake of the argument is how majority of the population consume media and information, manage their bank accounts, track their habits, communicate with each other, set up doctor's appointments, edit text documents, take and edit photographs, sign documents, and the other 99.9% of use cases that you must be disregarding in order to call it an "appliance".
- johnnyanmac 3y ago>Not every appliance has to be a general purpose computing device. it doesn't (I'm fine with game console OS as is), but Apple/IOS is definitely in an arguable position to be a general purpose computing device. I think subjecting anti-tether laws to companies in such a position seems reasonable fro the consumer end. >What is a ”device“, exactly? What does it mean if it ”possible“ to use the device? I feel it's less about what Apple can do and more about what they can't. They can't make it any more difficult to tinker with the hardware a user bought than any other general purpose computing device (in this case, desktop/laptop devices).
- nixpulvis 3y agoI would love to know how this plays out with the filesystem wars we seem to be continually stuck in.
- ahmedfromtunis 3y agoThe rules, as I understand them, mean that if Mozilla wishes, it can use its own engine with the browsers distributed in the EU -- and not that it must. Why would these rules "force an independent browser like Firefox to build and maintain two separate browser implementations"? Can't they just keep on using the current implementation?
- w4rh4wk5 3y agoThe point is that Mozilla wants to use their own browser engine for Firefox on iOS for all users. While the change opens up the possibility to do this in the EU, it's only possible to do so in the EU. iOS users in the US cannot get this version. This means that Mozilla would have to maintain 2 versions, one for non-EU using webkit, the other for EU using their own, preferred browser engine.
- palata 3y agoIsn't the webkit one basically a marketing facade? Genuinely interested: wouldn't it make sense for Mozilla to just drop support for the webkit one and go with their own engine for the EU? That would reward the better legislation, and then the US could follow.
- St0n3d 3y agoYeah or people in the US just install something other than Firefox and call it a day when Mozilla decides to do that.
- simion314 3y ago>Why would these rules "force an independent browser like Firefox to build and maintain two separate browser implementations"? it is obvious that Firefox users want the real Firefox and not a Safari skin, so Apple screws their customers that prefer Firefox. As I understand when you buy an Apple device they do not put on the box or the website a big banner that tells the user about their apps limitations, the Apple tax and that Apple forces developers not to inform them about better deals.
- zamalek 3y agoApple alleges that they preserve privacy, while simultaneously building a moat around Safari. It's extremely contradictory.
- lxgr 3y agoTo be fair, Safari is pretty good at preserving privacy with ITP and content filters. In this case, I think the issues of privacy and user choice/competition are largely orthogonal (but both important!)
- CjMalone 3y ago"content filters", as in those things everyone else has had for more than a decade?
- lxgr 3y agoNot sure about other browsers, but Safari has them, and they've been doing the job for me for years as well. My browser of choice is still Firefox and I'd love to use the full version on iOS (for its extensions and because I could sync my history and bookmarks to my computer), but privacy-wise I really can't complain about Safari.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Gow8876 3y ago15B euro fine for Apple this year. Anyone believe higher? It is guaranteed to happen just the amount may be debatable.