13 ms·

It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

296 points by tomkin 14y ago

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
>"The difference here is that Microsoft is using its Windows monopoly power in the OS market to exclude competition in the browser market." Some might see it that way. Personally, I don't think that's Microsoft's goals at all, it's just an unintended consequence of them trying to slowly phase out the Win32 API and Desktop applications, and switch entirely to Metro-style WinRT-based apps.
- diminish 14y ago
  i am using firefox since versino 0.x, now of course, apple brags about a monopoly on tablets and firefox is not there, if gartner/idc predictions are true, tablets and other arm based devices will rule the world in 2015. so it is better for mozilla to target apple and ms at the same time.
- lomegor 14y ago
  It may certainly not be their goal, but they should know better.
- sp332 14y ago
  That would make sense except that they specifically exempt their own browser from the restrictions that will apply to every other browser.
  - wvenable 14y ago
    The problem is that third party applications can cause security and performance issues and it's Microsoft who ultimately takes the blame for it. They exempt their own browser because it's their own browser.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
      I'd say it's more an exemption for their own rendering engine. IE10 is more than just a "browser" in Windows 8, it is the engine used to execute several Windows 8 applications.
      - contextfree 14y ago
        It's an exemption for whatever is preinstalled on the device :) The actual technical mechanism behind this "ban" is simply that installing desktop apps in general is blocked on Windows RT. A "Metro style enabled desktop browser" (what Metro style IE and Metro style Firefox are) is really just a desktop executable that acts like a Metro style app.
  - contextfree 14y ago
    No, it makes sense (not that it's necessarily the main or only reason) - it's much easier to break APIs when the only clients are internal.
deedubaya 14y ago
I don't think Apple blocks Firefox on iOS. Other browsers like Opera exist in the App Store, maybe Mozilla just hasn't developed FF for iOS yet? Or am I wrong?
- wvenable 14y ago
  Apple blocks all non-Safari browsers from the store. Opera Mobile doesn't exist in the App store, only Opera Mini which uses a remote server for rendering. Other browsers in the store use iOS webkit and are effectively shells around the Safari rendering engine.
  - Terretta 14y ago
    What's wrong with the webkit rendering engine? Chrome started as "effectively a shell" around webkit. As far as most end users are concerned, the difference between browsers is the UI, not the rendering engine. I use iCab on iOS for its UI and amazing feature set (including Adblock and extensions), and apprececiate the choice. In fact, it syncs with Firefox bookmarks. Atomic is also nice. It would be very interesting to do a Firefox-like UI for iOS and see what the end user uptake would be.
    - wvenable 14y ago
      One example: The iPhone webkit doesn't support text reflow even though it's supported by webkit on Android and in Opera. Many years ago you could have said "What's wrong with the IE rendering engine" because, at one time, IE was the best browser available on Windows.
    - sp332 14y ago
      Even if your browser is a skin on webkit, it will run in a sandbox and have worse performance than Safari on iOS.
    - pbz 14y ago
      Nobody said there's anything wrong with it, only that you can't use any other engine.
gm 14y ago
FF's entire existence is based on a hate of Microsoft, so it only makes sense. That's why they're taking it up the butt from Google Chrome, Mozilla does not know how to deal with them. Nor do they particularly care that much about it, it seems (other than switching to increasing the version number every 2 months).
- huggyface 14y ago
  There is so much wrong with every word you oddly decided to type. EDIT: Seriously, HN? _I_ am sitting below zero? gm's obnoxious, fact-deficient, "up the butt" spiel is where HN is going now? How ignorant.
  - adventureful 14y ago
    You're being down voted because you didn't say anything. HN users hate that even more than complaining.
    - huggyface 14y ago
      I'm cool with the downvotes, and appreciate the reason. All I petition is that gm's fanboy rhetoric gets the attention it deserves, which is a nuking from orbit.
      - codexon 14y ago
        It already has enough attention.He just being a subtle troll and should be ignored. It is improbable that someone with 20 years of experience in the tech sector would be oblivious to the Netscape/IE situation unless he is one of those people that include the years he spent programming since he was 5.
- onedognight 14y ago
  > FF's entire existence is based on a hate of Microsoft As a student of history I'm sure you are aware that Mozilla (the name and the code base) predated Internet Explorer. I think you meant to say that Internet Explorer's only reason for existing was that Microsoft feared Netscape.
Karunamon 14y ago
Considering that Apple hasn't been legally ruled to be an illegal monopoly and Microsoft has, the faux-righteous-indignation in the headline completely backfires.
- rmk2 14y ago
  Apple also has a lot more...vocal (dare I say 'zealous'?) followers trying to quell criticism. Those very same people will however gladly take every stab they can at Microsoft. (I think both companies deserve every bit of criticism for trying to repeat history all over again...)
  - pohl 14y ago
    Microsoft had an abundant supply vocal apologists back then. Moreover, they had the tech press (which was on paper at the time) in their pocket.
- wvenable 14y ago
  Microsoft had an illegal monopoly on x86 powered desktop computers. There's a reason why only the ARM version of the exact same OS is locked down.
wvenable 14y ago
A lot of people, including the author of this article, seem to think it's unfair that Mozilla is not giving equal complaint time to both platforms. That's the fundamental issue here. Maybe, all things being equal, that would be a fair complaint but all things are not equal. First of all, the limitations of iOS and app store are well known and retread at least once a month on HN since the site opened. Mozilla certainly did complain about iOS years ago and decided ultimately to abandon the platform. We're talking about Windows now because Windows 8 is due to be released. Secondly, Firefox's primary platform is Windows and they already have working version of Firefox for Windows 8 with a Metro UI for x86. Only a minor technical limitation keeps them from releasing it for ARM -- that's not true of iOS. Lastly, there is a still a chance Microsoft might cave on this issue. We know from years of experience that Apple won't.
- ajross 14y ago
  Post-lastly: there's the simple point that Firefox for Windows is an actual product that could be shipped near-immediately. There is no Firefix for iOS, precisely because Apple has never allowed it. I think the broad point is valid though: Apple's platform control is no more morally justified than Microsoft's. And at least in the abstract they deserve equal scorn. But the specifics here are that Windows 8 on ARM won't run an app that can clearly be shipped (and will be for x86). That's a problem with a reasonable hope of being fixed, so it makes practical sense for Mozilla to whine about that first. Post-post-lastly: it bears mentioning that if Safari was as bad as IE, Apple might draw more fire. It helps a lot to have a browser that doesn't lag the state of the art.
  - wvenable 14y ago
    To the people who say "Where's the moral outrage" about Apple, I have to wonder if they haven't been paying attention for the last 4 years. Lots of people and organizations have led the charge against Apple. It seems the only organization actively complaining about the limitations of Windows 8 right now is Mozilla. In terms of equal scorn, Microsoft hasn't gotten much scorn at all.
  - billpatrianakos 14y ago
superuser2 14y ago
Windows 8 is the natural successor to Win7 and XP. It's the next version of the most popular desktop OS in the world. As with Windows 7 and OSX, it should run whatever the hell the machine's owner wants it to. iOS is a locked-down, consistent, homogeneous user experience on specialty devices that should not be and are not marketed as replacements for computers. Apple Store employees will specifically advise against purchasing an iPad as a primary computer. If Apple tried to tell me what I can and cannot run on OSX, I'd be pissed. On mobile, I currently have a choice between superior UX (iOS) and freedom (Android), which are at this stage in the game somewhat mutually exclusive (part of the iPhone's appeal is that There Is One And Only One Right Way To Do It). For the record, I run Android, but I still want to the option to select a higher quality product if I'm willing to sacrifice what Android does better (turn by turn directions and physical keyboard on the Droid 3).
- esrauch 14y ago
  > that should not be and are not marketed as replacements for computers. Interestingly several of my non-technical friends have taken on iPads as full time replacements for laptops. They only used them to read the news, facebook or watch netflix the iPad does literally everything that they previously had laptops for. > If Apple tried to tell me what I can and cannot run on OSX, I'd be pissed. I think the distinction that Microsoft is going for here is Win8 arm = tablets = iOS, Win8 x86 = laptops = OSX. By your argument there should be no problem with them locking it down then.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    The idea that an iPad can perform all the functions that some people are (under) using a laptop for doesn't mean that an iPad is an adequate replacement for a computer. They should not be marketed as such.
    - rbanffy 14y ago
      It all depends on what you use your computer for. For me it wouldn't be an adequate replacement - I like to work on my code offline and run development servers of my computer, but it's easy to imagine a simple setup where I log on to a remote machine through the tablet and work there.
azakai 14y ago
Best guess, the author is intentionally being dense and stirring up controversy for clicks. Yes, iOS and Windows RT are similar in some ways. The main difference is that Windows RT is a version of Windows, an OS that is a monopoly in its area. Extending a monopoly to other areas is different than a totally new product. Note that Microsoft is using the dominant position of Windows to further Windows RT, for example by having Office on it and various syncing stuff. Yes, there are grey areas, and all of this is debatable. It does make sense to give Microsoft more leeway given it is fighting an uphill battle in the tablet space. But the article seems to ignore all of that.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  > give Microsoft more leeway given it is fighting an uphill battle in the tablet space So, if we make it really hard to rob a bank, we should be OK with someone robbing one. The fact it's an uphill battle does not make it less an abuse of monopoly to extend it into other markets than it would be if they managed to see this opportunity before others (or not failed miserably to execute on it, over and over again). It's only an uphill battle because they were incompetent to see the opportunities Apple saw and to execute as well as Apple did.
  - recoiledsnake 14y ago
    I think what OP meant was that Microsoft should not be hobbled with deadweights compared to, lets say a startup competing in the tablet market. I don't believe he was talking about special incentives. Competition is almost always good, especially seeing that Android tablets are hardly making any traction and even Kindle Fire sales dropped like a rock this quarter.
cletus 14y ago
I wonder how many people throwing opinions around this were "of age" in the early-to-mid 90s and thus remember what an unstoppable behemoth Microsoft was. This was a time when they had 95%+ of the desktop OS share and you basically couldn't run a home computer with Windows. This was the early days of Linux (IIRC in ~1994 I downloaded SLS running Linux 0.99.x onto ~30 floppy drives over a 2400 baud modem!). Macs were an expensive niche product. Personal computing just wasn't possible without Microsoft. Microsoft very much used this position to kill Netscape as they saw the Internet as an existential threat (fearing Netscape would be the new OS). They tried to subvert Java (the threat of "write once run anywhere" being a threat to the Windows lock-in) and partially succeeded. It was at this time that the DoJ stepped in. I can't overemphasize the perception the tech community had of Microsoft then. Windows was rapidly evolving. Windows 95 was, I believe, a major turning point for the company (and where it achieved at least technical superiority over MacOS having preemptive multitasking and dynamic memory management). Microsoft really had an aura of invincibility. We are not in this situation today. Apple seems unable to do no wrong (in the marketplace; there are what are still fringe elements criticizing them for any number of things) but don't have the market position Microsoft did. In fact, Microsoft doesn't have the position Microsoft did in the 90s. At this point I believe we have viable alternatives to personal computing between mobile devices, Macs (you can get a Mac Mini for $600), netbooks and--dare I say it--even Chromebooks (you'll note that I left Linux off that list as I believe it will never be a viable mainstream desktop OS and of course I know it powers Android/ChromeOS). I certainly don't see an issue (yet) with Apple blocking alternative browsers. Don't like it? Buy an Android. Or a Windows Phone 7. Or a Blackberry (OK, I couldn't keep a straight face with that last one). Windows and Office are the geese that lay the golden eggs in Microsoft. Everything is beholden to them. As an organization, Microsoft seems terrified they'll die and as we've seen time and time again it's that fear and that switch from innovation to defending your turf that ultimately leads to the death of companies. I believe the whole Metro API browser thing is just more evidence of Microsoft's stagnation. Let them I say. It'll probably, at least in some small way, hasten either their demise or them attempting to turn the boat around before they go off the cliff. EDIT: yes Netscape was complicit in its own destruction. I used Netscape up until version 3. By Netscape 4 on a 486DX4/100 at least, IE4 was significantly better and faster and I never switched back (not until Firefox 1.5/2 years later). Netscape eroded at both ends (IMHO). At one end obviously was Microsoft giving away the equivalent to their consumer product for free (as well as bundling it with the OS, making it harder to use non-IE browsers and so on). At the other end was actually Apache. The Apache Webserver I believe it incredibly difficult to build their server software platform (anyone else remember Netscape's Web servers?). It wasn't until the rise of search engine advertising some years later that Microsoft's hold could be broken, it being the only thing that makes Firefox and Chrome possible. As an aside to all those who are anti-ads: how exactly would non-OS browsers exist without advertising?
dm8 14y ago
Has MSFT given any justification on why they are banning Firefox from Windows 8? And why iOS doesn't allow FF too?
- k-mcgrady 14y ago
  I think that one of the guidelines when developing iOS apps is that if you are building a browser you must use WebKit/UIWebView.
  - loumf 14y ago
    And the reason is because they don't allow you to run code that you download (which you would have to do to support JavaScript).
- TimGebhardt 14y ago
  They're not banning it. They're just not allowing access to critical API functions for a JIT engine to Windows Marketplace apps. Only IE has access to it. Without these APIs then Firefox will run like a dog because it'll undue all the years that people have been working on optimizing Javascript engines.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    Right. So... I don't ban anyone from my swimming pool... everyone is welcome. But if you're not family, you have to wear this 100lb ankle weight. Dive right in everybody! lol
    - stan_rogers 14y ago
      A more apt analogy would be to require everybody to wear a life jacket and a bike helmet. You can do whatever you want, as long as it's safe.
    - TimGebhardt 14y ago
      I think there is a big difference between banning it outright (like Apple) and hampering it. From the end-users point of view both suck, but at least if I use Firefox to sync my bookmarks and passwords I'm able to on a Windows tablet. Nothing I can do on an iPad.
koeselitz 14y ago
This is a bit silly. So the point of this article is that Mozilla "should be criticizing Apple?" Why waste a whole article saying someone else should criticize Apple? It seems more worthwhile to do it oneself. The trouble with trying to dismiss an argument with accusations of hypocrisy is that hypocrites can be right. If I make an argument that stealing is wrong and then turn around and steal something, that doesn't mean that stealing is morally permissible. Likewise, the fact that Mozilla neglects to criticize Apple doesn't mean their criticism of Microsoft is incorrect.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  > The trouble with trying to dismiss an argument with accusations of hypocrisy is that hypocrites can be right Touché! Also, iOS was closed from the start and Microsoft is closing Windows down now because it feels that if it doesn't, it will lose the Win8 ARM market too. And, obviously, Firefox is not the only target - they must be much more worried about Google owning the WOA web space.
  - cooldeal 14y ago
    >Also, iOS was closed from the start and Microsoft is closing Windows down now... Err what? You do realize that every single program that will run on Windows 7 will run on Windows 8 right? What do you mean by MS is closing Windows now? Also, Windows RT hasn't even started shipping yet, so you can say "Windows RT will be closed from the start". Which will make it equivalent to iOS in that regard.
    - throwaway64 14y ago
      exactly zero windows applications that exist currently will run under metro/winRT, so by extension, windows ARM.
      - rbanffy 14y ago
        Oddly enough it seems Firefox is able to JIT on Metro/x86
Zak 14y ago
This seems like a bad move for Microsoft. Few people see them as the horrible monopolistic evil empire anymore, but it's not so long ago that people saw them that way. They got in significant legal trouble just for bundling a browser with Windows. Blocking alternative browsers, or subjecting them to restrictions MS considers too crippling for their own browser seems like a good way to scare off developers and users alike.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  Scaring users off is not that big a problem for them. Microsoft has 5 vital clients - HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo and Toshiba. As long as you buy a computer with Windows installed (and it's hard not to) they're happy.
  - Zak 14y ago
    Yes, but those clients are expanding their non-Windows offerings. The version of Windows in question isn't for traditional PCs but for ARM tablets. There, it has to compete with Android[1], which has a bit of a head start. [1] And iOS, when in comes to consumer market share, but that's obviously not an option for the manufacturers MS sells to.
    - rbanffy 14y ago
      > There, it has to compete with Android[1], which has a bit of a head start. This matters little if MS is able to leverage their power with PC (by modulating the Windows OEM license price) and phone (modulating their Android patent tax) makers to convince them they should build Win8 tablets. Even as it diminishes, the power Microsoft has over the computing industry is enormous and cannot be ignored. I have a strong suspicion many phone vendors wouldn't bother to offer WP7 products without some sort of incentive from Redmond.
laveur 14y ago
I would like to take the time to point out that Opera has a browser on iOS http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id363729560?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id3637... (iTunes)
- gcp 14y ago
  Opera Mini doesn't contain a rendering engine or JIT or...it's a glorified image viewer that lets the rendering be done on a remote server.
sriramk 14y ago
My feeling here (ex-MSFT employee, so maybe biased one way or another) is that Mozilla is going after the soft underbelly of Microsoft, because they can. Mozilla is already locked out of iOS and they have failed at getting Apple to budge. If WinRT locks them out, they'll be locked out of two out of the three major tablet platforms (it's a safe assumption that WinRT will get some marketshare at least). Microsoft is an easier target than AAPL - Win8 is still under development so it's still early days and the company has a history with various governmental organizations (the DoJ, the EU). My guess is Mozilla is attempting to rattle Microsoft into opening up Win8 to get Firefox to run. Or drum up enough press, get the DoJ to make a quote or two and really get Redmond to worry. If I were Microsoft, I would hold my ground. Strategically, it makes a lot of sense to own the browsing experience e2e and I think Mozilla's case is weak given MSFT's lack of marketshare, the existence of Chromebooks, Boot2Gecko, etc.
- shmerl 14y ago
  > If I were Microsoft, I would hold my ground. You mean to justify such kind of crooked behavior?
  - sauravc 14y ago
    No, it means owning the browsing/battery life experience e2e. Geez! When it comes to issues about Apple or Microsoft (or Ruby), it seems a number of people on HN lack the ability to think objectively. It's quite sad really. It's like watching Republicans and Democrats fight in Congress, or North Carolina banning gay marriage, or Muslims and Christians fighting over God knows what. All these things stem from the inability to put oneself in the other side's shoes. Extremism sucks. Apple isn't 100% evil or saintly and neither is Microsoft.
    - chj 14y ago
      The question is, do you really think that MS can always outdo Mozilla in "browsing/battery" experience? They are controlling browser for a reason, but not a good reason to rule other players out. As a platform provider, Apple/Microsoft choose not to provide the full computational power to software developers. All the more reason developers should go to Android.
unreal37 14y ago
A lot of misinformation being spread here. Microsoft has not BANNED Firefox in Windows 8. There will be a version of Firefox for all editions of Windows 8, including desktop and tablet as long as Mozilla chooses to make one. In Windows 8 for ARM-based tablets, applications like this have to run in a sandbox (Metro UI). Get over it. Either consumers will or will not buy a tablet that they can't run applications the way they wish. Perhaps a Windows 8 tablet will be a disaster and all this outrage will be for nothing. Certainly the restrictions Apple places on iOS are in many ways worse. I don't see how you can be mad at Microsoft but give Apple a pass.
- sp332 14y ago
  The "sandbox" disallows JITs. That means JS performance in any browser (other than IE) will be basically unusable, effectively banning browsers from ARM Win8.
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    ... and irreparably damaging their reputation when compared with IE. So, no. I don't buy that "We don't want to ban your app, we just want to make sure it disappoints your users" as fair.
CountSessine 14y ago
I'm going to put this question out here for everyone who's had some experience building a JIT engine of some kind: what exactly is the danger of compiling code, even unknown code like from downloaded javascript, when the process' operating environment is supposed to be hardened anyways? Is it just that the only way to do this is with VirtualAlloc()/mmap()? Could a 'safe' executable page allocator be created for just this purpose? If the JIT'ing code is tricked into compiling and executing 'malicious' code, hasn't the operating environment - what libs the process can load, what syscalls it has access to, etc - already been security-hardened? My understanding of WinRT is that it's already a bit of a sand-boxed environment, with limited and measured access to the machine's resources. If it's possible for the JIT'ed code to do something REALLY bad, like install a driver or write to arbitrary system files or something, then it was possible for the JIT'ing code to do that too, and that's almost certainly a really really bad thing. Even if it's just a matter of the JIT'ed code violating the trust agreement between the user and the JIT'ing code (ie doing something that the user was OK with Firefox doing, like reading the address book, but doing it for malicious reasons), maybe a new trust agreement can be designed, that would make users aware that the JIT'ing program is inherently a bit more dangerous? Or maybe what really needs to happen is we have to treat JIT's as pluggable, upgradable OS infrastructure, sort of like the image loader or dyld/ld-linux.so? In that case, if the Firefox would install a browser and the Firefox JIT'ter as separate components, and then Firefox would ask it's JIT'er to compile/execute javascript into a separate process - one with much more limited access to the machine?
- lmkg 14y ago
  First three rules of security: Layers, Layers, LAYERS. To your point, in theory you could accomplish security by totally securing the JIT, or by totally securing the OS, and then exec's JITed code would be ok. However, totally secured JITers and OSs are as mythical as sufficiently smart compilers.
  - fpgeek 14y ago
    Totally secure, sure. Nothing nontrivial is totally secure, but... One reasonable option would be requiring any JIT to be via a typed assembly language. You should be able to get a good compromise with close to the performance of native code and the security of verified bytecode from that.
cjoh 14y ago
Only one of the organizations involved here has a court mandated consent decree.
ozten 14y ago
(Disclaimers: I work for Mozilla) There is a huge difference between iOS and other platforms. Apple, in legal terms, makes Firefox on iOS impossible. This was not the case with Windows; Microsoft was using covert means to undermine user choice. To make a blanket statement that Mozilla thinks Apple's banning Firefox from iPad and the iPhone is 'not a problem' is wrong and disingenuous. We have active projects around ways to give users choice within the constraints of Apple's licensing. Mozilla fought and won against Microsoft's anti-competitive efforts, under an entirely different technical and legal landscape. As a Mozillian, I'm pissed and have been pissed off since iOS's launch, but we also have to choose our battles on where we can fight to keep the web open. To apple's credit, they've provided a web standards based browser to a mobile landscape that didn't have one (at the time) and which spawned many other web standards based browsers like Chrome. Do I wish Safari on iOS have a freaking file input so I could upload photos from the gallery? YES! Would I want a Firefox browser that was proxy based to get around iOS licensing.... hell no. Is it worth the Mozilla community's time maintaining an iOS based port just for the people who jailbreak their iOS devices... probably not, but no one from Mozilla would stop you from doing the work.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  Don't forget iOS is a walled garden since day 1, while Windows used the 3rd party ecosystem to gain relevance on the desktop. Now, with the x86 desktop fading slowly into irrelevance, they are trying to control the environment on what they perceive to be their lifeboat. Without a JIT they ensure IE will be the only usable browser available on the platform. It's like what they did with private APIs available only to Microsoft programs - all other programs had to rely on slower/worse system functionality and, therefore, Microsoft programs enjoyed better performance. Microsoft already went as far as making Windows 3 deliberately incompatible with DR-DOS. This is not new behavior - they just resort to it when they are threatened. I expect a lot more of it.
  - recoiledsnake 14y ago
    >Don't forget iOS is a walled garden since day 1, while Windows used the 3rd party ecosystem to gain relevance on the desktop So? None, not even one, of the 3rd party programs running on Windows will run on Windows RT, so I fail to see the relevance of that point and Windows RT is on day -180 right now, not even day 1. >Without a JIT they ensure IE will be the only usable browser available on the platform. Apple does the exact same thing and you can say the same things about Apple, so I fail to see how Apple is better in this regard.
MaysonL 14y ago
Of course, there are other web browsers for iOS: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3961084 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3961084
- kalleboo 14y ago
  But no alternative rendering engines (all the alternative browsers are just UIWebViews save for Opera Mini which Apple don't classify as a browser since it doesn't do any rendering locally), and the alternative browsers have worse performance than Safari due to the sandbox disallowing some optimizations allowed in Safari.
tosseraccount 14y ago
Why are they blocking FF? It seems to me Apple's inviting the same anti-trust problems Microsoft had. Just let FF on and compete.
- Tloewald 14y ago
  A browser is a huge attack surface. It's excluded for the same reason Flash and Java are excluded. BTW I think this justifies Microsoft's stance too. The big problem is that Microsoft has this nasty track record.
  - throwaway64 14y ago
    so we can trust IE to be much more secure and not have problems?
    - Tloewald 14y ago
      No, but ie + other browsers is guaranteed to be less secure than just IE.
      - snupples 14y ago
        Not if you don't use IE
        Tloewald 14y ago
        IE will be used as a browser widget at API level by third party apps, so using it will be almost unavoidable.
        pcwalton 14y ago
        I suspect it's likely that apps that wish to use an alternative rendering engine for untrusted content would use IE only for trusted content.
contextfree 14y ago
arguments of the form "why aren't you complaining as much when X does it?" are always lame. because (1) often they are, you just haven't noticed it (often because it hasn't resonated with a media echo chamber) and (2) so what.
AshleysBrain 14y ago
I think Mozilla are absolutely right. and there is no hypocrisy. Microsoft are willing to, and have actually already, cause years of stagnation and harm to the internet with IE6. Presumably if they got the chance they would do it again on tablet too. Apple on the other hand don't appear so risky for two reasons: 1) they've never appeared to have an issue with other browsers on Mac OS 2) there's Android and its browser competing with iOS, so there is not a complete iOS-only monoculture like Microsoft had with Windows - there is still competition between mobile browsers (yes, switching browsers means you have to switch device, but that's better than nothing and will surely prevent one mobile browser from stagnating for five years). I know this doesn't mean Apple wouldn't do it if they had the chance, but as another commenter pointed out, many people have bad memories of long weekends trying to work with IE6 for the long 5 years between IE6 and IE7. Microsoft have already offended, so they deserve extra special attention, especially with legal agreements possibly still in place due to the antitrust cases.
danielrm26 14y ago
Perhaps Apple does it for quality purposes, while Microsoft does it to avoid competition.
mbq 14y ago
Meh, it is just time to accept that Android, iOS and Windows RT are not a serious OSes but an unobtrusive, eye-candy cloud clients for masses. The step ahead is either to waste money on VPSes or just demand the right to have full control of the software on hardware we buy -- say Angstrom will always run Firefox without any doubt.
- muyuu 14y ago
  You're totally right there, but sadly group dynamics will make it extremely hard for Angstrom to achieve critical mass as a phone OS and have a significant amount of businesses working in its ecosystem. I'm totally for it but it's not cost effective for me to get a machine capable of running Armstrong, then hack away until I can get it into a workable state (I'm older and busier now...) over just getting an Android, root it, make a throwaway google account so Google cannot pry on my data, and use that instead. It's still some work and some cost but nowhere as much. If there's a community effort to make it into a click-and-install Android-wiping mobile phone OS, I'd love to help with that in my spare time. Last time I looked into it (waited for years for my OpenPandora until I gave up) Angstrom was stuck in amateur PDA land, things have moved on and we now have cheap smartphones and tables that are basically overpowered PDAs with extra features and they are available for relatively very cheap. To compete with that a massive re-focus would be necessary. Obviously there is no substitute for freedom, so the niche is there.
deleted 14y ago
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da_n 14y ago
#drunken troll comment "Windows 8 FTW! Dude you are the DON. I really wish there was more people like you writing opinions like this online and make sure Apple gets what they deserved! What a bunch of asshole! Seems to me you should also give Samsung a call, see what they think! After all this they do not have browser either yet on iOS and I bet they really wanted it maximum! Apple should be take a leaf from the real Mr Steve book, and stop making mess of themselves. Shameful really, this is why I always buy Samsung product and Microsoft software, it is best for everyone to avoid this Apple who are never good for anybody. Thank you for great article."
michael_f 14y ago
My thoughts in summary: what a difference a name makes. iPhone runs iOS; most people don't even consider it OSX, so expectations about what apps should be there aren't based on precedence. "Windows 8 on ARM" /sounds/ like just another platform (out of many) that Windows has been ported to. The expectation is usually based upon what the software vendor can be bothered to port, rather than what Microsoft does. So to me it's easier to understand why people would have different expectations compared to Apple on this. Change the name and don't include any legacy UI if you want a more direct comparison to be more obvious.
thomasjoulin 14y ago
As much as I love iOS, I'm sad of some of the comment saying it's normal for Apple to block Chrome/Firefox for security reasons. Tablets (arguably, only the iPad, really) are the future of computing, like it or not. Having a single browser on highly connected machines is shoking. The whole lockin is understandable, the plateform is relatively new, and proved to be successful in part because if these extreme protections. But sooner rather than later, Apple is going to have to open some stuff. Being with something like gae keeper on iOS could allow to (very few) browser vendor to get on the App Store with full access to the sysem. Mozilla and Google build solid products with few security issues (if you factor off the security bugs from plugins) iOS is a very modern OS, but will deeply profit from competition in the browser space. Apple too. The best tablet for apps and web browsing will win in the long run, because the web will win in the long run, but people will always prefer native apps for specific stuff.
digamber_kamat 14y ago
Apple has been consistent in it's policies. It has always been a closed castle. That is one reason why I haven't spent any bucks buying Apple products. One good thing about their consistency is that their browsers and other software is pretty good. Safari is much decent browser than crappy IE. Microsoft on other hand has always grown with partners. They are not a closed castle. So when they try to gag a great software like Firefox I am upset. This comes at a time when Linux based OS like Ubuntu are perhaps as good as Windows 7. MS is hurting itself.
jhawk28 14y ago
The key difference is that its iOS on Apple hardware vs a general OS.
drone 14y ago
I think a big part of the history which people are forgetting here is that there were certain actions which Microsoft engaged in that strengthened the determination of "monopolistic" behavior. Namely, the restraints and difficulty they created for other operating systems in the market. [1][2] This specific instance ignores that particular history, and focuses just on the "browser included, supported, and otherwise enabled with the most features" part of the argument, which by its self does not seem to stand on its own merits. And, in fact, there really is -no- difference here between Apple and Microsoft - both have created a specific version of their software for a specific hardware platform, and both have placed, or are placing restrictions on what software can run on those platforms with the stated goal of controlling the end-customer experience. There is not yet any evidence of undue influence on the part of Microsoft to prevent, or otherwise make too costly for, other operating systems, with other browsers, to be installed on ARM-based hardware sold in the market place. In fact, at this point, it seems to be exactly the opposite - that all existing ARM-based tablet style devices currently for sale in the market contain non-Microsoft operating systems, and very few ARM-based phone style devices contain a Microsoft operating system. One would do well to remember that it was the sum of all actions which led to the anti-trust case, not just preventing IE from being uninstalled effectively, or preventing Netscape from being installed at the same level and with the same capabilities as IE. In this case, there is no evidence that MS is taking other actions to prevent people from selling arm-based devices with other operating systems. Given that we accept that it is legal for other entities to restrict what 3rd party software may be installed on their devices so long as they don't apply undue influence on the market outside of their product, I don't see why the reasoning would be so different here. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft "... Microsoft's conduct in forming restrictive licensing agreements with original equipment manufacturer (OEMs), and Microsoft's intent in its course of conduct. " [2] http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/July94/94387.txt.html http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/July94/94387.txt.html "Exclusionary Per Processor Licenses--Microsoft makes its MS-DOS and Windows technology available on a "per processor" basis, which requires PC manufacturers to pay a fee to Microsoft for each computer shipped, whether or not the computer contains Microsoft operating system software. The complaint alleges that this arrangement gives Microsoft an unfair advantage by causing a manufacturer selling a non-Microsoft operating system to pay at least two royalties--one to Microsoft and one to its competitor-- thereby making a non-Microsoft unit more expensive. "Microsoft has used its monopoly power, in effect, to levy a "tax" on PC manufacturers who would otherwise like to offer an alternative system," said Bingaman. "As a result, the ability of rival operating systems to compete has been impeded, innovation has been slowed and consumer choices have been limited.""
jroseattle 14y ago
This is such a tired argument. Microsoft's market share on browsers, desktops, etc. has been headed straight south for years, and yet Mozilla continues to beat the drum about choice and innovation and such? Hey, 1998 called, they'd like their complaints back. Mozilla isn't going after Apple because they can't -- they don't have a hammer of government oversight to pound away to get someone else to do things on their behalf. Mozilla is going after Microsoft mostly because they can get away with it. These complaints were relevant years ago, but much like Microsoft itself, they're reflective of an old mindset that's fading away.
rsanchez1 14y ago
But Apple made that 1984 commercial years ago. That means it can do no wrong, right? AND it's so cool. That also means it can do no wrong, right?
chmod775 14y ago
>Preston Gralla Not this guy again.

296 points by tomkin 14y ago

>"The difference here is that Microsoft is using its Windows monopoly power in the OS market to exclude competition in the browser market." Some might see it that way. Personally, I don't think that's Microsoft's goals at all, it's just an unintended consequence of them trying to slowly phase out the Win32 API and Desktop applications, and switch entirely to Metro-style WinRT-based apps.

diminish 14y ago
i am using firefox since versino 0.x, now of course, apple brags about a monopoly on tablets and firefox is not there, if gartner/idc predictions are true, tablets and other arm based devices will rule the world in 2015. so it is better for mozilla to target apple and ms at the same time.
lomegor 14y ago
It may certainly not be their goal, but they should know better.
sp332 14y ago
That would make sense except that they specifically exempt their own browser from the restrictions that will apply to every other browser.
- wvenable 14y ago
  The problem is that third party applications can cause security and performance issues and it's Microsoft who ultimately takes the blame for it. They exempt their own browser because it's their own browser.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    I'd say it's more an exemption for their own rendering engine. IE10 is more than just a "browser" in Windows 8, it is the engine used to execute several Windows 8 applications.
    - contextfree 14y ago
      It's an exemption for whatever is preinstalled on the device :) The actual technical mechanism behind this "ban" is simply that installing desktop apps in general is blocked on Windows RT. A "Metro style enabled desktop browser" (what Metro style IE and Metro style Firefox are) is really just a desktop executable that acts like a Metro style app.
- contextfree 14y ago
  No, it makes sense (not that it's necessarily the main or only reason) - it's much easier to break APIs when the only clients are internal.

deedubaya 14y ago

I don't think Apple blocks Firefox on iOS. Other browsers like Opera exist in the App Store, maybe Mozilla just hasn't developed FF for iOS yet? Or am I wrong?

wvenable 14y ago
Apple blocks all non-Safari browsers from the store. Opera Mobile doesn't exist in the App store, only Opera Mini which uses a remote server for rendering. Other browsers in the store use iOS webkit and are effectively shells around the Safari rendering engine.
- Terretta 14y ago
  What's wrong with the webkit rendering engine? Chrome started as "effectively a shell" around webkit. As far as most end users are concerned, the difference between browsers is the UI, not the rendering engine. I use iCab on iOS for its UI and amazing feature set (including Adblock and extensions), and apprececiate the choice. In fact, it syncs with Firefox bookmarks. Atomic is also nice. It would be very interesting to do a Firefox-like UI for iOS and see what the end user uptake would be.
  - wvenable 14y ago
    One example: The iPhone webkit doesn't support text reflow even though it's supported by webkit on Android and in Opera. Many years ago you could have said "What's wrong with the IE rendering engine" because, at one time, IE was the best browser available on Windows.
  - sp332 14y ago
    Even if your browser is a skin on webkit, it will run in a sandbox and have worse performance than Safari on iOS.
  - pbz 14y ago
    Nobody said there's anything wrong with it, only that you can't use any other engine.

gm 14y ago

FF's entire existence is based on a hate of Microsoft, so it only makes sense. That's why they're taking it up the butt from Google Chrome, Mozilla does not know how to deal with them. Nor do they particularly care that much about it, it seems (other than switching to increasing the version number every 2 months).

huggyface 14y ago
There is so much wrong with every word you oddly decided to type. EDIT: Seriously, HN? _I_ am sitting below zero? gm's obnoxious, fact-deficient, "up the butt" spiel is where HN is going now? How ignorant.
- adventureful 14y ago
  You're being down voted because you didn't say anything. HN users hate that even more than complaining.
  - huggyface 14y ago
    I'm cool with the downvotes, and appreciate the reason. All I petition is that gm's fanboy rhetoric gets the attention it deserves, which is a nuking from orbit.
    - codexon 14y ago
      It already has enough attention.He just being a subtle troll and should be ignored. It is improbable that someone with 20 years of experience in the tech sector would be oblivious to the Netscape/IE situation unless he is one of those people that include the years he spent programming since he was 5.
onedognight 14y ago
> FF's entire existence is based on a hate of Microsoft As a student of history I'm sure you are aware that Mozilla (the name and the code base) predated Internet Explorer. I think you meant to say that Internet Explorer's only reason for existing was that Microsoft feared Netscape.

Karunamon 14y ago

Considering that Apple hasn't been legally ruled to be an illegal monopoly and Microsoft has, the faux-righteous-indignation in the headline completely backfires.

rmk2 14y ago
Apple also has a lot more...vocal (dare I say 'zealous'?) followers trying to quell criticism. Those very same people will however gladly take every stab they can at Microsoft. (I think both companies deserve every bit of criticism for trying to repeat history all over again...)
- pohl 14y ago
  Microsoft had an abundant supply vocal apologists back then. Moreover, they had the tech press (which was on paper at the time) in their pocket.
wvenable 14y ago
Microsoft had an illegal monopoly on x86 powered desktop computers. There's a reason why only the ARM version of the exact same OS is locked down.

wvenable 14y ago

A lot of people, including the author of this article, seem to think it's unfair that Mozilla is not giving equal complaint time to both platforms. That's the fundamental issue here. Maybe, all things being equal, that would be a fair complaint but all things are not equal. First of all, the limitations of iOS and app store are well known and retread at least once a month on HN since the site opened. Mozilla certainly did complain about iOS years ago and decided ultimately to abandon the platform. We're talking about Windows now because Windows 8 is due to be released. Secondly, Firefox's primary platform is Windows and they already have working version of Firefox for Windows 8 with a Metro UI for x86. Only a minor technical limitation keeps them from releasing it for ARM -- that's not true of iOS. Lastly, there is a still a chance Microsoft might cave on this issue. We know from years of experience that Apple won't.

ajross 14y ago
Post-lastly: there's the simple point that Firefox for Windows is an actual product that could be shipped near-immediately. There is no Firefix for iOS, precisely because Apple has never allowed it. I think the broad point is valid though: Apple's platform control is no more morally justified than Microsoft's. And at least in the abstract they deserve equal scorn. But the specifics here are that Windows 8 on ARM won't run an app that can clearly be shipped (and will be for x86). That's a problem with a reasonable hope of being fixed, so it makes practical sense for Mozilla to whine about that first. Post-post-lastly: it bears mentioning that if Safari was as bad as IE, Apple might draw more fire. It helps a lot to have a browser that doesn't lag the state of the art.
- wvenable 14y ago
  To the people who say "Where's the moral outrage" about Apple, I have to wonder if they haven't been paying attention for the last 4 years. Lots of people and organizations have led the charge against Apple. It seems the only organization actively complaining about the limitations of Windows 8 right now is Mozilla. In terms of equal scorn, Microsoft hasn't gotten much scorn at all.
- billpatrianakos 14y ago

superuser2 14y ago

Windows 8 is the natural successor to Win7 and XP. It's the next version of the most popular desktop OS in the world. As with Windows 7 and OSX, it should run whatever the hell the machine's owner wants it to. iOS is a locked-down, consistent, homogeneous user experience on specialty devices that should not be and are not marketed as replacements for computers. Apple Store employees will specifically advise against purchasing an iPad as a primary computer. If Apple tried to tell me what I can and cannot run on OSX, I'd be pissed. On mobile, I currently have a choice between superior UX (iOS) and freedom (Android), which are at this stage in the game somewhat mutually exclusive (part of the iPhone's appeal is that There Is One And Only One Right Way To Do It). For the record, I run Android, but I still want to the option to select a higher quality product if I'm willing to sacrifice what Android does better (turn by turn directions and physical keyboard on the Droid 3).

esrauch 14y ago
> that should not be and are not marketed as replacements for computers. Interestingly several of my non-technical friends have taken on iPads as full time replacements for laptops. They only used them to read the news, facebook or watch netflix the iPad does literally everything that they previously had laptops for. > If Apple tried to tell me what I can and cannot run on OSX, I'd be pissed. I think the distinction that Microsoft is going for here is Win8 arm = tablets = iOS, Win8 x86 = laptops = OSX. By your argument there should be no problem with them locking it down then.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  The idea that an iPad can perform all the functions that some people are (under) using a laptop for doesn't mean that an iPad is an adequate replacement for a computer. They should not be marketed as such.
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    It all depends on what you use your computer for. For me it wouldn't be an adequate replacement - I like to work on my code offline and run development servers of my computer, but it's easy to imagine a simple setup where I log on to a remote machine through the tablet and work there.

azakai 14y ago

Best guess, the author is intentionally being dense and stirring up controversy for clicks. Yes, iOS and Windows RT are similar in some ways. The main difference is that Windows RT is a version of Windows, an OS that is a monopoly in its area. Extending a monopoly to other areas is different than a totally new product. Note that Microsoft is using the dominant position of Windows to further Windows RT, for example by having Office on it and various syncing stuff. Yes, there are grey areas, and all of this is debatable. It does make sense to give Microsoft more leeway given it is fighting an uphill battle in the tablet space. But the article seems to ignore all of that.

rbanffy 14y ago
> give Microsoft more leeway given it is fighting an uphill battle in the tablet space So, if we make it really hard to rob a bank, we should be OK with someone robbing one. The fact it's an uphill battle does not make it less an abuse of monopoly to extend it into other markets than it would be if they managed to see this opportunity before others (or not failed miserably to execute on it, over and over again). It's only an uphill battle because they were incompetent to see the opportunities Apple saw and to execute as well as Apple did.
- recoiledsnake 14y ago
  I think what OP meant was that Microsoft should not be hobbled with deadweights compared to, lets say a startup competing in the tablet market. I don't believe he was talking about special incentives. Competition is almost always good, especially seeing that Android tablets are hardly making any traction and even Kindle Fire sales dropped like a rock this quarter.

cletus 14y ago

I wonder how many people throwing opinions around this were "of age" in the early-to-mid 90s and thus remember what an unstoppable behemoth Microsoft was. This was a time when they had 95%+ of the desktop OS share and you basically couldn't run a home computer with Windows. This was the early days of Linux (IIRC in ~1994 I downloaded SLS running Linux 0.99.x onto ~30 floppy drives over a 2400 baud modem!). Macs were an expensive niche product. Personal computing just wasn't possible without Microsoft. Microsoft very much used this position to kill Netscape as they saw the Internet as an existential threat (fearing Netscape would be the new OS). They tried to subvert Java (the threat of "write once run anywhere" being a threat to the Windows lock-in) and partially succeeded. It was at this time that the DoJ stepped in. I can't overemphasize the perception the tech community had of Microsoft then. Windows was rapidly evolving. Windows 95 was, I believe, a major turning point for the company (and where it achieved at least technical superiority over MacOS having preemptive multitasking and dynamic memory management). Microsoft really had an aura of invincibility. We are not in this situation today. Apple seems unable to do no wrong (in the marketplace; there are what are still fringe elements criticizing them for any number of things) but don't have the market position Microsoft did. In fact, Microsoft doesn't have the position Microsoft did in the 90s. At this point I believe we have viable alternatives to personal computing between mobile devices, Macs (you can get a Mac Mini for $600), netbooks and--dare I say it--even Chromebooks (you'll note that I left Linux off that list as I believe it will never be a viable mainstream desktop OS and of course I know it powers Android/ChromeOS). I certainly don't see an issue (yet) with Apple blocking alternative browsers. Don't like it? Buy an Android. Or a Windows Phone 7. Or a Blackberry (OK, I couldn't keep a straight face with that last one). Windows and Office are the geese that lay the golden eggs in Microsoft. Everything is beholden to them. As an organization, Microsoft seems terrified they'll die and as we've seen time and time again it's that fear and that switch from innovation to defending your turf that ultimately leads to the death of companies. I believe the whole Metro API browser thing is just more evidence of Microsoft's stagnation. Let them I say. It'll probably, at least in some small way, hasten either their demise or them attempting to turn the boat around before they go off the cliff. EDIT: yes Netscape was complicit in its own destruction. I used Netscape up until version 3. By Netscape 4 on a 486DX4/100 at least, IE4 was significantly better and faster and I never switched back (not until Firefox 1.5/2 years later). Netscape eroded at both ends (IMHO). At one end obviously was Microsoft giving away the equivalent to their consumer product for free (as well as bundling it with the OS, making it harder to use non-IE browsers and so on). At the other end was actually Apache. The Apache Webserver I believe it incredibly difficult to build their server software platform (anyone else remember Netscape's Web servers?). It wasn't until the rise of search engine advertising some years later that Microsoft's hold could be broken, it being the only thing that makes Firefox and Chrome possible. As an aside to all those who are anti-ads: how exactly would non-OS browsers exist without advertising?

dm8 14y ago

Has MSFT given any justification on why they are banning Firefox from Windows 8? And why iOS doesn't allow FF too?

k-mcgrady 14y ago
I think that one of the guidelines when developing iOS apps is that if you are building a browser you must use WebKit/UIWebView.
- loumf 14y ago
  And the reason is because they don't allow you to run code that you download (which you would have to do to support JavaScript).
TimGebhardt 14y ago
They're not banning it. They're just not allowing access to critical API functions for a JIT engine to Windows Marketplace apps. Only IE has access to it. Without these APIs then Firefox will run like a dog because it'll undue all the years that people have been working on optimizing Javascript engines.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  Right. So... I don't ban anyone from my swimming pool... everyone is welcome. But if you're not family, you have to wear this 100lb ankle weight. Dive right in everybody! lol
  - stan_rogers 14y ago
    A more apt analogy would be to require everybody to wear a life jacket and a bike helmet. You can do whatever you want, as long as it's safe.
  - TimGebhardt 14y ago
    I think there is a big difference between banning it outright (like Apple) and hampering it. From the end-users point of view both suck, but at least if I use Firefox to sync my bookmarks and passwords I'm able to on a Windows tablet. Nothing I can do on an iPad.

koeselitz 14y ago

This is a bit silly. So the point of this article is that Mozilla "should be criticizing Apple?" Why waste a whole article saying someone else should criticize Apple? It seems more worthwhile to do it oneself. The trouble with trying to dismiss an argument with accusations of hypocrisy is that hypocrites can be right. If I make an argument that stealing is wrong and then turn around and steal something, that doesn't mean that stealing is morally permissible. Likewise, the fact that Mozilla neglects to criticize Apple doesn't mean their criticism of Microsoft is incorrect.

rbanffy 14y ago
> The trouble with trying to dismiss an argument with accusations of hypocrisy is that hypocrites can be right Touché! Also, iOS was closed from the start and Microsoft is closing Windows down now because it feels that if it doesn't, it will lose the Win8 ARM market too. And, obviously, Firefox is not the only target - they must be much more worried about Google owning the WOA web space.
- cooldeal 14y ago
  >Also, iOS was closed from the start and Microsoft is closing Windows down now... Err what? You do realize that every single program that will run on Windows 7 will run on Windows 8 right? What do you mean by MS is closing Windows now? Also, Windows RT hasn't even started shipping yet, so you can say "Windows RT will be closed from the start". Which will make it equivalent to iOS in that regard.
  - throwaway64 14y ago
    exactly zero windows applications that exist currently will run under metro/winRT, so by extension, windows ARM.
    - rbanffy 14y ago
      Oddly enough it seems Firefox is able to JIT on Metro/x86

Zak 14y ago

This seems like a bad move for Microsoft. Few people see them as the horrible monopolistic evil empire anymore, but it's not so long ago that people saw them that way. They got in significant legal trouble just for bundling a browser with Windows. Blocking alternative browsers, or subjecting them to restrictions MS considers too crippling for their own browser seems like a good way to scare off developers and users alike.

rbanffy 14y ago
Scaring users off is not that big a problem for them. Microsoft has 5 vital clients - HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo and Toshiba. As long as you buy a computer with Windows installed (and it's hard not to) they're happy.
- Zak 14y ago
  Yes, but those clients are expanding their non-Windows offerings. The version of Windows in question isn't for traditional PCs but for ARM tablets. There, it has to compete with Android[1], which has a bit of a head start. [1] And iOS, when in comes to consumer market share, but that's obviously not an option for the manufacturers MS sells to.
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    > There, it has to compete with Android[1], which has a bit of a head start. This matters little if MS is able to leverage their power with PC (by modulating the Windows OEM license price) and phone (modulating their Android patent tax) makers to convince them they should build Win8 tablets. Even as it diminishes, the power Microsoft has over the computing industry is enormous and cannot be ignored. I have a strong suspicion many phone vendors wouldn't bother to offer WP7 products without some sort of incentive from Redmond.

laveur 14y ago

I would like to take the time to point out that Opera has a browser on iOS http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id363729560?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id3637... (iTunes)

gcp 14y ago
Opera Mini doesn't contain a rendering engine or JIT or...it's a glorified image viewer that lets the rendering be done on a remote server.

sriramk 14y ago

My feeling here (ex-MSFT employee, so maybe biased one way or another) is that Mozilla is going after the soft underbelly of Microsoft, because they can. Mozilla is already locked out of iOS and they have failed at getting Apple to budge. If WinRT locks them out, they'll be locked out of two out of the three major tablet platforms (it's a safe assumption that WinRT will get some marketshare at least). Microsoft is an easier target than AAPL - Win8 is still under development so it's still early days and the company has a history with various governmental organizations (the DoJ, the EU). My guess is Mozilla is attempting to rattle Microsoft into opening up Win8 to get Firefox to run. Or drum up enough press, get the DoJ to make a quote or two and really get Redmond to worry. If I were Microsoft, I would hold my ground. Strategically, it makes a lot of sense to own the browsing experience e2e and I think Mozilla's case is weak given MSFT's lack of marketshare, the existence of Chromebooks, Boot2Gecko, etc.

shmerl 14y ago
> If I were Microsoft, I would hold my ground. You mean to justify such kind of crooked behavior?
- sauravc 14y ago
  No, it means owning the browsing/battery life experience e2e. Geez! When it comes to issues about Apple or Microsoft (or Ruby), it seems a number of people on HN lack the ability to think objectively. It's quite sad really. It's like watching Republicans and Democrats fight in Congress, or North Carolina banning gay marriage, or Muslims and Christians fighting over God knows what. All these things stem from the inability to put oneself in the other side's shoes. Extremism sucks. Apple isn't 100% evil or saintly and neither is Microsoft.
  - chj 14y ago
    The question is, do you really think that MS can always outdo Mozilla in "browsing/battery" experience? They are controlling browser for a reason, but not a good reason to rule other players out. As a platform provider, Apple/Microsoft choose not to provide the full computational power to software developers. All the more reason developers should go to Android.

unreal37 14y ago

A lot of misinformation being spread here. Microsoft has not BANNED Firefox in Windows 8. There will be a version of Firefox for all editions of Windows 8, including desktop and tablet as long as Mozilla chooses to make one. In Windows 8 for ARM-based tablets, applications like this have to run in a sandbox (Metro UI). Get over it. Either consumers will or will not buy a tablet that they can't run applications the way they wish. Perhaps a Windows 8 tablet will be a disaster and all this outrage will be for nothing. Certainly the restrictions Apple places on iOS are in many ways worse. I don't see how you can be mad at Microsoft but give Apple a pass.

sp332 14y ago
The "sandbox" disallows JITs. That means JS performance in any browser (other than IE) will be basically unusable, effectively banning browsers from ARM Win8.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  ... and irreparably damaging their reputation when compared with IE. So, no. I don't buy that "We don't want to ban your app, we just want to make sure it disappoints your users" as fair.

CountSessine 14y ago

I'm going to put this question out here for everyone who's had some experience building a JIT engine of some kind: what exactly is the danger of compiling code, even unknown code like from downloaded javascript, when the process' operating environment is supposed to be hardened anyways? Is it just that the only way to do this is with VirtualAlloc()/mmap()? Could a 'safe' executable page allocator be created for just this purpose? If the JIT'ing code is tricked into compiling and executing 'malicious' code, hasn't the operating environment - what libs the process can load, what syscalls it has access to, etc - already been security-hardened? My understanding of WinRT is that it's already a bit of a sand-boxed environment, with limited and measured access to the machine's resources. If it's possible for the JIT'ed code to do something REALLY bad, like install a driver or write to arbitrary system files or something, then it was possible for the JIT'ing code to do that too, and that's almost certainly a really really bad thing. Even if it's just a matter of the JIT'ed code violating the trust agreement between the user and the JIT'ing code (ie doing something that the user was OK with Firefox doing, like reading the address book, but doing it for malicious reasons), maybe a new trust agreement can be designed, that would make users aware that the JIT'ing program is inherently a bit more dangerous? Or maybe what really needs to happen is we have to treat JIT's as pluggable, upgradable OS infrastructure, sort of like the image loader or dyld/ld-linux.so? In that case, if the Firefox would install a browser and the Firefox JIT'ter as separate components, and then Firefox would ask it's JIT'er to compile/execute javascript into a separate process - one with much more limited access to the machine?

lmkg 14y ago
First three rules of security: Layers, Layers, LAYERS. To your point, in theory you could accomplish security by totally securing the JIT, or by totally securing the OS, and then exec's JITed code would be ok. However, totally secured JITers and OSs are as mythical as sufficiently smart compilers.
- fpgeek 14y ago
  Totally secure, sure. Nothing nontrivial is totally secure, but... One reasonable option would be requiring any JIT to be via a typed assembly language. You should be able to get a good compromise with close to the performance of native code and the security of verified bytecode from that.

cjoh 14y ago

Only one of the organizations involved here has a court mandated consent decree.

ozten 14y ago

(Disclaimers: I work for Mozilla) There is a huge difference between iOS and other platforms. Apple, in legal terms, makes Firefox on iOS impossible. This was not the case with Windows; Microsoft was using covert means to undermine user choice. To make a blanket statement that Mozilla thinks Apple's banning Firefox from iPad and the iPhone is 'not a problem' is wrong and disingenuous. We have active projects around ways to give users choice within the constraints of Apple's licensing. Mozilla fought and won against Microsoft's anti-competitive efforts, under an entirely different technical and legal landscape. As a Mozillian, I'm pissed and have been pissed off since iOS's launch, but we also have to choose our battles on where we can fight to keep the web open. To apple's credit, they've provided a web standards based browser to a mobile landscape that didn't have one (at the time) and which spawned many other web standards based browsers like Chrome. Do I wish Safari on iOS have a freaking file input so I could upload photos from the gallery? YES! Would I want a Firefox browser that was proxy based to get around iOS licensing.... hell no. Is it worth the Mozilla community's time maintaining an iOS based port just for the people who jailbreak their iOS devices... probably not, but no one from Mozilla would stop you from doing the work.

rbanffy 14y ago
Don't forget iOS is a walled garden since day 1, while Windows used the 3rd party ecosystem to gain relevance on the desktop. Now, with the x86 desktop fading slowly into irrelevance, they are trying to control the environment on what they perceive to be their lifeboat. Without a JIT they ensure IE will be the only usable browser available on the platform. It's like what they did with private APIs available only to Microsoft programs - all other programs had to rely on slower/worse system functionality and, therefore, Microsoft programs enjoyed better performance. Microsoft already went as far as making Windows 3 deliberately incompatible with DR-DOS. This is not new behavior - they just resort to it when they are threatened. I expect a lot more of it.
- recoiledsnake 14y ago
  >Don't forget iOS is a walled garden since day 1, while Windows used the 3rd party ecosystem to gain relevance on the desktop So? None, not even one, of the 3rd party programs running on Windows will run on Windows RT, so I fail to see the relevance of that point and Windows RT is on day -180 right now, not even day 1. >Without a JIT they ensure IE will be the only usable browser available on the platform. Apple does the exact same thing and you can say the same things about Apple, so I fail to see how Apple is better in this regard.

MaysonL 14y ago

Of course, there are other web browsers for iOS: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3961084 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3961084

kalleboo 14y ago
But no alternative rendering engines (all the alternative browsers are just UIWebViews save for Opera Mini which Apple don't classify as a browser since it doesn't do any rendering locally), and the alternative browsers have worse performance than Safari due to the sandbox disallowing some optimizations allowed in Safari.

tosseraccount 14y ago

Why are they blocking FF? It seems to me Apple's inviting the same anti-trust problems Microsoft had. Just let FF on and compete.

Tloewald 14y ago
A browser is a huge attack surface. It's excluded for the same reason Flash and Java are excluded. BTW I think this justifies Microsoft's stance too. The big problem is that Microsoft has this nasty track record.
- throwaway64 14y ago
  so we can trust IE to be much more secure and not have problems?
  - Tloewald 14y ago
    No, but ie + other browsers is guaranteed to be less secure than just IE.
    - snupples 14y ago
      Not if you don't use IE
      - Tloewald 14y ago
        IE will be used as a browser widget at API level by third party apps, so using it will be almost unavoidable.
        pcwalton 14y ago
        I suspect it's likely that apps that wish to use an alternative rendering engine for untrusted content would use IE only for trusted content.

contextfree 14y ago

arguments of the form "why aren't you complaining as much when X does it?" are always lame. because (1) often they are, you just haven't noticed it (often because it hasn't resonated with a media echo chamber) and (2) so what.

AshleysBrain 14y ago

I think Mozilla are absolutely right. and there is no hypocrisy. Microsoft are willing to, and have actually already, cause years of stagnation and harm to the internet with IE6. Presumably if they got the chance they would do it again on tablet too. Apple on the other hand don't appear so risky for two reasons: 1) they've never appeared to have an issue with other browsers on Mac OS 2) there's Android and its browser competing with iOS, so there is not a complete iOS-only monoculture like Microsoft had with Windows - there is still competition between mobile browsers (yes, switching browsers means you have to switch device, but that's better than nothing and will surely prevent one mobile browser from stagnating for five years). I know this doesn't mean Apple wouldn't do it if they had the chance, but as another commenter pointed out, many people have bad memories of long weekends trying to work with IE6 for the long 5 years between IE6 and IE7. Microsoft have already offended, so they deserve extra special attention, especially with legal agreements possibly still in place due to the antitrust cases.

danielrm26 14y ago

Perhaps Apple does it for quality purposes, while Microsoft does it to avoid competition.

mbq 14y ago

Meh, it is just time to accept that Android, iOS and Windows RT are not a serious OSes but an unobtrusive, eye-candy cloud clients for masses. The step ahead is either to waste money on VPSes or just demand the right to have full control of the software on hardware we buy -- say Angstrom will always run Firefox without any doubt.

muyuu 14y ago
You're totally right there, but sadly group dynamics will make it extremely hard for Angstrom to achieve critical mass as a phone OS and have a significant amount of businesses working in its ecosystem. I'm totally for it but it's not cost effective for me to get a machine capable of running Armstrong, then hack away until I can get it into a workable state (I'm older and busier now...) over just getting an Android, root it, make a throwaway google account so Google cannot pry on my data, and use that instead. It's still some work and some cost but nowhere as much. If there's a community effort to make it into a click-and-install Android-wiping mobile phone OS, I'd love to help with that in my spare time. Last time I looked into it (waited for years for my OpenPandora until I gave up) Angstrom was stuck in amateur PDA land, things have moved on and we now have cheap smartphones and tables that are basically overpowered PDAs with extra features and they are available for relatively very cheap. To compete with that a massive re-focus would be necessary. Obviously there is no substitute for freedom, so the niche is there.

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da_n 14y ago

#drunken troll comment "Windows 8 FTW! Dude you are the DON. I really wish there was more people like you writing opinions like this online and make sure Apple gets what they deserved! What a bunch of asshole! Seems to me you should also give Samsung a call, see what they think! After all this they do not have browser either yet on iOS and I bet they really wanted it maximum! Apple should be take a leaf from the real Mr Steve book, and stop making mess of themselves. Shameful really, this is why I always buy Samsung product and Microsoft software, it is best for everyone to avoid this Apple who are never good for anybody. Thank you for great article."

michael_f 14y ago

My thoughts in summary: what a difference a name makes. iPhone runs iOS; most people don't even consider it OSX, so expectations about what apps should be there aren't based on precedence. "Windows 8 on ARM" /sounds/ like just another platform (out of many) that Windows has been ported to. The expectation is usually based upon what the software vendor can be bothered to port, rather than what Microsoft does. So to me it's easier to understand why people would have different expectations compared to Apple on this. Change the name and don't include any legacy UI if you want a more direct comparison to be more obvious.

thomasjoulin 14y ago

As much as I love iOS, I'm sad of some of the comment saying it's normal for Apple to block Chrome/Firefox for security reasons. Tablets (arguably, only the iPad, really) are the future of computing, like it or not. Having a single browser on highly connected machines is shoking. The whole lockin is understandable, the plateform is relatively new, and proved to be successful in part because if these extreme protections. But sooner rather than later, Apple is going to have to open some stuff. Being with something like gae keeper on iOS could allow to (very few) browser vendor to get on the App Store with full access to the sysem. Mozilla and Google build solid products with few security issues (if you factor off the security bugs from plugins) iOS is a very modern OS, but will deeply profit from competition in the browser space. Apple too. The best tablet for apps and web browsing will win in the long run, because the web will win in the long run, but people will always prefer native apps for specific stuff.

digamber_kamat 14y ago

Apple has been consistent in it's policies. It has always been a closed castle. That is one reason why I haven't spent any bucks buying Apple products. One good thing about their consistency is that their browsers and other software is pretty good. Safari is much decent browser than crappy IE. Microsoft on other hand has always grown with partners. They are not a closed castle. So when they try to gag a great software like Firefox I am upset. This comes at a time when Linux based OS like Ubuntu are perhaps as good as Windows 7. MS is hurting itself.

jhawk28 14y ago

The key difference is that its iOS on Apple hardware vs a general OS.

drone 14y ago

I think a big part of the history which people are forgetting here is that there were certain actions which Microsoft engaged in that strengthened the determination of "monopolistic" behavior. Namely, the restraints and difficulty they created for other operating systems in the market. [1][2] This specific instance ignores that particular history, and focuses just on the "browser included, supported, and otherwise enabled with the most features" part of the argument, which by its self does not seem to stand on its own merits. And, in fact, there really is -no- difference here between Apple and Microsoft - both have created a specific version of their software for a specific hardware platform, and both have placed, or are placing restrictions on what software can run on those platforms with the stated goal of controlling the end-customer experience. There is not yet any evidence of undue influence on the part of Microsoft to prevent, or otherwise make too costly for, other operating systems, with other browsers, to be installed on ARM-based hardware sold in the market place. In fact, at this point, it seems to be exactly the opposite - that all existing ARM-based tablet style devices currently for sale in the market contain non-Microsoft operating systems, and very few ARM-based phone style devices contain a Microsoft operating system. One would do well to remember that it was the sum of all actions which led to the anti-trust case, not just preventing IE from being uninstalled effectively, or preventing Netscape from being installed at the same level and with the same capabilities as IE. In this case, there is no evidence that MS is taking other actions to prevent people from selling arm-based devices with other operating systems. Given that we accept that it is legal for other entities to restrict what 3rd party software may be installed on their devices so long as they don't apply undue influence on the market outside of their product, I don't see why the reasoning would be so different here. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft "... Microsoft's conduct in forming restrictive licensing agreements with original equipment manufacturer (OEMs), and Microsoft's intent in its course of conduct. " [2] http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/July94/94387.txt.html http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/Pre_96/July94/94387.txt.html "Exclusionary Per Processor Licenses--Microsoft makes its MS-DOS and Windows technology available on a "per processor" basis, which requires PC manufacturers to pay a fee to Microsoft for each computer shipped, whether or not the computer contains Microsoft operating system software. The complaint alleges that this arrangement gives Microsoft an unfair advantage by causing a manufacturer selling a non-Microsoft operating system to pay at least two royalties--one to Microsoft and one to its competitor-- thereby making a non-Microsoft unit more expensive. "Microsoft has used its monopoly power, in effect, to levy a "tax" on PC manufacturers who would otherwise like to offer an alternative system," said Bingaman. "As a result, the ability of rival operating systems to compete has been impeded, innovation has been slowed and consumer choices have been limited.""

jroseattle 14y ago

This is such a tired argument. Microsoft's market share on browsers, desktops, etc. has been headed straight south for years, and yet Mozilla continues to beat the drum about choice and innovation and such? Hey, 1998 called, they'd like their complaints back. Mozilla isn't going after Apple because they can't -- they don't have a hammer of government oversight to pound away to get someone else to do things on their behalf. Mozilla is going after Microsoft mostly because they can get away with it. These complaints were relevant years ago, but much like Microsoft itself, they're reflective of an old mindset that's fading away.

rsanchez1 14y ago

But Apple made that 1984 commercial years ago. That means it can do no wrong, right? AND it's so cool. That also means it can do no wrong, right?

chmod775 14y ago

>Preston Gralla Not this guy again.