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I'd be delighted to use FF on iPad. I do a lot of leisure browsing/reading and I want to support FF on all my devices. Is their stand still the same i.e. We ref

by chdir 12y ago

I'd be delighted to use FF on iPad. I do a lot of leisure browsing/reading and I want to support FF on all my devices. Is their stand still the same i.e. We refuse to bring Firefox to iOS until Apple lets us use our web engine ? http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/15/mozilla-ceo-we-refuse-to-bring-firefox-to-ios-until-apple-lets-us-use-our-web-engine/ http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/15/mozilla-ceo-we-refuse-to-b...

soperj 12y ago
I'd blame apple, not firefox. What's the point in them wasting their time just skinning something that is guaranteed to be slower than Safari?
- caiob 12y ago
  Not valid for iOS8, as they introduced the WKWebView.
- amartya916 12y ago
  Yes, Apple is definitely to "blame" as far as handicapping UIWebViews are concerned. That being said, the new WKWebview is supposed to have all the Javascript optimizations (and the Nitro engine) that mobile Safari uses. Chances are that it might still not be as fast as Safari, but Firefox should bite the bullet and just do it because: a. Firefox cannot afford to not be on all platforms. With computing devices converging and relying on handshakes (data syncing?), missing out on a major mobile platform is foolish. b. In a related point, syncing bookmarks/tabs via Firefox sync is severely handicapped by it's absence on iOS. c. There is a fantastic niche where FF can fit in on iOS. It'd be as privacy centric as Safari and with an iOS launch would be cross-platform like Chrome (without Google peddling their products front and centre). They could also get some inspiration from mobile Opera on iOS that has fantastic data saving features in-built.
  - apayan 12y ago
    For what it's worth, WKWebView is still astonishingly buggy and hangs quite a bit when loading some pages with XHRs. There are some other bugs that trigger these 10+ second hangs, but we couldn't delay shipping anymore so we reverted back to UIWebView.
    - amartya916 12y ago
      Darn. Thanks for letting me know. I was thinking of starting to experiment with WKWebView for an app that currently uses UIWebViews. So I guess FF using WKWebViews (even if they can get over the philosophical/techinical difference with Apple) is some ways off.
  - Yoric 12y ago
    Well, Apple is also definitely to "blame" for forbidding Gecko on iPhone, a number of years ago. I may be wrong, but I seem to remember that there used to be a prototype build of Firefox Mobile that ran on iOS, but Apple made it clear that it would not be accepted on the Store. Developing an Apple-compliant Firefox for iOS would mean developing an entirely separate browser, which basically wouldn't share a single line of code with either Firefox Desktop, Firefox for Android, Firefox OS or Firefox for Firefox OS, plus it would be using a (reduced version of) WebKit, so it would not have the same behavior as the other Firefoxen and it would require yet different Firefox Development Tools. If this platform was a high priority, this might be feasible, but it might take several years, at the expense of some other project and Apple would still be in position to shoot down Firefox for iOS (again). So I don't think that this is going to happen any time soon.
    - Excavator 12y ago
      You're not thinking of Junior¹ are you? 1: 30min in @ https://air.mozilla.org/product-design-at-mozilla/ https://air.mozilla.org/product-design-at-mozilla/
      - nnethercote 12y ago
        No. There was a port of real Firefox to iOS.
- chdir 12y ago
  I agree Apple is to blame here. But, disagree with the logic. > What's the point in them wasting their time just skinning something that is guaranteed to be slower than Safari I'd say, consistency of user experience and sync'ing my bookmarks etc. Skipping iOS means you are losing a reasonable chunk of users who fall in the category of wanting the same browser on all their devices.
  - JetSpiegel 12y ago
    If it uses WebKit, it's not Firefox. Plain and simple.
    - giovannibajo1 12y ago
      That's a developer POV. For users, Firefox is defined as the browser with that specific look and feel, that landing pages, those awesome plugins and marketplace, that tab sync, that password manager, etc. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single non-developer who is even aware there is a difference in rendering engines (or javascript engines). The maximum they might know is that "this site is broken with that browser", but that won't relate to "rendering engine" in their mind. So brining Firefox to iOS would give an awesome benefit for many users that love Firefox on the desktop, and encourage others for which the absence of Firefox on iOS is a nuisance or a blocker in its adoption.
      - JetSpiegel 12y ago
        That would be like selling a Jaguar with a Fiat engine. Just because there are people too dumb to realize doesn't make it less wrong. Even ignoring the point someone raised of increasing the workload of already strained resources.
        giovannibajo1 12y ago
        It would be like selling a Jaguar with a Ferrari engine; still a weirdo, but at least fully functional. You can't seriously claim Mobile Webkit to be to a (theoretical) Gecko-on-iOS like a Fiat to a Jaguar. And people are not "too dumb to realize". The whole point of the HTML standard is to make sure that all browser render the same. The whole point of the standard, and all the efforts of all the browsers, go towards a single goal: making all pages render equal on all browsers, that is making people NOT realize there is a difference; the technical problem of different codebases exhibiting different behaviors in rendering is just that, a technical problem to be solved. I maintain that the developer-centric position of focusing on Gecko and thus refusing a iOS port as "useless", is actually doing Firefox lots of harm in its adoption. Firefox is the product, not Gecko. Moreover, even if Apple eventually lifted the restriction, you want to be ready that day; you would still have to port the whole browser in addition to Gecko, including non-trivial issues like the extensions, and coordinating a solution for using extensions on all mobile platforms require years; the ecosystem of extensions need to adapt and evolve over the time. Releasing, maintaining, optimizing and evolving a Webkit-based Firefox on iOS would be still a gigantic effort and would still bring benefit; you're then free not to use it, if you only need Firefox as a way to use Gecko.
fubu 12y ago
The rendering engine is a non trivial portion of what Mozilla is. To be an advocate of the web user in standards discussions involving things like HTML5 and ECMAScript. If they do not have a large enough market share of web users on their engines, they will loose their voice in those discussions. When you use a browser on the web, you are literally voting for who gets the most control of those discussions.

by chdir 12y ago

soperj 12y ago

I'd blame apple, not firefox. What's the point in them wasting their time just skinning something that is guaranteed to be slower than Safari?

caiob 12y ago
Not valid for iOS8, as they introduced the WKWebView.
amartya916 12y ago
Yes, Apple is definitely to "blame" as far as handicapping UIWebViews are concerned. That being said, the new WKWebview is supposed to have all the Javascript optimizations (and the Nitro engine) that mobile Safari uses. Chances are that it might still not be as fast as Safari, but Firefox should bite the bullet and just do it because: a. Firefox cannot afford to not be on all platforms. With computing devices converging and relying on handshakes (data syncing?), missing out on a major mobile platform is foolish. b. In a related point, syncing bookmarks/tabs via Firefox sync is severely handicapped by it's absence on iOS. c. There is a fantastic niche where FF can fit in on iOS. It'd be as privacy centric as Safari and with an iOS launch would be cross-platform like Chrome (without Google peddling their products front and centre). They could also get some inspiration from mobile Opera on iOS that has fantastic data saving features in-built.
- apayan 12y ago
  For what it's worth, WKWebView is still astonishingly buggy and hangs quite a bit when loading some pages with XHRs. There are some other bugs that trigger these 10+ second hangs, but we couldn't delay shipping anymore so we reverted back to UIWebView.
  - amartya916 12y ago
    Darn. Thanks for letting me know. I was thinking of starting to experiment with WKWebView for an app that currently uses UIWebViews. So I guess FF using WKWebViews (even if they can get over the philosophical/techinical difference with Apple) is some ways off.
- Yoric 12y ago
  Well, Apple is also definitely to "blame" for forbidding Gecko on iPhone, a number of years ago. I may be wrong, but I seem to remember that there used to be a prototype build of Firefox Mobile that ran on iOS, but Apple made it clear that it would not be accepted on the Store. Developing an Apple-compliant Firefox for iOS would mean developing an entirely separate browser, which basically wouldn't share a single line of code with either Firefox Desktop, Firefox for Android, Firefox OS or Firefox for Firefox OS, plus it would be using a (reduced version of) WebKit, so it would not have the same behavior as the other Firefoxen and it would require yet different Firefox Development Tools. If this platform was a high priority, this might be feasible, but it might take several years, at the expense of some other project and Apple would still be in position to shoot down Firefox for iOS (again). So I don't think that this is going to happen any time soon.
  - Excavator 12y ago
    You're not thinking of Junior¹ are you? 1: 30min in @ https://air.mozilla.org/product-design-at-mozilla/ https://air.mozilla.org/product-design-at-mozilla/
    - nnethercote 12y ago
      No. There was a port of real Firefox to iOS.
chdir 12y ago
I agree Apple is to blame here. But, disagree with the logic. > What's the point in them wasting their time just skinning something that is guaranteed to be slower than Safari I'd say, consistency of user experience and sync'ing my bookmarks etc. Skipping iOS means you are losing a reasonable chunk of users who fall in the category of wanting the same browser on all their devices.
- JetSpiegel 12y ago
  If it uses WebKit, it's not Firefox. Plain and simple.
  - giovannibajo1 12y ago
    That's a developer POV. For users, Firefox is defined as the browser with that specific look and feel, that landing pages, those awesome plugins and marketplace, that tab sync, that password manager, etc. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single non-developer who is even aware there is a difference in rendering engines (or javascript engines). The maximum they might know is that "this site is broken with that browser", but that won't relate to "rendering engine" in their mind. So brining Firefox to iOS would give an awesome benefit for many users that love Firefox on the desktop, and encourage others for which the absence of Firefox on iOS is a nuisance or a blocker in its adoption.
    - JetSpiegel 12y ago
      That would be like selling a Jaguar with a Fiat engine. Just because there are people too dumb to realize doesn't make it less wrong. Even ignoring the point someone raised of increasing the workload of already strained resources.
      - giovannibajo1 12y ago
        It would be like selling a Jaguar with a Ferrari engine; still a weirdo, but at least fully functional. You can't seriously claim Mobile Webkit to be to a (theoretical) Gecko-on-iOS like a Fiat to a Jaguar. And people are not "too dumb to realize". The whole point of the HTML standard is to make sure that all browser render the same. The whole point of the standard, and all the efforts of all the browsers, go towards a single goal: making all pages render equal on all browsers, that is making people NOT realize there is a difference; the technical problem of different codebases exhibiting different behaviors in rendering is just that, a technical problem to be solved. I maintain that the developer-centric position of focusing on Gecko and thus refusing a iOS port as "useless", is actually doing Firefox lots of harm in its adoption. Firefox is the product, not Gecko. Moreover, even if Apple eventually lifted the restriction, you want to be ready that day; you would still have to port the whole browser in addition to Gecko, including non-trivial issues like the extensions, and coordinating a solution for using extensions on all mobile platforms require years; the ecosystem of extensions need to adapt and evolve over the time. Releasing, maintaining, optimizing and evolving a Webkit-based Firefox on iOS would be still a gigantic effort and would still bring benefit; you're then free not to use it, if you only need Firefox as a way to use Gecko.

fubu 12y ago

The rendering engine is a non trivial portion of what Mozilla is. To be an advocate of the web user in standards discussions involving things like HTML5 and ECMAScript. If they do not have a large enough market share of web users on their engines, they will loose their voice in those discussions. When you use a browser on the web, you are literally voting for who gets the most control of those discussions.