Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Google Working on Browser for iOS That Would Break Apple's App Store Rules
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Android is very good. However with all the OEM variations out there you need to do a bit of research. With Apple it is one choice allowed.
You can also make Android as private and safe as iOS if desired. Just takes a bit of time to do And not rely on default settings.
I honestly don’t really know what the difference is if my iOS browsers (I use Safari and other browsers) are built on WebKit or anything else, so obviously I have no web engine allegiance. As a consumer, all I care about is that they perform well and are very secure and convenient. Only if any of that is compromised (eg. I’m no longer able to use Keychain, can’t be as certain that I’m not being tracked, etc.) will I feel I need to get involved in this fight. Otherwise, I leave it to developers and Apple. And enthusiasts, I guess. Government only if someone is breaking the law, in letter or spirit.
I don’t get how Google is not already for Google Search and GMail.
I get Outlook (web) is big, but outside of enterprise it’s likely a fraction compared to GMail.
I never once thought to Bing something. Only time I use Bing is to make sure my business listing appears.
So the solution is to make the applications better, not the web.
It will cause even more website to become Chrome-only.
The main reason you can use Safari on the Mac and it works pretty well on most consumer sites, is because of the iOS market share.
Look at enterprise software. A lot of it doesn't support Safari on the Mac at all and will tell you to just install Chrome because you can.
So
So it’s not a virus then? I use to call Windows a virus until I started to use it at jobs and school. I’ve never touched an Android.
I agree, competition benefits us all. However, I would like to know how we are going to get competition in the browser market. Currently, there is hardly any competition. There is only a very small market share of browsers that do not use Chromium. This means that Google can dictate what is available for web content makers. One of the last reasons they can't is WebKit on iOS and iPadOS. I would like to see some light at the end of the tunnel when WebKit is no longer required on iOS and iPadOS. Right now, I'm very concerned.
Nobody is blaming the consumer. Obviously, the consumer will use what works well. The consumer cannot be required to use certain browsers to keep competition alive. But you cannot put this on developers either. They will take the easiest road possible as well. Many companies don't bother with Firefox anymore since it fell below 10% market share. I don't know the answer to keeping competition. I do know that we are close to an Internet Explorer situation soon after Apple drops the requirement to use WebKit.
So you are happy with an option that only exists because a web developer chooses to not support Safari? This is exactly what is going to happen more and more as Chromium based browsers will be the only working browsers soon after iOS and iPadOS open up to other browser engines. Not that I don't want them to open up. But I would like to know that Chromium keeps some form of competition.
Seems like developers don't target safari on Mac, though they almost do on mobile. Personally, I think this will lead to a ******** long-term experience unless Apple wants to give up Safari altogether. Hopefully not. Good to have a better privacy choice.
The Chromium engine is open source. Google Chrome is Google's take on the Chromium engine while Edge is Microsoft's take on Chromium. Google has nothing to do with Edge.I have both installed on a Windows laptop and Edge has far superior scrolling, uses less battery and memory than Chrome.
I use the Orion browser on iPad and iPhone, it can use certain Firefox extensions such as uBlock Origin.
Though I'm still looking forward to a real Firefox. Mozilla haven't committed to anything publicly at this point but they've expressed they wanted this in the past.
Android is excellent, it would indeed be ignorant to say it's not. Whether we prefer iOS or Android is a matter of taste, and of course the rather large privacy concern.
What needs to happen is for Apple to step up and make a better browser, they have all the money in the world & own the platform, yet they struggle to compete with 3rd party browsers which data-mine you to death. Blame consumers then?
I hate Chrome as much as the next guy, but Safari has been hot garbage for a while now. Extensions are trash & many acting like cash grabs, anemic ecosystem, no built-in adblocker, dev tools are a disgrace (outdated responsive mode, CSS properties disappear or get duplicated when live editing for years, freezes), UI glitches all over (specially compact view), they tried to "improve" the UX and ended up moving back to tabs because of how poorly implemented compact view was, etc, etc, etc. (not even mentioning websites not supporting it)
The uBlock Origin extension works with the Orion browser. Not sure if it's just unnoticed or what.
I love Safari, but... my god does it crash often in iOS 16 (and 15). I'm talking about hangs, page reloads, and the address bar not always working in a new tab (this one's also true on macOS).
I will eventually have to switch if Apple doesn't address all these long-lasting issues. Between iOS 1 and 13-14, it never really crashed on my devices. What the hell is happening now?
Ironically, Safari hung and crashed when typing this message 😅
I will eventually have to switch if Apple doesn't address all these long-lasting issues. Between iOS 1 and 13-14, it never really crashed on my devices. What the hell is happening now?
Ironically, Safari hung and crashed when typing this message 😅
Yes they actually do care. Chrome is the most popular web browser for a reason, to the point a lot of websites are designed to work only on Chrome.
In 1999 IE was integrated into Windows 98 and was the most popular web browser then. But it was far far from being the best.
Apple’s WebKit is very good but it’s by no means perfect. And it’s been largely overshadowed by Chrome and even Edge on desktop systems.
I’m saying this as a web developer and a user. Chrome used to be a massive PITA on MacOS due to power consumption issues but that’s been largely addressed.
I sill like the experience of using Apple’s native apps BUT I can’t excuse the many times in which sites completely break on WebKit where-as they work perfectly fine on Chrome and even… gasp… Microsoft Edge.
Apple needs to get their Ssss together. And they need to stop with this BS policy on iOS of only using WebKit for browser apps. It may have begun as a well intentioned firewall from potential web exploits but it’s become and anticompetitive hinderance.
I’m saying this as a web developer and a user. Chrome used to be a massive PITA on MacOS due to power consumption issues but that’s been largely addressed.
I sill like the experience of using Apple’s native apps BUT I can’t excuse the many times in which sites completely break on WebKit where-as they work perfectly fine on Chrome and even… gasp… Microsoft Edge.
Apple needs to get their Ssss together. And they need to stop with this BS policy on iOS of only using WebKit for browser apps. It may have begun as a well intentioned firewall from potential web exploits but it’s become and anticompetitive hinderance.
Chrome isn't bundled with anything other that ChromeOS, Chrome doesn't have the market share that it does because people are using the preloaded default. The same can't be said of Safari.