Should Apple Continue to Ban Rival Browser Engines on iOS?

[Zaft]

thats apples fault for practicaly abandoning safari. safari existed on windows; but now it's exclusivly a iOS and MacOS thing. blocking out 90% of users to use chrome or firefox etc instead

Ask the average person if they have chrome on iOS and they say yes. The engine doesn’t matter.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

Dramatic, are we.



So anything that’s Mac- and iOS-specific is “dead”? Is Overcast dead? Tweetbot? Xcode? Things? OmniOutliner?

when it comes to cross platform competition? yes it is very dead. the moment you can use the browser engine you want then it will become just as obscure as Internet explorer on windows. it's just artificially supported by apple on the fake premise to prevent chromium from taking over.

Ask the average person if they have chrome on iOS and they say yes. The engine doesn’t matter.

the engine is very relevant otherwise we would all use Internet explorer with different skins

 

[Maximara]

when it comes to cross platform competition? yes it is very dead. the moment you can use the browser engine you want then it will become just as obscure as Internet explorer on windows. it's just artificially supported by apple on the fake premise to prevent chromium from taking over.

the engine is very relevant otherwise we would all use Internet explorer with different skins

As opposed to us all using Chrome with different skins which per the chart I have provided eat up your SSD like so much candy? Besides Safari isn't dead as shown by looking Browser Market Share Worldwide Jan 2015 - Mar 2022

 

[Aerisdies]

I don't care about the engine or sh*t, it's Apple's choice. It's their platform.
But they should, at least, support those popular extensions like my favorite uBlock Origin and Bitwarden NATIVELY on Safari, not as a separate app!
Content Blockers, such as Adguard, are not enough! (I'm on iOS 14.8.1, not on that buggy iOS 15 so don't recommend upgrading. Also, don't recommend those DNS adblockers because of the significant battery drain)

 

[chucker23n1]

not on that buggy iOS 15

Do you actually have personal experience with 15 being buggy?

Also, extensions are “native”. They run inside the browser. The app is just to have an installation mechanism.

 

[KevinN206]

As opposed to us all using Chrome with different skins which per the chart I have provided eat up your SSD like so much candy? Besides Safari isn't dead as shown by looking Browser Market Share Worldwide Jan 2015 - Mar 2022

The author also concluded the SSD write is not a concern with modern SSD drives. Your iPhone SSD will last far longer than when it's ready for an upgrade within 5 years or less.

 

[KevinN206]

So they admit that Chromium is effectively a resource hog while Safari isn't and want the user to be allowed to do something boneheaded (ie install Chromium). Totally brilliant. /s

Both can actually be true.

Chromium is a resource hog.

But Apple is able to save RAM cost by forbidding third-party engines thereby increasing Apple's highest profit margins.

 

[KevinN206]

Page 63 quotes a Microsoft manager: "Re-using the WebKit binary maximizes the sharing of "code pages" across processes. Practically speaking, this allows more programs to run simultaneously without the need for Apple to add more RAM to their devices. This, in turn, pads Apple's (considerable) margins in the construction of phones"

This is not a convincing argument. In fact, it's a terrible argument.

A more reasoned account would say that re-using the WebKit binary is the most efficient way of sharing the framework on the device, which is used in multiple places other than Safari. As a Microsoft employee, he should be well aware that his company shares its own core libraries (implemented as DLLs) across numerous apps installed on Windows.

Sure. But Microsoft is also not banning third-party DLLs and different HMTL/JS engines.

 

[OnawaAfrica]

No i wouldn't allow other engines because they might be used to exploit bugs in frameworks, kernel etc

 

[KevinN206]

"The author’s point is good though: Safari is becoming the final bastion of hope against a purely Chromium landscape just by virtue of being an Apple product with an immediately large market share."

"Experimental: This is an experimental technology". Heck, Firefox on Mac and Android doesn't support this.

As has been shown several times Apple likely doesn't want to get bit in the butt by browsers that write to the SSD like a drunken sailor.

How can Safari be the "final bastion" when it's only on iOS and macOS? Shouldn't Firefox be the final bastion since it's cross-platform with its own HMTL and JS engines? And yet, these Firefox engines are not allowed on iOS.

 

[OnawaAfrica]

Sure. But Microsoft is also not banning third-party DLLs and different HMTL/JS engines.

Apple doesnt ban 3rd party Kexts or framworks nor browser engines either on macOS. Microsoft is not in mobile marked (anymore) so u cant use them for a example here

 

[Maximara]

Both can actually be true.

Chromium is a resource hog.

But Apple is able to save RAM cost by forbidding third-party engines thereby increasing Apple's highest profit margins.

Newsflash: business are supposed to reduce costs and if limiting people to a browser toolkit that makes them get the most out of their device does the job why should Apple be forced to allow subpar browsers that likely will make their iPhone/iPad performa like crap?

 

[chucker23n1]

Sure. But Microsoft is also not banning third-party DLLs and different HMTL/JS engines.

They totally did do that on Windows RT and Windows Phone.

 

[Maximara]

Sure. But Microsoft is also not banning third-party DLLs and different HMTL/JS engines.

There is a reason DLL hell is a thing. 😛

 

[Starscape]

That is because you have a bunch of lazy web designers who design to the browser rather than to general spec. It is IE modern electric boogaloo

That's not a matter of developers being lazy. This is work I have done myself and unfortunately, many pseudo-standards became habitual on what is/was the dominant browser. In a perfect world, everything would be 100% strictly standards-confirmative, however, there are so many variables to consider that it's much harder to do than it sounds. Official web standards develop over a very long time, and sometimes, issues such as security concerns simply can't wait until standards become widespread. That's just one small example.

 

[Maximara]

That's not a matter of developers being lazy. This is work I have done myself and unfortunately, many pseudo-standards became habitual on what is/was the dominant browser.

Which as a I said before is lazy design.

In a perfect world, everything would be 100% strictly standards-confirmative, however, there are so many variables to consider that it's much harder to do than it sounds. Official web standards develop over a very long time, and sometimes, issues such as security concerns simply can't wait until standards become widespread. That's just one small example.

This IMHO is a cop out. You can build on the standard design but if the problems are at the base level then there is a problem with the design not the spec.

 

[chucker23n1]

This IMHO is a cop out. You can build on the standard design but if the problems are at the base level then there is a problem with the design not the spec.

That's a nice theory, but there isn't, and never has been, a single browser engine that implements all standards correctly and completely.

 

[Maximara]

That's a nice theory, but there isn't, and never has been, a single browser engine that implements all standards correctly and completely.

"Generally speaking, all recent/modern versions of all major browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome) are considered to be W3C-compliant, in that they conform to the set-forth standards and should deliver a consistent web experience across browsers. Examples of two W3C-compliant browsers include Internet Explorer 7 and higher and Firefox 4 and higher" (ie c 2011). So what happened in the 12 years after that?

 

[chucker23n1]

"Generally speaking, all recent/modern versions of all major browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome) are considered to be W3C-compliant, in that they conform to the set-forth standards and should deliver a consistent web experience across browsers. Examples of two W3C-compliant browsers include Internet Explorer 7 and higher and Firefox 4 and higher" (ie c 2011). So what happened in the 12 years after that?

A lot more specs is what happened.

 

[Maximara]

A lot more specs is what happened.

I see you ignored the "never has been, a single browser engine that implements all standards correctly and completely" part of your claim being proven incorrect. Also looking at W3C the last compete guideline testing tool was 2017-Dec-17 with (WCAG) 3.0 still in the working draft stage 07 December 2021

So either "a lot more specs is what happened" (ie the official spec changed fast) or "Official web standards develop over a very long time" (ie change slower than snail out for a walk) so which is it?

 

[chucker23n1]

I see you ignored the "never has been, a single browser engine that implements all standards correctly and completely" part of your claim being proven incorrect.

No, I was just too bored to address that silly claim. But apparently, you're serious, so here we go.

For example, there's Gecko. They had a long-standing bug (opened June 1999, closed July 2016; no, those are not typos) to complete HTML 4.01 support. And before you rejoice that they finally succeeded in 2016: no. They canceled it. Pretty sure WebKit hasn't succeeded either, and neither has its fork Blink.

You might argue that it's a silly goal at this point, because we have HTML5. But that brings me back to my original point: what about all the ancillary specs? Of a shared subset of those, Blink is currently at 68%, Gecko at 74%, and WebKit at 73%.

Also looking at W3C the last compete guideline testing tool was 2017-Dec-17 with (WCAG) 3.0 still in the working draft stage 07 December 2021

So either "a lot more specs is what happened" (ie the official spec changed fast) or "Official web standards develop over a very long time" (ie change slower than snail out for a walk) so which is it?

Depends on whether you count standards as having crossed a certain status threshold, such as CR, as I personally would, or whether you count them as "well, we wrote a draft and implemented it ourselves, so that's good enough", as Google likes to do. In effect, the web is moving fast, whether standards purists like it or not.

 

[Maximara]

No, I was just too bored to address that silly claim. But apparently, you're serious, so here we go.

For example, there's Gecko. They had a long-standing bug (opened June 1999, closed July 2016; no, those are not typos) to complete HTML 4.01 support. And before you rejoice that they finally succeeded in 2016: no. They canceled it. Pretty sure WebKit hasn't succeeded either, and neither has its fork Blink.

There are two ways to look at that lack of a bug fix and given what developers do it is a likely chase after the new rather than fix the old. Many games fall into that trap and tend to be buggy messes...provided they even get completed.

You might argue that it's a silly goal at this point, because we have HTML5. But that brings me back to my original point: what about all the ancillary specs? Of a shared subset of those, Blink is currently at 68%, Gecko at 74%, and WebKit at 73%.

Yet, Blink the worst in that group via Chrome has the largest marketshare. Because people writing to the freaking browser's bugs and not to the spec ie Internet Explorer all over again.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

As opposed to us all using Chrome with different skins which per the chart I have provided eat up your SSD like so much candy? Besides Safari isn't dead as shown by looking Browser Market Share Worldwide Jan 2015 - Mar 2022

Nobody is forcing you to use the same browser engine. If people uses chromium then that’s what people wants. I don’t use chrome. I use Firefox, and if I could I would use safari on my windows computer, but I can’t so I use a mix of Edge(chromium) and Firefox.

Safari is dead, the only reason it has a market share is because it’s standard on iPhone and every browser is just safari wrapped in different UI

 

[Lihp8270]

No i wouldn't allow other engines because they might be used to exploit bugs in frameworks, kernel etc

How?

 

[chucker23n1]

There are two ways to look at that lack of a bug fix and given what developers do it is a likely chase after the new rather than fix the old. Many games fall into that trap and tend to be buggy messes...provided they even get completed.

Yet, Blink the worst in that group via Chrome has the largest marketshare. Because people writing to the freaking browser's bugs and not to the spec ie Internet Explorer all over again.

I agree that devs tend to write against individual browsers and I agree that that's a problem; I just don't agree that "just write against the standard and ignore concrete implementations" has ever been very realistic for non-trivial sites.