I’d like to see Apple fix their own browser first.
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Should Apple Continue to Ban Rival Browser Engines on iOS?
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Apple is no saint in this fight, but neither is Google.
I do think there is a very real risk that if Apple opens up iOS to Chromium/Blink, almost the entire browser market will be controlled by that. Web developers will start writing their code not against standards, but against whatever renders right in Chrome. As a result, there will monoculture, less innovation, and more control by a single vendor: Google.
This seems to be the future a lot of web developers want. Not me.
I do think there is a very real risk that if Apple opens up iOS to Chromium/Blink, almost the entire browser market will be controlled by that. Web developers will start writing their code not against standards, but against whatever renders right in Chrome. As a result, there will monoculture, less innovation, and more control by a single vendor: Google.
This seems to be the future a lot of web developers want. Not me.
Honest request: I'd love to see somebody reference a page that doesn't render properly on iOS... Can you point me in that direction?
Of course big tech firms behave anti-competitively, all of them - anyone who looks at this from an unbiased perspective must see this.
The bigger a company gets, the more it is going to abuse its power. I'm not suggesting this abuse of power necessarily has malicious intent, but it is just what happens as any company tries grab as much of the market as it possibly can. That's why good regulation is very important for us consumers.
The bigger a company gets, the more it is going to abuse its power. I'm not suggesting this abuse of power necessarily has malicious intent, but it is just what happens as any company tries grab as much of the market as it possibly can. That's why good regulation is very important for us consumers.
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Who is to blame when companies make websites that only work correctly in a certain browser? Although it feels natural to blame developers for not bothering to create different code for every different browser, does it really make sense? Isn’t the point of having so-called web standards to address this situation?
I use Safari on all my Apple devices as my default due to its simple migration of both bookmarks and passwords. I really appreciate being able to simply touch the "Touch ID" button on all my devices (or simply clicking in the little window on my older Apple devices that don't have Touch ID) to get through password security stuff. Can I do this in a Chromium Browser? Do they work with the T1 architecture? If not, should they be allowed to do so?
I actually do trust Apple's investment in my privacy, not because I trust Apple's word on this, but because their motives are very different than almost everyone else--they can make promises to me about protecting my privacy which actually increases their revenues (by selling more Apple devices), while doing so decreases revenue for nearly everyone else (because it decreases the collection of data about me). Apple doesn't rely on ad revenue or data collection, analytics or distribution for their revenue. Google, Microsoft, and almost everyone else does, at least to some extent. So, I do not trust any of the other big or small tech companies to have any real interest in preserving my privacy. Quite the contrary. I fully expect them to exploit my privacy whenever and wherever they think they can get away with it.
I actually do trust Apple's investment in my privacy, not because I trust Apple's word on this, but because their motives are very different than almost everyone else--they can make promises to me about protecting my privacy which actually increases their revenues (by selling more Apple devices), while doing so decreases revenue for nearly everyone else (because it decreases the collection of data about me). Apple doesn't rely on ad revenue or data collection, analytics or distribution for their revenue. Google, Microsoft, and almost everyone else does, at least to some extent. So, I do not trust any of the other big or small tech companies to have any real interest in preserving my privacy. Quite the contrary. I fully expect them to exploit my privacy whenever and wherever they think they can get away with it.
Apple and Google have developed a vice-like grip over how we use mobile phones and we're concerned that it's causing millions of people across the UK to lose out.
Can someone actually explain in layman's terms how the average user actually "lose out"?
The average user wants to consume a websites content by opening a browser, and to my knowledge on iOS you can use Safari/ Chrome, Firefox, Opera and others. I assume that on Android, besides Chrome, Firefox, Opera etc are also available ... so how is the average user impacted by webkit vs chromium? does the average user really care?
Can someone actually explain in layman's terms how the average user actually "lose out"?
The average user wants to consume a websites content by opening a browser, and to my knowledge on iOS you can use Safari/ Chrome, Firefox, Opera and others. I assume that on Android, besides Chrome, Firefox, Opera etc are also available ... so how is the average user impacted by webkit vs chromium? does the average user really care?
I’m not interested in non-Safari browsers on iOS/ipados. I want consistency, privacy, and safe integration, which Chrome and everyone else either suck at or suck private info.
This post talks about what is my main reason for not using an iPhone despite the fact that I believe that the iPhone is in most ways superior to Android competitors. I choose Android specifically because web browsers are the main apps that I use. Despite what is said in the post, Android allows browsers to run their own engines. What this means is that Chrome on Android is really Chome. Firefox is really Firefox. Vivaldi actually exists on Android but not on iOS because Apple would never allow it to exist and therefore it doesn't. If Apple allowed competing browsers to run their own rendering engines I would immediately go back to iOS.
I do not believe that it is Apple's proper role to try to keep the web from having a monoculture for web browsers by forcing their engine on all of their users and I think eventually this will hurt Apple if they do not change. I mean, while Apple is a huge player and incredibly influential, they still are a minority player.
I do not believe that it is Apple's proper role to try to keep the web from having a monoculture for web browsers by forcing their engine on all of their users and I think eventually this will hurt Apple if they do not change. I mean, while Apple is a huge player and incredibly influential, they still are a minority player.
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I think what Apple really needs to do is work with Google so WebKit and Google's Blink web layout engine share enough compatibility that most web pages only need to be written one way to be properly rendered in WebKit or Blink.
No, every browser on iOS is basically Safari with a different look. They're all Webkit. Devs aren't allowed to use their own rendering engines for iOS, they have to use Safari as the base. Which is why most browsers on iOS suck and I just stick with Safari with content blockers.
Safari is OK, but not good. Hard to define favorites or pin websites as before in the start screen, make the iPhone very warm in some websites/forums (ahem, Macrumors).
The new way to change tabs is mediocre at best.
Only feature I love is the way to increase font size per site.
Edge user here, after ios 15 and therefore, also in my Mac to keep bookmarks and tabs synced.
Sorry, not sorry.
And if I could, I would switch also the email client, buy Outlook is also bad.
The new way to change tabs is mediocre at best.
Only feature I love is the way to increase font size per site.
Edge user here, after ios 15 and therefore, also in my Mac to keep bookmarks and tabs synced.
Sorry, not sorry.
And if I could, I would switch also the email client, buy Outlook is also bad.
If they're going to force other companies to use Safari, then they should at least allow those browsers to use the iOS content block as in the same manner as Safari.
Seems like regulators want ios=android. Google might just as well buy ios and rebrand it, the way things are going.
I came over from Android a couple of years ago. I have an Imac and a Macbook. I use Firefox on both because Safari really is hot garbage. I am definitely thinking of going back as I am forced to use Apple's engine on my iphone and it is beyond frustrating. I see a Galaxy phone in my near future.
I mean, it's not rendering 901 tabs, that would be ridiculous. Obviously mobile browsers need to be designed differently to their desktop siblings. It's also completely acceptable that you won't install another browser, but that doesn't mean that the rest of us need to be restricted from doing so...
They literally don't and that's the entire issue...
I'm actually OK with how things are. Not because I like it, but because allowing other apps to have just-in-time compilers built into them is a security hole, and Apple doesn't know how to limit their APIs by app, so it would open up any shovelware game to become a compiler that could use any private API to do who knows what.
I'm not sure. On one hand I would like to have other browser engines to choose from on iOS but on the other hand that would reduce security and drive Chrome's market share even higher.