Web Developers Form Advocacy Group to Allow Other Browser Engines on iOS

[theotherphil]

I’m reminded of Microsoft and IE dominance of the 90s. Apple needs to own this up.

Except MS was licensing their dominant OS to third party manufacturers with the requirement that IE be installed also with threats of sanctions if they didn’t. Monopoly in the OS market + tying products + abuse of position.

The difference here is iOS is not available in the aftermarket, isn’t licensed to third party manufacturers and Safari isn’t available on any other smartphone. There is no aftermarket for other browser engines on iOS, no tying or abusing market position.

 

[theotherphil]

Not sure I need other browser engines but Apple forcing webkit and then cripple it at the same time is so stupid.

As has been said, WebKit is open source so available for any developer to contribute to.

 

[theotherphil]

This can't come soon enough. I am really hopeful other browser frameworks get in soon. The first thing I am going to do once alternatives arrive is install uBlock.

Safari already supports desktop browser extensions. uBlock being unavailable is due to their devs, not Apple.

 

[theotherphil]

Webkit is much slower to fix bugs and adopt new features than other big browser engines.

Most people who build large websites dislike and complain about Webkit the most — but you have to do silly things to support it because Apple doesn't allow alternative browser engines on iOS.
It's like IE 7 if you were around the web in the mid-00s...

WebKit is open source….any dev is free to contribute. If it’s not moving fast enough for you, feel free to assist.

 

[theotherphil]

So, if you make the OS and exclusively make the hardware for it, you can be more controlling or restricting but if you only make the OS, it's a different story? Sounds like Apple found the "loophole" and is attempting to use it to their advantage as much as possible. 🙂

If MS made their own hardware and OS, and didn’t license their OS to third party manufacturers and IE wasn’t available on other equivalent devices then yes, this is called “Proprietary”. MS would be able to control every aspect of it.

Just like MacDonalds can’t be forced to make burgers for Burger King and Porsche can’t be forced to make engines for Ferrari.

If Apple decided to licence iOS to other device manufacturers, this creates a “market” that wasn’t there beforehand. It’s not a “loophole”.

 

[theotherphil]

I hope this pushes through. I need a proper adblocking extension in iOS!

Desktop extensions are already available in safari in iOS. Your gripe is with the extension developers for not supporting Safari, not Apple.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

WebKit is buggy like hell and is the new IE.

WebRTC, especially, is a constant nightmare with new horrible bugs at every release, especially audio issues.

Not even close, and WebRTC is new to WebKit. WebRTC is also buggy on all platforms as it is still maturing.

 

[Krizoitz]

I’m reminded of Microsoft and IE dominance of the 90s. Apple needs to own this up.

Windows had 90%+ market share, had previously supported other browsers, AND Microsoft was using licensing to bully PC makers to not install other browsers. None of those apply to iOS/Apple. So basically the situations aren’t even remotely similar. If you’d like to use other browsers there are a wide variety of Android devices to chose from. No one is stopping you from making that choice.

 

[treedeveloper]

I have more than 20 years of developing and have seen this playbook many times. Just because SMALL, TINY "alternative" exists does not change the fact that the GORILLA is on.

Every usage of chromium is PLUS for Google. Is feed the support for its development, and more importantly:

Is make sure THEIR APIs ARE THE STANDARD.

This is the key, major point.

Is the same when windows were nearly the only game on top. MS super-happy people make "competitive" apps, as long are done on windows apis.

---

The sad, and important truth, is that "standards" are not magically implemented because that is so nice. Is because the MAJOR players are both competing, and forced to work together.

Apple has the card of iOS, and is the ONLY way to make safari "viable".

Safari is supported because the market of iOS is important, the moment developers, like me, can target chromium is the END.

Literally.

That is the moment bosses and customers start saying: Just target chrome, ignore iOS/Safari, lets go electron-like!

Making "electron's" and "web apps as native replacements" is 100% for the benefit of Google, and only incidentally for SOME users.

Google DO NOT CARE for Ux, only care it can get a bigfoot in each market so ITS goals are on top of anyone else.

---

or we can hope for dreams, like see how *nix developers implement this and win.

Or accept reality: As long major players have this only 2 exponents of what the web is, the web still is open.

If Safari is only viable by locking out other browsers, then it deserves to be buried. It is that simple. If it is better at security, privacy, speed, etc. Then it should be able to compete and gather market share.

 

[bsolar]

WebKit is open source….any dev is free to contribute. If it’s not moving fast enough for you, feel free to assist.

Open source does not mean that the responsibility of the software's development falls on the users. Users are not developers and most users will never become developers.

Users can still be userful to open source projects without becoming developers though, most prominently by providing feedback, be it in the form of bug reports or more general information e.g. about missing features or usability issues.

 

[bsolar]

Desktop extensions are already available in safari in iOS. Your gripe is with the extension developers for not supporting Safari, not Apple.

Apple puts arbitrary limits to content blocking extensions and those limitations were the reason the developer of uBlock decided to drop support for the extension on Apple's platform on the desktop long ago.

 

[prime17569]

While Webkit is open source and can be contributed to by anyone (and often is by community members and Google employees), Apple has final say in what pull requests make it into each release. Sometimes they simply ignore an issue, or in this case, the "Patch" was in the webkit code-base in only a few days. The delay came about because of Apple's release schedule. See, unlike other Apps on IOS, Webkit and Safari are tied to the OS version. When Apple wants to update Webkit, it has to push a Full OS upgrade. This often manifests as delayed patches and open exploits as Apple doesn't push patch versions of the OS (except on very specific, ultra-high severity this could bankrupt us exploits). They bundle the fix with the next minor release, which is ready whenever it is ready.

Other browsers (on non-ios devices) have standard release cycles where they patch vulnerabilities that they know about that are non-public, and they have the ability to push an emergency patch version in the event that a critical vulnerability rears it's head.

So the short answer to your question is, people DO contribute code and bug fixes, but it doesn't matter when the fixes get in the code base, it matters when Apple gets around to pushing an OS Update.

Hopefully, Apple will find a way to decouple Safari from the OS starting in iOS 16. This is already being done on the Mac, so the same concept should apply to iOS. The only question is what version of WebKit WKWebView will use as it could be either the system-provided one or the one bundled into Safari.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

Is incredible how many fall for this OBVIOUS trap.

The moment chromium can enter iOS, is the end of REAL alternatives to browser engines:

chromium IS google
IS the dominant player
IS ad-business friendly

Is safari the only major alternative (the other, firefox is doing not well today). MS was the other and it allow itself to be defeated.

Having ONE SINGLE COMPANY dominates ALL THE MARKETS...

think deeply about this.

I’m sorry but apple is responsible for this in two ways.
1: safari was killed on windows and never existed on android
2: safari exist only on iOS and Mac

 

[dwaite]

Not even close, and WebRTC is new to WebKit. WebRTC is also buggy on all platforms as it is still maturing.

WebRTC was added in June 2017.

 

[dwaite]

Most people who build large websites dislike and complain about Webkit the most — but you have to do silly things to support it because Apple doesn't allow alternative browser engines on iOS.

Which is supposed to motivate Apple to allow alternative browser engines how?

 

[Sophisticatednut]

I have more than 20 years of developing and have seen this playbook many times. Just because SMALL, TINY "alternative" exists does not change the fact that the GORILLA is on.

Every usage of chromium is PLUS for Google. Is feed the support for its development, and more importantly:

Is make sure THEIR APIs ARE THE STANDARD.

This is the key, major point.

Is the same when windows were nearly the only game on top. MS super-happy people make "competitive" apps, as long are done on windows apis.

---

The sad, and important truth, is that "standards" are not magically implemented because that is so nice. Is because the MAJOR players are both competing, and forced to work together.

Apple has the card of iOS, and is the ONLY way to make safari "viable".

Safari is supported because the market of iOS is important, the moment developers, like me, can target chromium is the END.

Literally.

That is the moment bosses and customers start saying: Just target chrome, ignore iOS/Safari, lets go electron-like!

Making "electron's" and "web apps as native replacements" is 100% for the benefit of Google, and only incidentally for SOME users.

Google DO NOT CARE for Ux, only care it can get a bigfoot in each market so ITS goals are on top of anyone else.

---

or we can hope for dreams, like see how *nix developers implement this and win.

Or accept reality: As long major players have this only 2 exponents of what the web is, the web still is open.

The problem is that apple doesn’t develop safari for windows or android, artificially making it a minority player intentionally. You can’t blame google for the failure of safari

 

[Sophisticatednut]

WebKit is open source….any dev is free to contribute. If it’s not moving fast enough for you, feel free to assist.

It’s like you ignored everything explained in this thread.
You can fix a million bugs in safari. It doesn’t matter as it will still be decided by apple what’s included and the release cycle of iOS dictate when it’s shipped

 

[LV426]

Maybe I got lucky, but I only ever had a problem with one website using Safari (Azure Portal). Even then it was on a niche part of the site.

Meantime, I’m happy with the way Safari/WebKit works. The ad blocker I use (Wipr) is quite effective (free but I happily made a donation after trying it out); I can buy stuff using Apple Pay (no nasty credit card numbers to enter); it remembers/manages all my unique passwords across my Apple devices; it offers the option to create a hidden email address when I subscribe to a website; and I don’t need to be logged into a corporate snoop site for the whole shebang to work.

Happy customer.

 

[MacBH928]

Honest question, does it really matter which web engine you use? Does it make a difference?
I am near 100% sure if I let people use a browser and let them guess which web engine this is they can not and won't notice a performance difference.

I use Edge on my iPhone and so far it’s works just as well for what I do. I also use the outlook email app so links from email open up in edge.

You understand wrong, its the behind the scenes web engine that renders website. So although you use Edge, in reality its just a wrapper for a Safari browser in the background to render websites.

I demand these developers build their own phone, OS, support them and service them, before asking others to do it for their own “demands”.

Yea, I am aware developers are the ones who made the iPhone so incredibly popular, but nobody has or is forcing a developer to develop to iOS. It was for own choice, so demanding this sounds as clever as you wanting to use a Porsche engine on a Mercedes car.

You know you might not be wrong, but such business tactics may result in a competitor releasing a product that in the end will make Apple regret their stubbornness. For example, look at Chrome vs Internet Explorer , or Netflix and Blockbuster or Jio ISP in India.

So the goal here is to allow Chrome dominance on all platforms so that all web developers stop caring about other browsers reinforcing Chrome's position even more?

Chrome is already a resource-hog with a truckload of useless features. It's Google's attempt to get everyone to use it as an OS, because they're still sad they didn't get in on the OS boom of the 90s.

The future we're striving for is one where an advertising company controls the whole web. They're already 3 years behind on blocking third-party cookies because they don't want to hit their ad business. I mean, I wouldn't intentionally kill my cash cows either.

Go ahead, login to your Google account in Chrome so that their tracking and data-mining is even more effective. Leave WebKit alone.

Whats your solution? instead of allowing people the choice to choose whatever browser they want, they force them to use Safari?

 

[rejhgadellaa]

(Disclaimer: I've been involved with OWA for a little while, my opinion and especially wording below is my own but, in large, it should mostly cover the OWA standpoint regarding these matters)

Reading through the comments, I noticed a certain theme / line of thought that keeps popping up when we argue for browser competition on iOS (which is actually not the only thing we have opinions on 🙂)

- Allowing 3rd party browsers on iOS will allow Chrome to become dominant
- Or: Apple is preventing a browser engine monoculture
- Related: Web developers just want to build and test their sites for one browser

First of all: none of these arguments are made by Apple (afaik?) as to why they only allow WebKit-based browsers on iOS. They point to privacy and security as the primary reason. Seeing how Safari security bugs take the longest (and a full OS update) to fix when compared to other browsers - and that these bugs affect every single iOS user, no matter which "browser" they use - this argument can be quite easily dismissed. The CMA, for example, already does.

Apple is certainly not the steward of browser competition and diversity (that's Mozilla's job 😉). They are, in fact, quite the opposite. They enforce a browser monoculture on an entire platform that has up to 50% mobile market share in most western countries! No other major general computing device prohibits 3rd party browser engines. Meanwhile, they seem to starve the WebKit team from resources needed to compete (or even keep up).

Then on to the argument(s) as described above:

Our hope is that allowing competition will create incentive for Apple to actually compete and invest in WebKit so users want to keep using it even if there are alternatives and developers want to support it because it's a great browser.

Many macOS users use Safari (power of the default + it's actually a nice browser - from a user perspective, at least). Safari has unique selling points. And again, it's the default.

We actually want more browsers on iOS like we have on every other general computing device, not less.

For developers, supporting WebKit is quite a pain right now. You have to own a mac and at least one iDevice to debug any of the many bugs Safari will throw your way. When Apple is forced to compete they will hopefully fix many of the current bugs, add features and improve the dev tools so devs can more easily debug those bugs that remain.

There will always be sites (especially highly specialized web apps) that require a certain browser because they rely on a specific feature that no other browser (yet) supports. This is already the case right now. If WebKit catches up, the chance that a site requires specific browsers should actually decrease. If WebKit ends up ahead (as it once was, Google chose WebKit as the basis for Chrome for a reason), it will be the browser that the web app will target.

I also noticed how quite a few Firefox users are choosing Apple's side, often times citing the Chrome monoculture argument. It strikes me as odd that people who use and/or work on a browser whose mission is to ship an independent alternative browser engine argue that it's a good thing that WebKit is the only engine allowed on iOS. Shouldn't they want a full Firefox browser on iOS?

- OWA is pushing the Chrome agenda

Again, we want more browsers on all platforms, not less.

We want more choice and we want that choice to matter. For example, we also strongly oppose apps like Google Search (on Android) and OSs like Windows 10/11 not respecting default browser choice. We oppose apps like Facebook making it hard to open links in your default browser.

It may seem like we only target Apple, but please believe me when I say we're not. The iOS browser ban is the biggest issue we would like to see fixed ASAP, but it's far from our only goal.

 

[brucelawson]

Safari is a great browser. It is not a great "OS replacement" (not that Chrome is either, but it tries...). The point of this advocacy group is to force Apple to support another platform on top of their own platform- Chrome OS. PWAs are not standard, they were invented by Google for Chrome OS. WebBluetooth, WebUSB are not standards (Mozilla and Apple reject it because of privacy concerns), they are Google inventions. Web devs want to be app developers without having to make actual apps. If your "app" is actually a website in a wrapper, either leave it as a website or make it a real app. Apple invests billions into native UI, APIs, and silicon- and they want developers to take advantage of that. Google invests billions into advertising and web technologies- and they want developers to take advantage of that. That's fine, but why should Google's desire to control every platform trump Apple's desire to control one platform? Is it because Apple's platform is the most profitable? Well then, maybe they're doing something right.

"Safari is a great browser. It is not a great "OS replacement" …The point of this advocacy group is to force Apple to support another platform on top of their own platform". Nah, as you said, Safari isn't a platform. We want Apple to allow other rendering engines to integrate with its platform, just as Firefox is allowed on Mac, Windows, Linux and Android.

"WAs are not standard, they were invented by Google for Chrome OS." - this isn't true. PWAs were an offshoot of W3C Widgets (invented by Opera), and developed by Mozilla (Marcos Caceres moved from Opera Widgets to Firefox), Chrome and me and my team at Opera.

 

[cmcbhi]

"Some Safari features that are not available to other browsers that use WebKit include the ability to display fullscreen video on ‌iPhone‌, install web apps, use browser extensions, and integrate Apple Pay."
IOW, these people want to open the rest of us to cross site tracking, keystroke loggers, worms, bugs and other trash now available on Android.
No Thanks.

 

[visualseed]

I demand that Apple allows Netscape Navigator for iOS.

MOSAIC or go home

 

[svish]

Looks like legal issues will be heading Apple’s way.

 

[brucelawson]

"I was under the impression that Webkit was open source. So if the bug mentioned was a Webkit flaw, why was the burden placed solely on Apple to fix it to prove their point of Webkit's shortcomings?" - you can send any pull request you want to WebKit. Whether anyone will actually merge it is entirely out of your control. whether Apple will actually decide to ship a version of WebKit with your change in it is entirely Apple's choice. You cannot install your tweaked version of WebKit or your iDevice, let alone put in the appstore for anyone else to use.