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When is Safari going to stop jumping to the App Store?
- Thread starter Rogifan
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The fact that Apple allows this just blows my mind. No website should be allowd to kick you out to the App Store. Why has Apple not disabled this functionality yet?
hello
i asked a similar question about 5 or 6 months ago.
one day looking at info on a page and clicked the link thinking that the link would take you to the apple page that is within http/https pages that it uses to introduce you to apps on which there is a link that can take you into iTunes.
but no, the link takes you directly into iTunes.
then, sometime later i noticed the same thing happening to take you into the app store.
in both cases i was really surprised because if you are in a state of being signed in already, or, have your setting set to remember your password and sign you automatically then absolutely any link can take you anywhere in both of these stores.
add super cookies into it, and you have a fairly potent mix of tracking ability that apple is allowing.
the time that i noticed this direct link taking you into a signed iTunes account, it didn't take long for email from that developer to start to be delivered.
creepy.
when i brought it up in a forum, most of the replies were along the lines "this functionality has been around for a while" and definitely no one was concerned about it.
even with privacy settings at usual protection (cookies set to only places i visit), this kind of link jumps through several servers before you reach iTunes or the app store, and actually leaves intermediate cookies.
we obviously need better tools to prevent this behavior if we want to stop it.
I know! This is ********. I thought during the beta someone said it was fixed in iOS 8 but I guess not.
The fact that Apple allows this just blows my mind. No website should be allowd to kick you out to the App Store. Why has Apple not disabled this functionality yet?
Say something about it to Apple, I know I did about the web site to App Store click bait.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html
What's annoying about this is that it'll randomly do it while just reading a page due to some bad code.
Didn't Apple announce that this was *supposed* to be fixed in iOS 8? Never happened, as we can all see. Pretty sad.
It's weird because I think on the 8.0 final at least I would get a warning when a page tried to do this. However, I haven't seen a warning in ages and the problem is worse than ever. It seems like Apple either disabled this in one of the point releases, or everyone figured out an easy workaround. In any case, something badly needs to be done. Even supposedly reputable sites like Macworld and CNN have these going on. I think they just get in the major ad networks and no one is policing it enough.
I can always tell the culprit. Some stupid App Store game. IAP games and this are evil and should be banished forever.
Yes, I already updated my iPad to iOS 8 and its still happening. Is there some sort of a setting that we can change?
Why has Apple not disabled this functionality yet?
Because websites for apps should have the right to say "touch here to get our app."
But the responsible sites are not the problem. The problem is crappy spam hijacking the feature.
I agree that something needs to be done about the crappy spam, but it is a tricky problem since they can't just revoke the feature across the board.
Don't need to revoke the feature. Just a message that say "would you like to open the App Store?" And a simple yes and no button.
My own idea is that only a finger-tap on a link could activate it, not code in a page's background. But I really don't know if that's possible to do that so your idea is a good fallback.
Agree that something should be done, whatever it is.
It's supposed to be fixed in iOS 8, but doesn't seem like it has been. Not much we can do to change that unfortunately.
That said, I haven't really been encountering it for a little while now (as opposed to seeing it at least sometimes before).
As often happens, this is a misinterpretation of what Apple said.
What got "fixed" in iOS8 (not really in iOS8, but this requirement started at the same time as iOS8) is that Apple will now refuse apps that kick to the App Store without user interaction.
Previously, a lot of apps would just randomly during use switch to the App Store (usually to the page of something like Clash of Clans and other obnoxiously over advertised stuff). This is no longer allowed unless the user presses a button or ad themselves. Plenty of apps still slip through though, definitely still see this happening.
Apple doesn't have control over when webpages do this.
They could however easily remedy this with a pop up asking whether the user wants to go to the App Store or not, as suggested by everyone in this thread.
Right, they certainly do have control over how their browser deals with things of this nature (similar to pop-ups, for which they do have a setting that a user can change). It just seems that for some reasons after years they still haven't added that (it's almost like having a browser that doesn't allow for pop-up control/blocking, which is practically unimaginable these days or even some years ago already).
Oh exactly. I didn't mean "Apple has no control over when webpages do this" as an excuse for them not to do anything about it, which is why I mentioned them being able to introduce a pop up asking for user permission.
I meant it in the same way that Apple has no control over when webpages (try to) open a pop up window.
They do however have control over whether their browser allows it (just like with pop ups) and should either ask permission, or put in a setting like you suggest.
I meant it in the same way that Apple has no control over when webpages (try to) open a pop up window.
They do however have control over whether their browser allows it (just like with pop ups) and should either ask permission, or put in a setting like you suggest.
I was doing some digging to remember exactly what Apple said about it, and while what you are saying was/is likely there as well, they did have a bit about it applying to Safari as well. The tricky thing is that as I recall it only came up in the release notes for one of the iOS 8 betas where they mentioned "Safari now blocks ads from automatically redirecting to the App Store without user interaction." so it's possible it was changed in another beta or the final version or never fully implemented after all. In either case, seems like they are aware of it and perhaps were even addressing it, but somehow they still haven't after all that.
Turn off Javascript and the problem goes away.
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FYI, redirects are also occurring on Android as well. Turning off JV fixes it there as well.
Do you know what also goes away? Your ability to view and interact with most websites properly. In 2015, javaScript is right up there with HTML and CSS as essential technologies for browsing the web.