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

[gnomeisland]

As much as I agree with the arguments laid out, “other web browsers” really just means Chrome (or some variation of it). Do we really want to hand the future of web development over to Google? Without Mobile Safari, Chrome dominates web use in way to makes IE in the 90’s look like weak sauce, and Google has both a vest interest in controlling the web and poor history of “self regulating” user privacy.

I hope this at least gets Apple to cut into their healthy profit margins by spending some resources on getting Safari up to speed as well as allow real parity between 1st and 3rd party apps/browser on iOS. I look forward to a world where iOS allows true 3rd party browsers but I hope that world only comes after there is meaningful competition in the browser space.

 

[Frizlab]

What's wrong with webkit?

Nothing, people like hating it 🤷‍♂️

 

[ruka.snow]

Sounds like a group of bad developers that want to not develop for standards supported by Safari and Firefox, instead they only want to develop for Chrome and Chrome “standards” like they did for IE6. Couldn’t possibly have multiple browser engines to have to test your code on.

 

[bgraham]

As much as I agree with the arguments laid out, “other web browsers” really just means Chrome (or some variation of it). Do we really want to hand the future of web development over to Google? Without Mobile Safari, Chrome dominates web use in way to makes IE in the 90’s look like weak sauce, and Google has both a vest interest in controlling the web and poor history of “self regulating” user privacy.

I hope this at least gets Apple to cut into their healthy profit margins by spending some resources on getting Safari up to speed as well as allow real parity between 1st and 3rd party apps/browser on iOS. I look forward to a world where iOS allows true 3rd party browsers but I hope that world only comes after there is meaningful competition in the browser space.

Chromium is completely open-source and is miles better than WebKit - plus Microsoft is helping Google with it now.

It's nothing like IE in the 90s. The Web would benefit from a common standard.

 

[blizzerand]

As much as I agree with the arguments laid out, “other web browsers” really just means Chrome (or some variation of it). Do we really want to hand the future of web development over to Google? Without Mobile Safari, Chrome dominates web use in way to makes IE in the 90’s look like weak sauce, and Google has both a vest interest in controlling the web and poor history of “self regulating” user privacy.

I hope this at least gets Apple to cut into their healthy profit margins by spending some resources on getting Safari up to speed as well as allow real parity between 1st and 3rd party apps/browser on iOS. I look forward to a world where iOS allows true 3rd party browsers but I hope that world only comes after there is meaningful competition in the browser space.

But by removing Chrome, you are also removing Firefox which makes Apple kinda look villainous.

 

[threesixty360]

The largest attack vector for any device is the browser. It acts as a pseudo operating system on top of the main operating system. There are hooks into the lowest layer of architecture all within that browser. Links that are easy to exploit.

The reality is that Google and Apple both used to be based on webkit. However, the reality of Google's and Apple's core interests are very different. Apple sells hardware with the express benefit that its private and secure and google exploits customer data to sell to advertisers. So they split, I think apple is webkit and google is something else now(blink?). I think Edge is based on blink too.

So basically, Apple is going to be slower and more conservative about adopting standards like webRTC, WebGL or whatever because ultimately they dont want exploits and google doesnt really care as much.
Its really that simple. And that is also why they dont want third party engines running as close to the metal as possible, which will attract even more attacks on iOS hardware. And apple will have no real way to police or solve that, dragging down the reputation of its devices, just as Adobe Flash did a decade ago to Mac's.

 

[DFZD]

Good Job. I hope Apple listens to these genuine concerns. Apple shouldn't let their profits become an obstacle in the advancement of the iOS ecosystem.

 

[urnotl33t]

"Over Christmas, there was a huge bug in something called IndexedDB," said Lawson. "That allowed any arbitrary website to see other websites you visited. Not all of them but those that use certain browser features. And that remained unpatched by Apple for 57 days. So for 57 days, every iOS user who used any web browser on iOS – because it was using WebKit – was leaking data left, right and center. If Apple actually did fix security errors fast, that would be a plausible defense, but they don't."

This is the false equivalence fallacy.

 

[RedTheReader]

It would be nice to have more options on iOS. A browser I was interested in called Vivaldi never released a mobile version on iPhone because they’d have to start from scratch for it, and some of the features they wanted to implement seemed impossible to implement. I understand the desire for developers to not be lazy and to test their software on multiple platforms (and browser engines) before release, but certainly that doesn’t mean they should effectively have to start over!

 

[nvmls]

Ideally Safari would be the best so this wouldn't be needed, but sadly it has become so bad that this is definitely a legitimate request.

 

[LordDeath]

My guess: The real reason for Apple's hesitation is that 3rd party browsers with their superior PWA features would allow sideloading past their App Store.
Those PWAs could use any other payment provider, and Apple would lose access to their 30% cut.

Apple will not admit this, and instead, they do their bogus security argument. @dhh said it well:

The fact is that the iPhone is already a considerably more secure device than even the Mac! Apps run in a tighter sandbox, and everything is far more locked down than traditional computers. This is where the defense against malware rests, along with the kill-switch power to nix any app that exploit novel vulnerabilities to escape detection up front.

The only thing these technical defenses can't guard against is business model threats. That's why Apple employs thousands of people in the App Store review department without any technical or security qualifications! Because they're not there to uncover security threats, only threats to the faucet of monopoly rents. And they're very good at that, because even when they fail to detect a scam, Apple still takes a cut. It's win-win for Apple, lose-lose for consumers and developers.

Source: https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-mac-proves-apple-can-safely-open-the-iphone-cfa68a72

 

[maternidad]

This is so silly. I don’t understand what makes them think that allowing alternative browser engines would provide incentive to improve Safari‘s web compatibility. This is not noticeable by anyone, unless of course they begin making Chrome/Firefox-only sites.

 

[prime17569]

I can't comment on whether allowing alternative browser engines on iOS is a good choice or not, but I will say that there doesn't seem to be any technical limitation in iOS that prevents alternative engines from working.

It makes me wonder if anyone has tried to compile Blink (Chrome's rendering engine) for iOS. Since 2019, V8 (Chrome's JavaScript engine) works on iOS, and is used in a cross-platform framework called NativeScript:

The New iOS Runtime, Powered by V8 | The NativeScript Blog

blog.nativescript.org

 

[Mr. Rod]

If someone could be kind enough to explain for me...

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? Wouldn't all possible contributors share said blame? Or was the bug inherent to Safari?

I guess because the other vendors have to call the WebKit engine "embedded" in the OS, rather than implement their own, so if Apple doesn't fix a particular bug it affects all apps that call it.

 

[veggiespam]

I'm speaking from a slightly ignorant standpoint here, but reading between the lines, it sounds like they want to deploy full-blown "standard" Electron-based apps on iOS without any Chrome-to-Safari painpoints. Get ready for out-of-memory app-reloads when swapping between two Electron apps.

 

[mthomas184]

No idea why anyone would use anything other than Safari on iOS. Just buy a non-iphone phone and leave Apple alone ??
Why can’t a company stick to their own rules?

I love my iPhone. The issue is, using Safari, not all websites work. I have an issue with Citi's website on both the iPhone and Mac with Safari and in order to get to the site properly, I have to use a Mac with a different browser

 

[nvmls]

Daily issues Safari confabulates.

 

[m4<d4ddy]

The largest attack vector for any device is the browser. It acts as a pseudo operating system on top of the main operating system. There are hooks into the lowest layer of architecture all within that browser. Links that are easy to exploit.

The reality is that Google and Apple both used to be based on webkit. However, the reality of Google's and Apple's core interests are very different. Apple sells hardware with the express benefit that its private and secure and google exploits customer data to sell to advertisers. So they split, I think apple is webkit and google is something else now(blink?). I think Edge is based on blink too.

So basically, Apple is going to be slower and more conservative about adopting standards like webRTC, WebGL or whatever because ultimately they dont want exploits and google doesnt really care as much.
Its really that simple. And that is also why they dont want third party engines running as close to the metal as possible, which will attract even more attacks on iOS hardware. And apple will have no real way to police or solve that, dragging down the reputation of its devices, just as Adobe Flash did a decade ago to Mac's.

I think this is a little simple.

- Apple earns $15B/year from charging Google to be the default search engine on Safari. This revenue stream would not exist if Google could not monetize search, so I think it's deceptive to say that Apple wants everything to be "private."

- Apple sells app install ads. A convenient benefit of the "privacy" protections of App Tracking Transparency is that they don't apply to Apple's ad products — only to Facebook/Instagram/Snap/etc. ad products.
Apple made $5B in revenue from ads in 2021, and that's likely to grow a ton in the coming years.

 

[Klongeiger]

I had my fair share of troubles with supporting IE6 back in the day when it was woefully outdated and not standards compliant but had to be supported because legacy users.

That said, WebKit is widely standards compliant, it just isn’t including some additions like FileWriter for file system access (will be included soon), different media formats like WebP/WebM or OGG and hardware access APIs.

Some of these are for security reasons, some for political reasons (media formats).

All in all, for the user the enforcement of one engine on iOS still allows for competition on browser features while ensuring that websites run and look the same on iOS.

As a user what annoyed me most is that a website won’t work at all if it isn’t using chrome, because I don’t want to install Googles battery eating spyware on my machine.

The trend to web apps Is not appealing to me at all, because they all use their own UI paradigm, and I use macOS/iOS for a reason.

Concluding: it would be fair if Apple was forced to open up Safari-exclusive features like full screen video and such to all WebKit-clients. It would be nice if they were faster to fix bugs and release updates more frequently. And it would be great if there was an agreed set of features that can be reliably used by developers to deliver websites all users can enjoy. But if your site relies on cutting edge or potentially unsafe features to work, don’t be surprised if not every user is happy.

 

[walnuts]

"Over Christmas, there was a huge bug in something called IndexedDB," said Lawson. "That allowed any arbitrary website to see other websites you visited. Not all of them but those that use certain browser features. And that remained unpatched by Apple for 57 days. So for 57 days, every iOS user who used any web browser on iOS – because it was using WebKit – was leaking data left, right and center. If Apple actually did fix security errors fast, that would be a plausible defense, but they don't."

So this is a bit disingenuous. While I agree Apple could be better at patching itself, and its possible that a competitor could do a better job, but its also possible that a competitor could do a worse or malicious job. I admit that I don't understand all the technicalities, but it seems to me that a browser with an independent engine is way harder to secure than a traditional app.

And yes, while most of us here are smart enough to avoid shady web browsers, a lot of others aren't. And, as with side loading, some bigger companies could easily bully less tech savvy folk into sacrificing privacy. If Facebook built in a browser to their app that tracked the user completely, lots of people would use it.

For me personally, I'd prefer to have an option of a locked down platform for something as important as my phone. I understand that others might feel differently, and for that there are other options. But if apple is forced to open this up, then I'm the one without the option.

 

[JM]

Why is there such a drive in the world to tear everything down?

 

[centauratlas]

Prodigy is way better than Earthlink.

Compuserve rules though. All kidding aside, if there are bugs in WebKit that are problematic for a particular developer, fix them and open a pull request to merge it on GitHub. It isn't rocket science, but instead of complaining about something, they could just do it and it will be merged.

75126.332@compuserve

 

[JM]

So this is a bit disingenuous. While I agree Apple could be better at patching itself, and its possible that a competitor could do a better job, but its also possible that a competitor could do a worse or malicious job. I admit that I don't understand all the technicalities, but it seems to me that a browser with an independent engine is way harder to secure than a traditional app.

And yes, while most of us here are smart enough to avoid shady web browsers, a lot of others aren't. And, as with side loading, some bigger companies could easily bully less tech savvy folk into sacrificing privacy. If Facebook built in a browser to their app that tracked the user completely, lots of people would use it.

For me personally, I'd prefer to have an option of a locked down platform for something as important as my phone. I understand that others might feel differently, and for that there are other options. But if apple is forced to open this up, then I'm the one without the option.

Please don’t ever mention a Facebook browser again until Halloween. ?

 

[jonblatho]

I’d really love other browser engines. I just want it to be Apple’s choice. Not a government committee.

Mainly I just want Firefox with add on support.

Well, despite claiming to support self-regulation in Big Tech, Tim Cook has so far failed to do exactly that for Apple, so governments are stepping in to do the regulation for them. Apple does, of course, still have time to resolve — on its own terms — the issues about which regulators are concerned, but it seems they are instead focused on penny-pinching until the hammer of regulation falls. Their choice, I suppose.

 

[huge_apple_fangirl]

If I wanted a device to run PWAs and Chromium I would have bought a Chromebook.