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Mozilla Firefox IOS

Mozilla Says Apple's New Browser Rules Are 'as Painful as Possible' for Firefox (theverge.com) 63

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
Apple's new rules in the European Union mean browsers like Firefox can finally use their own engines on iOS. Although this may seem like a welcome change, Mozilla spokesperson Damiano DeMonte tells The Verge it's "extremely disappointed" with the way things turned out. From a report: "We are still reviewing the technical details but are extremely disappointed with Apple's proposed plan to restrict the newly-announced BrowserEngineKit to EU-specific apps," DeMonte says. "The effect of this would be to force an independent browser like Firefox to build and maintain two separate browser implementations -- a burden Apple themselves will not have to bear." In iOS 17.4, Apple will no longer force browsers in the EU to use WebKit, the underlying engine that powers Safari. The change opens the door for other popular engines, such as Blink, which is used by Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, as well as Gecko, the engine used by Firefox. It also means third-party browsers could become fully functional on iOS without any of the limitations that come along with WebKit.
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Mozilla Says Apple's New Browser Rules Are 'as Painful as Possible' for Firefox More

Mozilla Says Apple's New Browser Rules Are 'as Painful as Possible' for Firefox

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  • I'm shocked (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 ) on Friday January 26, 2024 @07:37PM (#64191082)
    Apple is making it as painful as possible. It can't be! Whoever thought that would happen?
    • This rightly so satirical response is about all that needs to be said. Is anyone shocked?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Well, it's also only a law in the EU for now. Unless you think a country can make a law and make it apply worldwide to every other country, in which case I'm sure China's stance on freedom will go over real well in the US. (Not that it didn't happen since the NBA, NFL, and Blizzard all censored content to appease China which was then aired in the US).

      So yes, on one hand, Apple's being deliberate here because it's an EU law to apply to EU countries. On the other hand, everyone complains when Apple censors ap

      • So yes, on one hand, Apple's being deliberate here because it's an EU law to apply to EU countries. On the other hand, everyone complains when Apple censors apps in China that are still freely available in the US.

        China has their own Apple App Store. Now the EU will too. Presumably every country should have its own app store. Will be fun to watch how many they can manage. Don't kid yourself, it is all about money, not principle.

      • **Except, well, the EU doesn't quite have free speech the way the US does, so a lot of stuff will also get censored that way.** Care to elaborate on that one?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Saffaya ( 702234 )

          I can comment on the "EU doesn't quite have free speech the way the US does".
          It is true.
          Next question?

          No other country has a constitution, notably with a bill of rights, like the US does. Consequently, there are a lot of true, real things you cannot say in the EU, without being legally condemned for "Hate Speech".
          Another example, French citizens can be condemned for criticizing their president, they cannot legally do that.

        • It's pretty simple. Free speech in any country that signed the 1952 UN Declaration of Human Rights adopted such rights in many laws and regulations (including GDPR for example). The mistake that people make is not realizing free speech is covered in 3 articles. Not 1. The second article is extremely clear about not hurting anyone in any kind of way through free speech. The 3rd article provides balance between the two. 99% when someone shouts something bad and claims he/she has free speech, they only conside

        • In the USA, slander is presumed legal and burden of proof for libel is on the prosecutor. In most of Europe, the burden is on the defendant. USA protects heavily political speech that calls for revolution. In most of Europe, that will get you quickly censored. Most famously, you can promote Nazi ideals in USA â" you maybe will be hated on by others, but you can speak. In all of Europe, you go to prison.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            In all of Europe, you go to prison.

            Untrue. Germany has laws against certain quite narrowly defined things like holocaust denial, but that doesn't stop people like the ADF being Nazis in all but name. I think Austria has some similar laws.

            The rest of Europe doesn't have any restrictions on specifically Nazi stuff. There are some rules that affect speech, but they are not dissimilar to the US, e.g. true threats. The European Convention on Human Rights lists freedom of expression as one of the core rights.

            It's also worth pointing out that while

    • Apple is making it as painful as possible. It can't be! Whoever thought that would happen?

      Everyone thought so, but it is still important that when it does happen, someone says it out loud. It is like quantum physics; if there is no observation, it did not occur.

  • Apple (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Friday January 26, 2024 @07:51PM (#64191110)

    Sucks. What jerks they are showing themselves to be, especially lately. I'm glad I'm not in their ecosystem. Yuck.

  • What limitations does WebKit have? (Score:3)

    by EMB Numbers ( 934125 ) on Friday January 26, 2024 @08:03PM (#64191128)

    "... without any of the limitations that come along with WebKit."

    Google Chrome is/was using WebKit on all platforms last I looked. What exactly are these limitations other than not allowing third party cookies by default, limiting tracking, not sending unique IDs off the device, not allowing popups by default, etc.?

  • For Marketplaces like Apple which distribute apps made by EU-based developers. They should be required Not to discriminate against developers who avail themselves of EU requirements. It SHOULD be made against the law for an EU marketplace to Block an EU developer's app to their own country and decline them the capability to distribute it through their marketplace worldwide -- Splitting up the marketplace and Geoblocking users specifically... ought to implicate EU rules against geoblocking, no?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 )

      Since when does the EU have jurisdiction over the entire world?

      When the EU issues fines and regulations for US big tech companies, they rely solely on the weight of the potential EU market: if egregious US companies don't want to be fined for privacy violations or monopolistic behaviors in the EU, or if they don't want to comply with EU regulations, they're free to pull out of the EU market. But of course, they don't, because the EU is half a billion loaded customers so they can't afford to pull out.

      But bey

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by XanC ( 644172 )

        EU doesn't have jurisdiction outside their borders, but I don't think there's anything that says they couldn't choose to shut Apple out of their market if they don't like Apple's behavior elsewhere.

        • EU doesn't have jurisdiction outside their borders, but I don't think there's anything that says they couldn't choose to shut Apple out of their market if they don't like Apple's behavior elsewhere.

          Alternatively, they could declare open season on Apple's OS, even offering incentives for reverse engineering iOS and coming up with an equivalent to LineageOS, and creating an app ecosystem.

          I realize that will never happen; there are lots of barriers, including the huge difficulty and cost of things like fully characterizing the hardware and the binary blobs, and keeping up with Apple's changes meant to thwart the effort. But wouldn't it be fun to watch the EU going toe-to-toe with Apple? Popcorn time!

      • Their entire strategy of malicious compliance rests on that very fact: by virtually splitting iOS in two - EU and non-EU variants

        They also already have the China variant, so three.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zitchas ( 713512 )

        More than a few countries have ethics rules (not sure if they're laws or not) that stipulate that a company operating there cannot break its laws elsewhere. For example, it cannot go buy thousands of literal slaves in some poor country. Nor can it simply export all its toxic waste from where it was created to some country that doesn't have environmental laws (much less enforcement) in order to dump it in the ocean there.

        Europe is well within its rights (as is the USA, and China, and every other country) to

    • The EU can't actually do that. Nobody can. France tried, and it didn't work. They tried to force Google to censor links to any website France ordered them to anywhere in the world that a French citizen might be able to access to it, and as they usually do, France ultimately surrendered. The EU *can* enforce anti-geoblocking rules within the EU itself; so for example, if Netflix makes Napoleon available in Spain, but not France because they know that the Frenchies would mass unsubscribe because they found it

  • I 'member (Score:3)

    by DulcetTone ( 601692 ) on Friday January 26, 2024 @08:51PM (#64191234)

    It used to be that Apple was the platform that tried harder to conform to open standards, to play nice. First thing to break was remote desktop support.

  • If Apple is only allowing this change in Europe, can Apple also mandate that the cookie warnings ONLY stay in Europe? Please!!!!!

  • This is going to annoy EU Apple users too (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday January 26, 2024 @09:56PM (#64191326)

    And Apple totally wants EU users to be annoyed, so they can turn around and say "See? The EU made us ruin your day!"

    The thing with Apple customers is, they specifically want the Apple treatment: they like not having to think about their security, not having to think about who supplies their software, not having choice... They buy Apple because it Just Works[tm] - most of the time.

    The way Apple is complying maliciously with the new EU DMA regulation, is they're opening their walled garden with such high barriers to entry that only rich corporations can even afford to open a third party app store on iOS. So no F-Droid and no little guys writing open-source software for iOS: that just won't be happening.

    And on top of that, the crack in the garden wall is only for EU customers - meaning anyone who wants to distribute a browser on iOS worldwide will have to maintain two totally different codebases with two totally different bugs and issues. Nobody will do that. No developers wants to get into that particular hell, and no company wants to pay for this shit.

    As a result, all that's gonna come out of Apple's malicious compliance is annoyances for EU iOS users, who will get pointless popups to inform them they have some "choice" or other to choose from (a choice they really don't have in reality), when iOS users purposedly DO NOT want to have to choose anything in the first place!

    As a result, after a few years of annoyances with nothing to make up for it - since nobody will ever jump through the hoops to make a EU-only 3rd party app store and nobody will ever create a EU-only browser - this will create the general impression among Apple customers that the EU is just there to annoying everybody.

    Apple is such a disgusting company...

    • >"maintain two totally different codebases with two totally different bugs and issues. Nobody will do that."

      https://apps.apple.com/us/app/... [apple.com]

      And, yet, Mozilla is doing just that, right now. They don't WANT to do that. And I can't blame them. But just pointing out that apparently it was important enough to them.

      https://apps.apple.com/us/app/... [apple.com]

      Apparently important enough to Google, as well. Except Google has 1,000,000 (?) times more resources and power than Mozilla.

      • Chrome and Firefox on iOS are just skins over Webkit. Apple mandates that all 3rd party browser use Webkit under the hood.

        And that's the thing: neither Google nor Mozilla wants to maintain a separate, EU-only genuine Chromium-running version Chrome. Google may choose to do it for some strategic reason or other, because they have infinite resources, but Mozilla sure won't. And that's exactly what Apple wants.

    • As a result, after a few years of annoyances with nothing to make up for it - since nobody will ever jump through the hoops to make a EU-only 3rd party app store and nobody will ever create a EU-only browser - this will create the general impression among Apple customers that the EU is just there to annoying everybody.

      Ain't it Cool?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      If Apple thinks that annoying customers in the hope that they complain to the EU is going to fly, they are in for a slap down. The EU does not look kindly on dubious "interpretations" of the rules, malicious compliance, and so forth.

    • > when iOS users purposedly DO NOT want to have to
      > choose anything in the first place!

      Well... yeah... iOS users already had the choice that the EU supposedly just "gave" them in Europe. For an appliance-like device like my phone, I do prever a curated, vetted, reviewed, and sandboxed "walled garden" as people like to put it. I would not want that for my desktop or laptop. But for my phone, I made the choice to use that walled garden. If I wanted an unregulated and unvetted malware, adware, and ot

  • Or You Could Leave (Score:3)

    by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Friday January 26, 2024 @11:04PM (#64191446)

    "The effect of this would be to force an independent browser like Firefox to build and maintain two separate browser implementations -- a burden Apple themselves will not have to bear."

    Or you could just stop supporting a company that is so antagonistic towards its third-party developers. Does Firefox make a lot of money from iOS downloads? It seems like it's not worth the hassle and would just be easier to focus on supporting companies that respect and appreciate their third-party devs.

  • "third-party browsers could become fully functional on iOS without any of the limitations that come along with WebKit" - how are they not fully functional now?

    • "third-party browsers could become fully functional on iOS without any of the limitations that come along with WebKit" - how are they not fully functional now?

      First and most obviously, WebKit is the most poorly maintained, slowest, and least compatible of the three rendering engines used today.

      Second, Firefox on iOS is not allowed to support extensions, and even if they were they would have to differ from Firefox on Android because the rendering engine is different.

      Safari has always been kind of a bad joke, Apple has never kept up with the other browsers (even Firefox) and forcing everyone else's browser to be as bad as theirs is actively consumer-hostile.

  • Use some of that Google money, problem solved. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by couchslug ( 175151 ) on Saturday January 27, 2024 @01:58AM (#64191700)

    Mozilla have plenty of money to spend on non-browser activities. Mozilla can afford to code a response if they want that market.

    https://lunduke.locals.com/pos... [locals.com]

    With all that money why isn't Firefox duplicating its early success? I remember when the computer enthusiasts who are responsible for the mass adoption of Firefox were highly effective advocates.

    That era is gone withe exceptions proving the rule. Mozilla should ask Slashdot, Ars Technica etc what nerds not normals want in Firefox because the ONLY way FOSS thrives is by the support of COMPUTER ENTHUSIASTS.

    A parallel is DeWalt's power tool success story. They avoided the horrid fate of Black and Decker reputation suicide by asking professionals what they wanted, offering that then word of mouth and workplace example made the reborn incarnation of DeWalt a famous success.

    Build for the pros and the plebs will follow.

  • On a related note... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Torodung ( 31985 ) on Saturday January 27, 2024 @01:25PM (#64192510) Journal

    Just switched from Chrome to Firefox on my Android device. Firefox has finally gotten its mobile app right and I can add Ghostery and get rid of the useless in-line adds cluttering every page. I highly recommend Firefox on Android.

    I hope Apple users can enjoy the same experience, but they continue with their lock-in shenanigans. I have no idea why people submit to their onerous walled garden. It seems to be the prestige of being on an iPhone that drives their marketability. It's why they resist any attempt at interoperability, because interoperability would remove the stigma on "not being on Apple." I still have to SMS/MMS all my Apple contacts, ffs.

    I'm glad the EU is stepping in and trying to fix these issues. The US seems to be asleep at the switch.

    • Android Firefox is indeed pretty good. I have some minor quibbles with it, but the ease of switching tabs and the logical order it uses for opening and closing them are among the many tiny perfections that make it pleasant.

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