Apple limits third-party browser engine work to EU devices

The Register has learned from those involved in the browser trade that Apple has limited the development and testing of third-party browser engines to devices physically located in the EU. That requirement adds an additional barrier to anyone planning to develop and support a browser with an alternative engine in the EU.

It effectively geofences the development team. Browser-makers whose dev teams are located in the US will only be able to work on simulators. While some testing can be done in a simulator, there’s no substitute for testing on device – which means developers will have to work within Apple’s prescribed geographical boundary.

… as Mozilla put it – to make it “as painful as possible for others to provide competitive alternatives to Safari.”

Midnitte,

Seems like this is just delaying the inevitable - just like using USB-C connectors.

I’m sure Google would love to point out the hypocrisy to get Blink in the US.

kevincox,
@kevincox@lemmy.ml avatar

This is worse that USB-C connectors. They did launch Lightning first and it wasn’t significantly worse that USB-C for a long time. Sure, they dragged their feet for longer than they probably should have (I think the iPad switched at a relatively reasonable time) but making their users switch connectors is a big change and it made sense to make sure that USB-C was here to stay and whatnot.

This is just 100% user hostile. They are doing more work to keep features from their users. Features that the user can just not use if they don’t want them.

silent_robo,

Only after getting around 20 billion of fine, these old timers will understand how tech works.

_number8_,

geolocking is immoral. if they’re getting it why the fuck shouldn’t we?

puppy,

Time to elect better politicians.

kevincox,
@kevincox@lemmy.ml avatar

Where are they?

And of course with First-past-the-post even if they appear it is harmful to vote for them because you are better to strategically vote for a party that actually has a chance of winning even if they are only marginally better than the other party that is expected to win.

The system is really fucked up top-to-bottom. Very likely on purpose.

xor,

because we haven’t effectively made our government force them to

SomeGuy69,

Apple scummy once again.

fart_pickle,

And people ask me why I de-appled…

Ptsf,

I’ll de-apple when we get a viable alternative to Android. As is Google has far too much control over the entirety of that ecosystem to call it workably open, and if I’m going to choose between two proprietary vendors I’m going to choose the more reliable one with a business built around consumer interest instead of ad-company interests.

fart_pickle,

Try GrapheneOS. It has some quirks but it’s a good alternative. Been using it for two years on a phone and I’m considering getting it on a tablet.

Ptsf,

Google still owns the ecosystem. They want to roll a new packaging system that depreciates apks and forces play store installs or Google based certificate pining? They’ll have 90% market capture in a year. It’s like using Opera/Edge/Etc and feeling safe from the decisions Google makes because of it, but they’re writing and designing Chromium upstream so they still own the agency and the choice (See Manifest v3). Given two companies both preventing me from owning agency of my own device, I’ll pick the lesser of the two evils and in my eyes that is currently Apple. I do hope to have a mobile operating system akin to Linux someday, but graphine os or any android dirivitive is not the solution, it just takes away my agency while they further the problem.

AtariDump, (edited )

So who did you go with? Because stock android ain’t much better privacy wise.

jonasw,

I’d recommend using GrapheneOS. (i’m using it, and it is a breath of fresh air)

AtariDump,

On what phone?

jonasw, (edited )

What phone I have? Pixel 8 Pro (I bought it specifically for GrapheneOS, otherwise I wouldn’t have bought a Pixel, als the original Pixel ROM is laggy as fuck)

Supported Devices are all Pixels since the Pixel 5a. grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices

Chewy7324,

My Pixel 4a is slower with GrapheneOS than stock. Disabling GrapheneOS’ Secure App Spawning helps noticeably.

With newer hardware it’s likely not noticeable. (The 4a is old and even only receives security updates by GrapheneOS (no firmware updates by Google), so I really should replace it at some point.)

AtariDump,

So a 4 year old phone isn’t supported by Google anymore?

jonasw,

Yeah, only starting with the Pixel 8 they promised 7 years of support

PostaL,

Let’s see how that will go in 4 years…

onion,

Yup it’s not noticable on the Pixel 8

fart_pickle,

GrapheneOS running on Pixel phone.

clmbmb,

no, but on android you have firefox… and you have f-droid with tons of OSS applications - and a lot of them are really good, so you can ignore everything made by google.

woelkchen,
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

That’s one way to stop outsourcing to India and create EU jobs.

dojan,
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t see third party engines making it to the market unless the US also slams down some regulations. How many Firefox users are there in the EU? How many use iOS, and how many of those are likely to use the iOS version of Firefox? Is it worth maintaining two to four separate apps for this?

Viking_Hippie,

How many Firefox users are there in the EU?

More than in the US.

Firefox has a 5.07% share of European users, versus 4.21% in the US.

The population of the EU as per January 2023 is 448.8 million, compared to the 2023 US estimate of 334.9 million.

dojan,
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

Well I suppose the question really is; how many Firefox iOS/iPad OS are there in the EU and does that amount of users make it worth maintaining another 1-2 apps for the EU market, while dealing with Apple’s shenanigans? Like Firefox Browser for iOS and iPad, as well as Firefox Focus are already 2 apps, if you want to replace the back-end specifically for the EU you’d have to maintain that back-end, deal with Apple working against you, and maintain separate versions of those apps specifically for the EU.

It’s worth noting that Firefox for iOS is already leaps and bounds behind Firefox for Android in terms of UX. There are features missing that they could add regardless of whether they are using WKWebView or not, but they haven’t, either because Apple doesn’t want competition, or because they don’t consider the Firefox browser on iOS to be particularly high priority.

If the latter, why on Earth would they port Gecko to iOS/iPad OS when a vanishingly small subset of users might use it? I am a European Firefox user, but I don’t use Firefox on iOS because the UX compared to Safari is incredibly lacklustre. Switching the back-end to Gecko wouldn’t do anything to fix that.

WetBeardHairs,

I think many Firefox users are tech savvy enough to know that Firefox for iOS is just a reskinned Safari. They know that it isn’t the real-deal and so any stats on who uses Firefox on iOS are kind of misrepresenting the situation.

dojan,
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah. The main reason I could think of is if you use Firefox Sync. I actually do have that on my iPad, though it’s rare that I’ll ever open something on my PC and then resume it on my iPad.

Viking_Hippie,

does that amount of users make it worth maintaining another 1-2 apps for the EU market, while dealing with Apple’s shenanigans

I’d say that’s a resounding “no”, but I must admit that basically nothing is worth dealing with Apple’s shenanigans in the first place if you ask me.

Especially when it’s likely that they’ll eventually play themselves out of the European market completely with their anti-consumer bullshit and the EU’s increasing courage in protecting consumers from such abuse as is integral to all things Apple.

dojan,
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

That echoes my thoughts.

Beaver,
@Beaver@lemmy.ca avatar

Wow making it as pricy as possible for developers to add features thanks Apple.

Carighan,
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

Just one more reason to make laws that enforce similarly fair competition in other countries. Don’t let companies get away with this shit!

kratoz29,

Can they do that? I’d love it, but I don’t think they can really force Apple, or any company to do something globally can they? (USB C was probably managed this way because of logistic and pricing matters).

pupbiru,

they can make whatever laws they like really - the EU punishes corporate infringement with percentage of global revenue for example

whether they can enforce them or not is questionable in most cases, but unless apple wants to pull out of europe, the EU can kinda do whatever it likes

Rednax,

Not entirely. There still exists trade agreements, and diplomatic pushback.

Forcing companies to make products to a certain specification, would mean the EU is attempting to regulate other markets. Markets it has no direct governance over. While it may come from good intentions, it still invades the authonomy of the governments that should have governance over these markets.

Much better would be to work together with other countries, and help these countries implement similar rules, and enforce them together. Like, pretty much that the EU is doing for its members in the first place.

pupbiru,

trade agreements likely don’t cover this though

and sure there might be diplomatic pushback, but… is that really going to happen?

the EU already forces companies to make products to certain specifications if they want to be sold in the EU… as does the US and most other countries, and California in the US tends to set the standard that everyone else lives by

countries “invade” the autonomy of other countries’ markets all the time. the US is the worst offender. this is kinda the reason the EU exists: to have the power to force things to happen that is “outside” their jurisdiction

apple doesn’t have to comply. they don’t have to sell iphones in the EU. they’re making a choice

Rednax,

What you are mentioning is forcing companies to comply when selling inside the EU or California. The EU does not force companies to comply with their specifications outside of the EU. Companies simply do so because it is convenient.

The EU cannot decide how cars should be made that are sold in California. If they tried, I bet the US government would have something to say about it.

What the EU can do, is exert influence to get other governments to adopt the same rules. This already happens with a lot of countries surrounding the EU. But asking another government to adopt rules, is wildly different from forcing companies to adhere to those rules inside the borders of another government.

pupbiru,

i understand that of course, but the EU can, for example, force products that are sold in the EU to have no developer restrictions that are not compliant with EU law

… just like it can (try) to regulate the sale of of things like conflict diamonds

FrostKing,

I could be wrong, but I believe he meant that other countries themselves should pass similar laws; not that the EU should make laws mandating what Apple does in other countries

kratoz29,

Oh, that would make more sense, but if this was a per country decision I’d be fucked here in Mexico lol.

witty_username,

Wouldn’t a vpn solve this?

SturgiesYrFase,
@SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml avatar

I have the feeling that it would require a GPS spoof

clmbmb,

I guess they’ll have something at firmware level identifying the registration location.

paraphrand,

I assume they are doing checks of other things. Local software is not the same as a web service that is checking your IP for your location.

They could use location services, your registration country for your Apple ID, the sale location of your device, and other things. They could even aggregate indicators and use that.

WetBeardHairs,

iOS would have root access to aGPS (or even real GPS) to determine location. There’s no easy way to spoof that against a determined asshole actor.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • firefox@lemmy.ml
  • DreamBathrooms
  • ngwrru68w68
  • tester
  • magazineikmin
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • khanakhh
  • InstantRegret
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • Durango
  • kavyap
  • mdbf
  • tacticalgear
  • megavids
  • osvaldo12
  • normalnudes
  • cubers
  • cisconetworking
  • everett
  • GTA5RPClips
  • ethstaker
  • Leos
  • provamag3
  • anitta
  • modclub
  • JUstTest
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •