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Mozilla Firefox IT Technology

Mozilla, Like Google, is Looking Ahead To the End of Apple's WebKit Rule (theregister.com) 44

Posted by msmash from the fighting-back dept.
Mozilla is planning for the day when Apple will no longer require its competitors to use the WebKit browser engine in iOS. From a report: Mozilla conducted similar experiments that never went anywhere years ago but in October 2022 posted an issue in the GitHub repository housing the code for the iOS version of Firefox that includes a reference to GeckoView, a wrapper for Firefox's Gecko rendering engine. Under the current Apple App Store Guidelines, iOS browser apps must use WebKit. So a Firefox build incorporating Gecko rather than WebKit currently cannot be distributed through the iOS App Store.

As we reported last week, Mozilla is not alone in anticipating an iOS App Store regime that tolerates browser competition. Google has begun work on a Blink-based version of Chrome for iOS. The major browser makers -- Apple, Google, and Mozilla -- each have their own browser rendering engines. Apple's Safari is based on WebKit; Google's Chrome and its open source Chromium foundation is based on Blink (forked from WebKit a decade ago); and Mozilla's Firefox is based on Gecko. Microsoft developed its own Trident rendering engine in the outdated Internet Explorer and a Trident fork called EdgeHTML in legacy versions of Edge but has relied on Blink since rebasing its Edge browser on Chromium code.
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Mozilla, Like Google, is Looking Ahead To the End of Apple's WebKit Rule More

Mozilla, Like Google, is Looking Ahead To the End of Apple's WebKit Rule

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  • One more reason not to use Apple products (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fred6666 ( 4718031 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @04:00PM (#63273393)

    This requirement of a single web browser engine is BS. No benefit to the users. If I want to install and use Firefox, it's probably because I want to use Firefox, not Safari.
    They might as well ban competing browsers at this point.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I want to use Firefox on my phone, but it's a battery killer. At this time you might actually be better off with it being a wrapper for Safari.

      • Problem is, with the current situation mobile Firefox on iOS doesn't offer a lot of the nice things Firefox users expect, like custom cookie control or uBlock Origin (or other ad blocking). Ad blockers like Purify work for Safari but not for Firefox - even though Firefox is using the Safari engine.

        I welcome the ability to run "real" Firefox on iOS. Admittedly because of the battery hit I might feel differently if I used a browser a lot on my phone; but typically I'm only using it for short periods of time.

        • If Firefox on macOS is anything to go by, it wonâ(TM)t offer any of the nice things I expect like integration with my keychain, history, form data, hide my email, Apple Pay, etc, across all my devices. It will probably offer a shit user interface though. Each to their own, eh?

          • After many years of frustration with the limitations of Apple's Keychain, I stopped using it a couple years ago - moved to Bitwarden. The migration was painful, but the end result was worth it - Bitwarden is a better and more useful product, especially on iOS.

            If cross-platform history etc. are important to you, you can accomplish the same thing through Firefox by setting up an account with Mozilla and enabling sync across devices.

            As I understand it, Apple Pay is actually coming to non-Safari browsers soon.

      • I want to use Firefox on my phone, but it's a battery killer.

        Allowing Firefox to use its horribly inefficient rendering engine, on iOS, is mostly about giving the end user freedom to choose. It's still a shitty choice, but at least Apple would no longer be making that choice for you.

        Being able to run an alternate web rendering engine is probably of greater benefit for iPads, which aren't nearly as constrained in the battery and performance departments as iPhones are. Apple only has itself to blame for ending up in this situation - they advertise their iOS devices a

      • I want to use Firefox on my phone, but it's a battery killer.

        Let the user decide if Firefox is good or not. If it's not, nobody will install it. Apple doesn't need to mandate anything here.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I'm not saying ban it, I'm saying that I wish Mozilla would fix it.

          Maybe they are working on it. Mozilla don't communicate what they are up to very well.

          • I use Firefox on Android and didn't notice any battery difference. But even it there was, it's still worth it to have Firefox instead of chrome to block ads while at the same time sync my passwords with my desktop browser.

    • This requirement of a single web browser engine is BS

      Agreed. But...

      iOS version of ...GeckoView, a wrapper for Firefox's Gecko rendering engine

      ...that will be one more reason not to use iOS. An iOS with as little as possible ever touched by Mozilla is about the best (read only) thing going for that platform.

      Mozilla has the reverse Midas touch. I suspect that's why Google gives them so much money - what better way to look good than by funding a "competitor" that isn't.

      • iOS version of ...GeckoView, a wrapper for Firefox's Gecko rendering engine

        ...that will be one more reason not to use iOS.

        You're confused, it wouldn't be part of iOS, in fact it wouldn't even ship with devices sold with iOS. It's like saying the fact that there is a version of Candy Crush for iOS is a reason not to use iOS.

    • It's most likely to prevent a browser from becoming an app container which would bypass the App Store. By having control over what javascript functions are supported, Apple can ensure there's a distinct line between a web app and a native app.

    • Apple users aren't going to care. Firefox for years has been something you install along with your main browser / daily driver of choice, especially in mobile, where the real action is.

      The two main desktop OSes are Windows and OSX. And both have default browsers that are more than good enough, and Chrome also installs on both. When you're not in the top 2 and you don't have other services to leverage with users, fuggetaboutit.

      In mobile, the two main OSes are IOS and Android. They both have default brow

    • This requirement of a single web browser engine is BS. No benefit to the users.

      It's like if Microsoft mandated that every browser on Windows had to use Trident.

  • Release it for already jailbroken devices (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @04:00PM (#63273395)
    Call Apple's bluff on alternative stores. If they get kicked out of the official store in retaliation, there will be a lot of negative press about Apple bullying open source rivals off its platform. Google should have the guts too, I'd like to see a real fight between Apple and Google and see who has the true market power.

    • Re:Release it for already jailbroken devices (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dontbemad ( 2683011 ) on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @04:15PM (#63273445)
      I don't think Google wants to bring any attention to a perceived browser-monopoly when they own the overwhelming share of the android and desktop browser space.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
        The restriction has to do with iOS, not Safari. You can already install alternative browsers, with their own rendering engine, on Android. You can also install entire alternate stores. Neither of which are possible on iOS.
      • Its almost as if the only reason Safari has any market share at all.... is because of what is obviously something that has been determined-to-be the anti-competitive practice: bundling.

        Break up the illegal anti-trust behavior of Apple, by breaking up Apple.

        • Its almost as if the only reason Safari has any market share at all.... is because of what is obviously something that has been determined-to-be the anti-competitive practice: bundling.

          Kind of like Microsoft with IE back in the Netscape days.

          The more things change the more they stay the same.

        • Apple is not a monopoly. far from it; this is idiocy.

          Stop buying Apple if you dislike a policy and go to Google which has the majority if you don't mind them profiling everything you do and retaining that forever; along with your physical location.

          Chrome sucks too may resources so I don't want everybody embedding that -- if allowed certain libraries must be required to be shared and better managed than existing shared libraries. A system for service-daemons like this should be required.

          • Stop buying Apple if you dislike a policy

            What kind of pathetic corporate bootlicker ideology is it that you subscribe to. Obviously it's news to you but here it comes: you're allowed to disagree with a policy and even suggest that it be changed. But of course the Apple fanboy army immediately descends on any who would criticize, to try and oust anybody who disagrees: Off to Android for you, you cannot disagree with Apple and be a user of Apple devices!

            I personally wouldn't use it, I wouldn't use the alternative app stores either but I have no moti

  • With the WebKit rules lifted, it's easy to see They will put Chromium on to each indivisual apps. The result is a tons of copies of Chromium on the iPhone. Each apps storage and memory area are independent, so it wastes phone hardware resources.

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