If you care about privacy, it’s time to try a new web browser
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
So if you use Firefox or Brave on an iPhone, you’re simply using Safari with a different “skin.” This skin can clearly do some content blocking, and it can provide a different browser UI — but it cannot change the fundamental web technologies that are available in the browser.
As such, Safari is basically the new IE6 — it lags all other modern browsers and prevents websites from taking advantage of nice new features. (Yes, some of these features are available with polyfills but others are not polyfillable.)
I wish the author had noted this, given the high visibility of the NYT. More people need to know about Apple’s neutering of browsers on iOS. It’s crippling the growth of the web.
One specific example: Safari still doesn’t support AudioWorklet, which means iOS users get lower-quality slowdown in my product Soundslice (a feature we rolled out last week: https://www.soundslice.com/blog/199/introducing-enhanced-slo...). If more iOS users knew about this, perhaps they’d lobby Apple for better web support.
There I was, a week or two removed from helping my roommate move his gigantic Nigerian family group chat away from WhatsApp when [0] pops up in my HN feed.
They actually implied most of those millions of new Telegram users, 94% of which weren’t even in North America, were motivated entirely by the capitol riots.
Completely omitting the fact the WhatsApp -> FB data sharing message was sent to every single user in the world on that very same day, January 6th.
[0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/world/europe/telegram-app...
The amount of text necessary to explain to the average NYT reader what a rendering engine is probably more then the allotted text size for this piece of pseudo-intellectual garbage. Should make you worry about everything else journalists write with the same lack of care and understanding of details.
This is why podcasts and longform youtube content form actual experts is thriving while traditional media is dying. They have optimized so much for short attention span, clickbaity and inflammatory content that they have lost all resemblance of quality and expertise. In short, for any given topic, if the explanation is less than an hour long discussion piece, it's almost guaranteed to be simplified to the point of being wrong and useless.
it's not that hard to summarize: a rendering engine transforms html into pixels on the screen. most people will have at least a vague idea of what html and pixels are. there's no further need to dive into the details where that description is less than 100% accurate (e.g., sreen readers).
that's to say, the reporting is just lazy and uninformed. no need to bail them out with a technical excuse.
I doubt very much the average person on the street has a clear idea what a pixel is, let alone what HTML is. And even your description is so incomplete it's wrong since the safari engine also includes JavaScript execution, media rendering etc. on safari, proving my point: if you try to simplify it for the average reader, your description ends up wrong
but none of that stuff matters for reaching a reasonable conclusion. we don't need to know how a transmission works to reason about speed and acceleration, only that it converts power from the engine into velocity somehow. the whole purpose of abstraction is to take advantage of such decouplings within a brain limited in how much information it can hold in working memory in any one instant.
Screen readers are a distraction. Even completely blind readers would have a concept of what is displayed on a computer monitor even if they've never seen it.
It is kind of sad that the "longform content" that you mention as the new thriving alternative to traditional media, is rather time-infefficient audio and video. I regret the dearth of longform reliable text.
If Chrome was allowed on iOS be sure Google would dump unlimited money to get people to use it. Websites would further go down the path of only testing on Chrome, and Google would continue stuffing their browser full of oftentimes needless features. And they’d continue all their other disgusting practices like AMP even less fettered than before.
The literal only hedge against this right now is Safari. I thank the powers that be that Apple doesn’t let other engines on.
That, and, Safari is miles ahead of any other engine in terms of performance. It’s not even close.
And answer this: how would allowing other engines increase privacy? WebKit does more for privacy than almost any other, and allows installing privacy extensions and wrappers like Firefox. Without that, you’d have people using Chrome more than using Firefox.. a regression in privacy.
How is it fair to make this statement about iOS where no other engine is even allowed? Maybe Chrome(ium) and/or Firefox would be faster than Webkit on iOS if they were actually allowed to develop for it, or maybe Safari would be the best. It's impossible to know because Apple prevents any competition here.
link?
How is only allowing ONE browser engine good for diversity? If anything it hinders diversity and progress on iOS.
> Websites would further go down the path of only testing on Chrome
If only it would be possible to test Safari on a non Apple device, Apple is partial it fault here
> And answer this: how would allowing other engines increase privacy?
Because then there could be competition between Safari, Firefox, Brave etc.
Answer this: why do you let Apple dictate what Apps you can install on a ($700 - $1100) phone that you own?
Anyone paying attention can see there is a massive battle over web standards right now between Apple and Google, King Kong vs Godzilla (the other players aren’t in the same league), with the former being the one consistently fighting for privacy, and the latter for ever more invasive ads.
To me arguing for letting v8 on iOS is like saying why don’t we weaken King Kong so we can add a few more firefighters. It just doesn’t make sense. You don’t weaken the fighter thats lower in share (and stands against invasive advertising) because you feel bad for the local police not getting a chance.
It’s actually exactly why I’m happy to pay 700 - and if they opened it to other engines I’d value it less.
You can’t have a black and white view of freedom. Sometimes freedom is having an imperfect yet big and tough player that stands for what you want, against a worse option. The implementation is less free technically, but the outcome is more free dramatically (balance of power over the direction and control of the web and privacy).
I’d prefer a world where Chrome had a lot less market share, and then I’d not mind if it was more open. But we don’t live in that world. I’ll take the trade off.
I agree it's important for functionality and the general health of the web as a platform, but those don't seem to be the point of the article.
Yes, and for example (to my knowledge) there is no good granular script blocker (e.g. umatrix, ublock origin, noscript) in any browser available for iphone because there is no extension support in browsers like Chrome and Firefox.
This article seems like it's focusing on websites spying on you, and I don't think anyone (either this article or elsewhere) has made a serious allegation that WebKit does actually spy on you. It would be pretty newsworthy if it did!
Oh and Bitwarden does not work in FF. It it does work in Safari! So now I, a Firefox by default person switched to Safari (on iOS at least). I wish full Firefox was present.
Be prepared to no longer be able to easily install new launchers / home apps / emulators / adult apps / etc either.
Hopefully we have you back on the open source side soon!
I do like the privacy notices a lot more though, often they’ll state that nothing is shared and everything stays on the phone. Android with Google play is not as open and under my control as I wished, it’s one of the reasons why the step to iOS is minor imho (freedom-wise).
Bitwarden works very well for me in iOS FF and any other app.
I strongly disagree with you. The new IE6 is Chrome: overwhelming dominance of the web to the extent that Google can dictate "standards" themselves and users begin to lose the ability to use other browsers because "site works best(only) in Chrome", and I think that having my data forcefully harvested and active opposition from the developer to ad-blocking is a LOT worse than "stagnation". I like Firefox a lot on the desktop, but I have no illusions it'd stand in the way of total Chrome domination on its own. The only thing that really throws a wrench in Google's plans is iOS.
>More people need to know about Apple’s neutering of browsers on iOS. It’s crippling the growth of the web.
Good. I don't want everything shoved into websites or web views thank you very much, the web eating the world is something I actively oppose. And I don't care if it makes your life (or my life, with a dev hat on) harder. I don't mind if you simply chose not to serve iOS/Mac/Firefox users at all, though of course most would then take their business elsewhere. And you offering worse quality is also perfectly within the market and I don't fault you for it either. I'd pick a competitor with a native app and high quality, but that's not free to develop, so how that all shakes out may vary. But while it has downsides, Apple serving as a concentrator for user buying power has upsides too so long as they stay as a small though significant part of the market, which is very likely given their business strategy.
>If more iOS users knew about this, perhaps they’d lobby Apple for better web support.
I'm wish the App Store supported upgrade pricing, and I would like laws requiring Apple to offer a purchase-time option for root signing key access, even if it's for money or reduces support or something. But I'm perfectly happy to see a bit of favor towards native experiences over the web and I hope they continue to push that.
I use FF as my daily driver, but as much as I hate to admit it, whatever service I am using is almost always a stronger draw than FF, so I just open it up Chrominium or Brave. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the market for strictly native/browser-agnostic services is large enough to support most uses.
I guess "strictly" is debatable, but the point here is that the market for at least somewhat browser agnostic services includes, well, the entirety of iOS at the least. Precisely because there is no "choice", which means big services/developers can't force a choice on us either. If I browse somewhere on my iPhone, I won't be told "go install Chrome" because a I can't (or rather, it'd make no difference because an iOS browser is still the same engine so like "iOS Firefox", "iOS Chrome" is mainly a skin). Sometimes I may see a "better in the app" which I don't mind if it's dismissible because if it's somewhere I actually like, well, maybe I really will try their app. And while iOS users aren't remotely the majority of the global market by user count, they tend to punch above their weight in spending; they aren't a random sample of the population. It's a not insignificant market to entirely forego.
Different people will have different services they depend on and different views of the web in turn, so YMMV, but at least for me that seems to have been enough. I completely uninstalled both Chrome and Chromium, and between Safari and Firefox on Mac and FF on FreeBSD or Ubuntu I haven't encountered anything critical that was non-functional. Apple has effective collectivized the buying power of a picky subset of people. That's definitely not always good, but nor is it always bad. I think at this point a lot of us are making a conscious choice to join that ecosystem, and those of us unhappy with some of it handle it by keeping our main computing environment mixed up.
Begin? No. This has been happening for years. This is what killed Opera browser rendering engine.
The web would be better off if iOS users could benefit from the full Chrome codebase.
Yet the echos of a bazillion BSODs that have seemed less prevalent with Chrome are there.
To your point, comparing an OS to a browser is lame.
Chrome's dominance wasn't enough to get something useful like WebSQL to stick.
The web would be better if it wasn't dominated by a very small set of platforms. Adding 'a few more browsers' on a single operating system hardly helps.
Right now, the 'web' isn't much more aside from Google, Facebook and a few commercial offerings like the various eCommerce websites, and they are all accessed on 2, maybe 3 operating system foundations, with perhaps 1 or 2 relevant browser engines. Adding Gecko or Chrome on iOS changes nothing.
I'd be willing to bet that most people would consider that the primary characteristic of Safari that reminds them of IE. The market share was important to the IE hate but it wasn't because "everyone had it" it was because "everyone had it and it sucked" (sucked~= lagged/slowed development/entrenched users with shitty and unique experiences). Don't get me wrong Chrome also shares some of those secondary (imo) characteristics but I imagine when people speak of "IE" it's because of the , what the parent comment and I, consider the primary characteristic.
> The web would be better if it wasn't dominated by a very small set of platforms. Adding 'a few more browsers' on a single operating system hardly helps.
Now that's a hot take. Can I assume you're an Mac user ? honest question
I'm also of the opinion that for the vast majority of 'users' a locked down, managed device is the best option. To clarify: with the internet we have a vast amount of interdependent and interconnected systems, which in itself depends on everyone operating and maintaining those systems while they are part of this larger 'whole'.
I think most people neither know, nor want to know how this works or how this is done, and as such, taking part in a system that is dependant on this would be a risk for everyone involved.
Coming back to the 'the internet would be better with more diversity' (as that seems to contradict my earlier statement): diversity can come in many forms and apply on many ends. Having multiple server implementations, multiple client implementations and multiple transport implementations would benefit the quality of every implementation as it would need to be robust and tested to the point where it integrates properly. That does, however, not mean that all those differences need to be present at every layer of every implementation. Having a combination of many vendors all vending a single device with a single implementation would add plenty of diversity, same as a few vendors vending many devices with lots of device-specific variations.
Are you trying to make some sort of joke here? How is the Web more open than Linux or the BSDs running FOSS applications? And in fact how is the web under Chrome any more open than macOS or Windows? Seriously. In all cases, you can't just freely modify everything about the platform you're running on top of or most of the "applications" you're running. There's a megacorp behind each whose interests may or may not align with yours. You don't get to choose what they do or how. But you can still make whatever you'd like on top for no cost, though you may have to spend money to get attention. And if you make something malicious, you might get added to a blacklist that is distributed to all users. Etc.
In essence Google wants our "operating system" to be Chrome or another of their properties, either as a sort of meta-OS layered on top of the hardware OS or more directly via Chrome OS/Android+Google Play Services. And their financial interest in that is almost exclusively to get data about us to run ads at us, and to the extent possible prevent or hinder avoidance of that harvest or those ads.
It's not just that I don't want an ad company to make my operating system, I don't want an internet-required OS at all. And I want a wide variety of software with zero WAN dependency beyond maybe initial delivery somewhere in the chain. If that's not something you're interested in fine, but lots of us will remain willing to put our money where our mouths are on that one.
I also disagree that Safari is "holding the web back" because I like simple, readable and parseable websites.
I couldn't agree more that Google's dominance in web technology is a problem. But you're throwing the baby out with the bath water.
And just to add, the current situation is still better than proprietary native apps on MacOS and Windows. I can at least use Chromium in many forms and on virtually any operating system. Not ideal, but the alternative people in this thread are suggesting is far worse.
There's a wide panoply of programming languages that can be used on Windows PCs, including specifically to make user interfaces, which are cross-platform, like Qt.
The thing that currently is holding Google from extreme derivations is actually Microsoft's edgium I think. Microsoft is one of the few companies out there with enough resources to hold a hostile fork of Chromium capable of easy/fast adoption.
If Chromium decides to do something ridiculously egregious. It is possible for it to 1) not affect Microsoft browsers or 2) for Microsoft to maintain a fork and win marketshare fast.
This tired trope must die. No, Safari is not "the new IE6".
The problem with IE6 was not that it lagged a few years before adopting some features, it was moving fast and implementing things on its own, forcing standards, etc, and forcing a monoculture due to his large adoption (until Firefox came).
The monoculture, moving too fast, dictating arbitrary standards, is what Google does with Chrome (and every Blink derived browser).
Firefox Focus is a decent alternative with the best of both worlds.
If we relegate privacy to fringe browsers like this, we'll lose in the long run.
It's not possible to have 0.05% percent of the market, and try and compete with goliaths like Google. So it creates a feedback loop of a browser that people don't really use because it lacks features/popularity. Or/and these companies are also forced to do things like Brave and their in-browser ads.
Meanwhile there'll be a group of people that'll say things like 'if you really want privacy don't use chrome, use these private browsers'. Completely taking off the pressure on the bigger browsers.
Also, catering specifically to privacy is always weird. It makes people think that you have something to hide. Everybody wants privacy, but someone really goes out of their way, it makes you think they have something very serious (i.e. illegal) to hide. It's sketchy.
There needs to be a collective awareness and greater pressure put on browser companies.
Also, these niche browsers test out advanced features that can feed back upstream, and improve privacy for all users. (For instance, many of the Tor Browser features have been upstreamed and enabled by default in Firefox.)
It's a Chromium browser with a focus on privacy.
1. https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/brave.html
2. https://digdeeper.neocities.org/ghost/browsers.html#brave
And the author of those sites and I have very different views of what Spyware is. To me, spyware is software that spies on you without your knowledge.
The only thing that would even begin to qualify that is mentioned by [1] is telemetry, which Brave explicitly asks you about and which you can easily disable.
I’ve been able to vouch for comments once or twice before.
Disruptions and innovations happen on the fringes (classic Clay Christensen). If the disruption is large enough, it'd fast become the norm and upend the incumbents. These developments seem promising when viewed from those lenses?
I work in privacy-tech, and I get told often that the one true answer to privacy is regulations, but at the same time, I also believe privacy-tech like content blockers would continue to be indispensable no matter regulations for one simple reason: As decades pass us by, people become more tech savvy, not less; and as a result, the number of folks who desire more control over tech they use would keep rising.
If Firefox dies, it honestly wouldn't be a massive loss for the open web at this point. Webkit and Blink are sufficiently divergent that we would more or less be in the same position we were when Firefox was introduced.
Mozilla's been giving their executives raises while laying off the people who actually make the thing for years now, anyway. It above everything else has sabotaged its ability for long-term survival; no amount of internet rage will change the fact that Mozilla itself does not want Firefox to survive. And its forks would likely survive; Pale Moon has somehow been able to keep at roughly feature parity for ages now despite having forked off a long time ago.
Inspired to research further, I looked and found that Mozilla acquired Pocket in 2017, and it supposedly works on your local-only data for recommendations. Pocket has a subscription plan, and Mozilla as a free software co doesn't have many revenue streams. Them needing to present their product to users doesn't seem that bad viewed in the context of needing a way to support the product. I do think it could be better presented ie explained clearly what pocket is and why they show it to us.
For further privacy, there's a pretty radical version of Firefox called Tor.
But i am interested in my own understanding. I don't know too much about these products.
Ordinary Firefox was not mentioned -- maybe he's only interested in things that run on mobile? It's not clear to me.
But my question about the actual topic is, is there any reason DuckDuckGo or Brave would be more privacy-protecting than ordinary Firefox, any features they have thus?
Has anyone else felt this way?
Now, when those companies are purchased, hacked, or have some policy shift you don't fancy, there may be issues.
I've been online a couple decades, so I'm a bit sanguine. If somebody really wants to doxx me or get me fired or do more than the annual ID theft on the credit card, what am I to do?
Take reasonable precautions and don't over-worry seems like the reasonable approach.
Then choosing not to play anymore doesn’t have to be a “blame Microsoft”-worthy event.
It gets you like 90% of the way there and you don't have to use a less polished browser.
I highly recommend uBlock Origin. Their manifesto[2] most closely aligns with my beliefs on how my browser should behave: "The user decides what web content is acceptable or not in their browser."
1: https://adblockplus.org/en/about#monetization
2: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/blob/master/MANIFESTO.md
I figured out how to block specific elements, but I do miss the ease of just turning off sources from a GUI of "everything that loaded".
You can see you can block by domain, host, and some pre-determined groups like "3rd-party".