Hacker News Reader

Comment by thesquib | Hacker News Reader

You can download an app from the App Store called a "browser". This browser lets you access anything on the world wide web. There's explicit content on the web. Therefore you must remove browsers from the App Store.

View on HN

There's explicit content in reddit which is allowed in App Store. Also there's parental controls in iOS, Safari respects that setting while other browsers do not, so other browsers are 18+ in AppStore.

AFAIK explicit content is allowed in AppStore as long as you're clearly separate it from non-explicit with a setting.

> AFAIK explicit content is allowed in AppStore as long as you're clearly separate it from non-explicit with a setting.

Example: Telegram blocks channels known for containing porn. You can disable the block, but only through a setting in Telegram Web (and no mention of that is allowed inside the app).

I think that’s stupid, inconsistent, benefits nobody and only makes for a bad UX, but I guess the argument, as always, is “think of the children”.

Apple actually has been on a big crusade against any semblance of sexual content on the Store since early 2021, actually - Discord is now forced to hide all servers with NSFW content on iOS and a few art apps(e.g. Procreate) have removed art with sexual content from their sharing platform in recent updates.

I assume this is related to the case. Discord is sort of like a browser for people under 20 now.

Discord already gave up on that, and it was probably part of their discussions with Microsoft about a merger, not an app store thing.

Tumblr's porn ban was popularly thought to be an app store thing, but it was more likely about sex trafficking laws.

This is still a thing.

https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500005389362-...

> Additionally, a subset of NSFW servers that are specifically focused on explicit pornographic content will be blocked entirely on iOS. iOS users aged 18+ will only be able to join and access these dedicated pornography servers on the desktop and web versions of Discord.

I don't think anything like this would be part a MS merger which is apparently now off the table.

The one everyone remembers is that Discord was going to ban all NSFW channels on any server. This is no longer happening.

The version I remember is that Discord was going to opt out everyone from NSFW channels, and require ID to prove am accounts age before opting in. This may or may not still be happening, but is much more extreme than the current rules.

"a thing" is still happening, but it's vastly reduced from the original version.

There are no browsers on the app store though... Apple doesn't allow it already. Eg: Firefox on iOS is actually just a skin on top of safari. Agree that in general the stance is ridiculous though.

That's for reasons of disallowing VMs or any kind of program interpreter, officially.

In reality it suppresses web apps from gaining capabilities of native apps, like notifications.

There in fact is at least one VM in the App Store.

https://ish.app/

It emulates x86. The only thing I have tried with it is downloading the x86 version of the aws cli.

iSH is more an emulator than an actual VM.

What’s the difference between an emulator and a VM? You run applications for other platforms on both.

You can actually run GUI apps on it.

VMs generally use hardware virtualization features; iSH is just an interpreter.

There is no requirement for a VM to use hardware virtualization features. It’s more efficient. But not a requirement.

Usually VMs for real hardware (as opposed to VMs for runtimes, such as “Java VM” or “JavaScript VM”) are defined by the Popek and Goldberg virtualization requirements, which require efficient hardware virtualization.

That really isn't true unless you greatly shrink the definition of browser.

For 99.99% of people the browser is not the renderer, it is the skin and all that comes with it (synced history, bookmarks, adblocking etc etc).

Chrome and Safari; Chrome and Edge all use or used the same rendering engine (on one platform or another) for years, but you would never say you’re using one or the other when you don’t.

Similarly if my Chevy has the exact same engine as a model of Dodge I would never say I’m driving a Dodge.

But would you still call it a car?

I don't see how this means that Firefox without Gecko isn't a browser. I can see how you might take issue with calling it Firefox, but it's clearly a browser that's in the app store.

Thesus's ship has left the building.

I could see both sides, but ultimately I use Firefox as an attempt to try and keep chromium's monopoly as a web renderer at bay, even if for seconds longer. Firefox on IOS being forced to basically be built on top of a chromium engine defeats that purpose.

It's for similar reasons that I don't recognize "Visual Studio for Mac" as VS, but a rebranded Xamarin. It lacks several core features of VS that devs hearing the name would expect (let alone hundreds of more specialized features).

Yea, that'd also be like saying Edge and Brave aren't browsers either. They're just skins on top of Chrome. The browser is way more than its rendering engine.

Both Edge and Brave make deeper changes than are allowed on iOS, such as making their own decisions about which APIs to expose. Yes, they are mostly Chromium, but they are in a technical position to change anything they want in a way Apple prohibits.

(Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)

The browser is the whole thing. All of it. If you can't replace the rendering engine then you can't replace the browser. Not only because you can't replace the rendering engine but because many of the other things depend on the ability to add features to the rendering engine.

If you put a Dodge engine in a Chevy, you don't call it a Dodge, you call it a Frankenstein's monster which isn't either one and both Dodge and Chevy fans (but especially Chevy fans) will think less of you for it.

You don't call it a Dodge or a Chevy, but you still call it a car.

If anything this seems to me like an argument why Firefox with a Safari rendering engine is indeed a browser on the app store.

A Tesla with a Honda engine in it is a car, but it's missing the thing that causes people to want a Tesla.

I don't see your point. The topic in question is browsers in the App Store. The suggestion was made that these aren't real "browsers" because they use the Safari rendering engine.

If a Telsa with a Honda engine is a car, why isn't Firefox with WebKit (which is what Safari uses) as it's rendering engine a browser?

You could argue it's not "real" Firefox, and I might see where your coming from, but my comment was specifically addressing the claim it's not a browser.

Pretty sure "there are no browsers in the app store" was not meant to be taken literally, it's a snarky way of implying that the options are incomplete in some way (because they're "just" skins on top of the Safari rendering engines.) You're reading this overly literally, which is why people are reacting to your comments with confusion.

Are you saying that Apple preloads their phones with (gasp) porn?

Heh. Time for a fun anecdote. I once bought a Motorola phone (new, but from eBay) that came loaded with whatever bloatware the carrier loaded on. One of those was a shortcut to “offers”, which I assume would be advertisements for new phones or services or whatever. I say “assume”, because apparently its domain had expired, and upon opening it loaded a webview with explicit porn (the spammy “real singles” kind).

In that case, the phone did in fact come preloaded with porn.

and the Apple browsers are laughably restricted and the weakest browsers available.

If companies like Google weren't forced to be tied to garbage like Safari, you might have a point...

I know I saw a story recently that talked about how all "alternative" browsers on the iPhone are tied to webkit and how webkit doesn't support basic internet parts and lags in support for stuff like bluetooth, game controllers, etc.

Why remove the browser when Apple purposely hamstrings it to block the benefits you tout?

All those things enable fingerprinting, so they can't be added without losing privacy. If Chrome's renderer wasn't banned from the store we'd be back in an IE6 world where it's the only browser there is - it's already defeated Edge and Opera.

Being able to use a controller enables fingerprinting? Producing a laughably restricted browser experience is protection?

"fingerprinting" is one interesting counterpoint to the fact that the browser was highlighted as an alternative to the app store. but that browser is still laughably restricted.

And "because chrome" doesn't change the fact that restricting competition doesn't remove the restrictions put into place largely to force people into an overpriced app store.

lack of competition is a big thing... blocking people from better browsers and not fixing the bad browser in iOS isn't an acceptable answer when the tax for doing so is 30% and a subpar environment.

> If Chrome's renderer wasn't banned from the store we'd be back in an IE6 world where it's the only browser there is - it's already defeated Edge and Opera

The difference being that Chrome is based on an open source project, Chromium, which can and is actively forked ( Edge and Brave to name two popular ones). And all the APIs it adds are wither standards, betas for standards hidden behind flags, or proposals for standards hidden behind flags.

So nothing like IE6?

Just means Google controls the standard body as well as the only browser, so they'll be the only people who get to make up ideas, and will therefore make up tons of silly (and user-identifying) ideas to make it harder to enter the market.

And that still doesn't change the fact that Apple controls their ecosystem and has in place a substandard browser with restrictions built to keep people locked into its appstore.

Nothing in your 'Google Bad' diatribe challenges the fact that Safari is substandard, limited and - to your diatribe - safari in no way shape or form "makes ideas" and brings new things to the table... or "makes it easier to enter the market" (opposites of your complaint that google makes it harder).

Google is "Evil"? Okay? What does that have to do with a substandard experience and browser/app-store lock-in from Apple? It's not like Apple is "good" to counter apples "evil"...

To your IE6 point... Safari is the IE6 of Apple - stagnant, tied to the OS and blocks innovation because of company decisions. Its even worse because alternatives aren't allowed on iOS.

Please don’t give them any ideas.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com