Edit: Apple is also not claiming what the title suggests (source would be needed), the author of the tweet seems to just interpret it this way.
Instead Apple has forced them to produce separate browsers around a locked WebView that they exclusively control. Mozilla, Microsoft and Google have all spoken out against the ban in regulatory submission, and browser engineers at each vendor consider it a ban.
The REAL browsers have been banned.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-private-safe-browser/i...
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-edge-web-browser/id1...
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome/id535886823
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brave-private-web-browser/id10...
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/duckduckgo-privacy-browser/id6...
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/opera-browser-fast-private/id1...
Etc.
Mozilla believes that major platforms should be under an on-going duty to:
Stop practices that distort competition on the merits and inhibit consumer choice, such as: ● interfering with consumer selection of alternative browsers and use of those browsers to access the internet from links and queries on their devices; and ● dictating or controlling browser components, such as browser engines, which prevent consumers from accessing and using their preferred browser across all operating systems and devices.
No they haven't! You can download each one here: [0], [1], [2]. They have been forbidden from using their own rendering engines. But they can still add all the chrome they want to the UI and do all their usual tracking like they do on the desktop.
[0]https://apps.apple.com/us/app/firefox-focus-privacy-browser/... [1]https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-edge-web-browser/id1... [2]https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-chrome/id535886823
Then why doesn't it target Chromium as the vastly dominant engine that has ~80% of global market?
Or in the case of Chromium the cardboard wrapping like Edge etc. are different engines all of a sudden?
Because WebKit sucks!
I don't intend to be vitriolic here, but this really is the status quo of rendering engines. You have Blink, which is capable of making complex webapps and fully-featured browser experiences, and then you have WebKit, which is almost exclusively capable of breaking them. I'm not mad that WebKit sucks though, we need sucky browser engines! Sucky browser engines like WebKit run great on terrible hardware like Smart TVs or WiFi Fridges or portable game consoles that wouldn't be running a browser engine otherwise. The problem is that Apple forces mobile users onto a browser that's behind the rest of the world's web technologies. They can make sucky browsers all day long, and they won't hear a peep out of me as long as I can replace it with a Chromium-based browser. WebKit is holding Safari, and by extension the rest of the internet, back.
That's the problem, and arguably an abuse of market position considering Apple directly profits off the failure of webapps.
Of course it doesn't suck
> the status quo of rendering engines. You have Blink
And so we've immediately arrived at the core of the matter: all you want is Chrome. Which is a) the dominant browser and b) whose "capable" is a bunch of Chrome-only non-standards
So yeah, I'm willing to stick it to Apple for being the largest company in the world, and criminally negligent towards their first-party browser. Obviously they're doing this because they directly profit off the failure of the web.
Have you ever tried developing for consoles or releasing games through Steam? It's probably "but it's different"?
> and criminally negligent towards their first-party browser.
And that "criminal negligence" manifests itself in not implementing all of Chrome's non-standards the moment Chrome comes up with them?
But at the moment, Apple is the company that is abusing control of their platform and most web-devs and many educated users look forward to having real choices.
How is giving the web completely over to Google a real choice?
Chrome is ~80% market share of browsers. Google search is dominant, and pushes Chrome heavily. Google's own apps and platforms push Chrome, and on mobile they ignore user choice and offer to open links in Chrome by default. Google is known to have repeatedly sabotaged Firefox [1]
Google fully dominates web standards committees. Google already barrells through with their proposals with complete and utter disregard to input or objections from other browser implementers.
The web is already given over to Google.
More comments and discussions from other people: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31899606, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31897396, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31899214
Why can't Apple make an exception for Firefox and non-Chrome browsers ? Disallow Google Chrome, but allow the use of OSS browsers (with their native rendering engines).
Hint: They will not, because they are not afraid of Chrome as much as much as they are afraid that their complete stranglehold over native app development gets threatened.
How do you imagine such a ban? And how much worse Apple will look in this scenario?
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_banners/1129987795651399682/16...
You and I both know the headline means allowing other rendering engines.
Building a general purpose web browser is one of the most challanging software development projects. This may not be the case if one is cloning Chromium/Firefox where you get both the rendering angine and the browser app for free. If you are using WebKit, you are writing the browser application from scratch.
But we are not a good example. Take Firefox or Chrome on iOS, teams with hundreds of engineers. They are terrible mobile browsers. They feel completely out of place on an iPhone. Not because WebKit is bad, but because building a good, native, iOS browser is incredibly hard.
To bring it back to Kagi, if I'm reading your FAQ correctly for instance, you would not be able to support firefox/chrome extensions on iOS since you had to fork Webkit. Now imagine you are a browser with over a decade of use and features that now has to target a static other engine. How great of an experience do you really think you are going to get out of that?
The rendering engine determines pretty much everything related to we standards.
Third party iOS browsers are little more than third party themes/skins.
See this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31897294