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Comment by dantyti | Hacker News Reader

Oh, they do. On my iPhone, I've: -changed the 'default browser' -'uninstalled' Safari

Yet, whenever I want to search for a highlighted word, it opens Safari. This is such an absurd situation where I am browsing a site and want to do a search for something I just read and, instead of just opening a new tab or replacing the active tab with a web search, it opens a different browser app I do not want to use.

This is just not the way any reasonable user would expect a system app to behave once all browser selection settings are configured to use a different browser.

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Also I would argue that forcing everything to wrap WebKit is Apple’s own disrespect for user preference.

All "non-Safari" browsers are still just different skins on WebKit anyway.

> Yet, whenever I want to search for a highlighted word, it opens Safari.

I cannot replicate, it opens Firefox for me BUT it completely disregards my search engine choice, so it opens Google even though Kagi is my default search engine.

Edit: I was looking at something else, Search on Web does in fact always open in Safari. I've filed a bug report for this just now.

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This is not true, and I've got receipts. Just downloaded Firefox and set it as the default browser, then used the Lookup option on the word "Lettuce."

First section is dictionary, second section is "Siri Suggested Websites." These entries have Firefox logo and open Firefox when clicked.

https://i.imgur.com/uTK14za.png

Highlight a word or phrase in Firefox, in the popup there's a "Search" option. It will always search in Safari. Firefox had to add their own "Search in Firefox" option, that appears at the end of the popup (and sometimes not at all).

I can verify this. Setting Firefox to my default browser doesn’t change the behavior of “Search on internet” word lookup on long press: it still opens in Safari.

I can't duplicate this. Can you tell me what your default browser is and how you are 'searching for a highlighted word'

Go in any app, highlight a word, "Search on the Web"

Got it. Yeh, not great. Reported as a bug

That's not the behaviour I'm seeing, might be a bug on your phone's end.

It certainly is the behavior you're seeing, in part because Safari is the only web browser on iphones.

Firefox on iphone is just webkit. It is not actually Firefox.

Chrome on iphone is just webkit. It is not actually Chrome.

Firefox on iPhone is Firefox on iPhone, but it uses WebKit instead of Gecko.

Chrome on iPhone is Chrome on iPhone, but it uses WebKit instead of Blink.

The reason this is important for you to keep in mind is because Firefox is whatever Mozilla says Firefox is, and Chrome is whatever Google says Chrome is. There's no reason to suppose the iPhone version of some product should share any code with the Android version of the same product.

Or on yours?

And yet the experience of Safari on iOS is overall pretty good. I think I would not hate the Edge experience quite so much if it did not shove MSN content in my face, display a garish bing search page, and aghressively promote their browser. Also it does not help that I have 25 years of experience avoiding MS browsers for various other reasons. I’m not saying it’s great that Apple does this, but I do think Microsoft could make fewer technically minded people (and legislators) complain about it if they were less aggressive with their tactics.

So you're saying, MS' tactics of forcing Edge would actually be perfectly fine if just the browser was nicer?

Only in part - and it would certainly not be “just fine”. Edge is pretty nice nowadays. It’s the tactics to promote it as the default - now and in the past - that have drawn so much scrutiny. And IE did used to be objectively inferior to the competition.

I’m saying the people at MS promoting this in this particular way are, well, dumb.

As a developer targeting Edge is fine, there's not really any significant difference between building a page that supports it versus any other Chrome derivatives.

But as a user wow is it the most trashy and abusive program I routinely encounter. Start it for the first time and you're confronted with tabloid news and advertising. Sponsored links are mixed into your frequently visited sites by default. It injects itself into your online shopping and sends all your images and browser behavior to their servers for various weak justifications. You can turn it into a passable experience by scrolling through and configuring something in nearly every single settings tab, but then they just ignore you and inject new advertising sidebars or icons in a random update. Keeping it restricted to "just a browser" requires constant vigilance. It's clearly first and foremost just an advertising revenue funnel for Microsoft, which is completely pathetic of them. At least IE was mostly just a browser even if it did that pretty badly most years.

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