I don’t think Apple can tell alternative browser engines what features it will allow and which not. Or is there something in the EU regulation that says browser engines must follow a standard?
Indeed. People cry "Safari is the new IE" and then literally turn around and say "well, who cares, Chrome has dominant market share, so if it only works in Chrome, it's fine".
As a reminder, United States v. Microsoft Corp. was never about IE's market share. It was about the illegal monopoly manipulation of Windows to prevent third-party browsers from competing. With that in mind, Safari absolutely could be the next IE.
The argument may have worked 10-15 years ago. Since then Chrome has captured majority market share (among other things deploying, clear anticompetitive practices [1]). They now dominate all the standards bodies and shit all over the standards process by shipping whatever they damn please to the sycophantic cheering from the sidelines.
So it's not "you need a competitive browser", because both Safari and Firefox are plenty competitive. It's "you need to ship whatever features Chrome ships at neck-breaking speed, all consequences be damned".
[1] Former Mozilla exec on Google sabotaging Firefox https://archive.is/tgIH9
The story of how Google drove the final nail in IE6's coffin is funny until you let the implications set in https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/4/18529381/google-youtube-in... And yes, "only works in Chrome" is a frequent enough appearance to warrant a worry.
Given that Chrome isn't shipping ActiveX or Flash, what's the issue? Apple and Mozilla decide how (or if) they want to implement each standard. If there's no demand for the feature, it shouldn't be a problem ignoring it. If icky features like WebUSB and Bluetooth are terrible, users won't notice anyways.
I've daily-drove Firefox for close to 5 years now, but Chromium is simply better-developed in a lot of ways. It integrates better on Linux and doesn't ship with annoying adware that nags you with pop-up modals. I don't want Google's browser engine to be the best, but I don't think I'd be using Firefox today even ignoring compatibility concerns. Safari isn't even an option to me, not that I'd willingly pick WebKit anyways.
> And yes, "only works in Chrome" is a frequent enough appearance to warrant a worry.
Crocodile tears coming from an ecosystem where "only works on iOS" and "only works on Mac" is the default. Apple is not the savior of the free web, and if the openness of the internet relies on their goodwill then it is already lost.
Google's strategy is pressuring Apple to make more capable software. When a user has more freedom in a browser than they do in their hardware's native runtime, something is gravely wrong (and you can't blame the browser).
What does this have to do with what I wrote? Literally nothing
> Apple and Mozilla decide how (or if) they want to implement each standard.
For something to become a standard there needs to be consensus, and at least two independent implementations.
Just because Chrome ships something doesn't make it a standard.
> If there's no demand for the feature, it shouldn't be a problem ignoring it. If icky features like WebUSB and Bluetooth are terrible, users won't notice anyways.
Neither WebUSB nor Bluetooth are standards. There status is literally, and I quote, "It is not a W3C Standard nor is it on the W3C Standards Track. "
> Google's strategy is pressuring Apple to make more capable software.
That's not Google's strategy, and never has been. It's also quite telling you decided to ignore Google's clear anti competitive practices. I guess by sabotaging Firefox they were also "pressuring Firefox into making more capable software or something".
It amazes me to no end that Apple/Safari haters will contort themselves to no end to justify Google because Chrome can do no wrong.
> When a user has more freedom in a browser than they do in their hardware's native runtime
Google couldn't care less about the end user. All Google cares about is its dominance. To that end it doesn't care if it breaks the web [1], or twists it to their liking [2]
[1] Speaking of breaking: Breaking the Web forward https://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2021/08/breaking_th... and Stay Alert https://dev.to/richharris/stay-alert-d but you will ignore these, too. Because it's not "ActiveX or Flash", innit?
[2] People keep mentioning sites like https://whatwebcando.today/ and https://whatpwacando.today/ and they are filled to the brim with APIs that Chrome ships and whose status is "not on any standards track".
Everything, really. ActiveX and Flash were proprietary runtimes, which is a real example of a domination play. To my knowledge, Chromium doesn't feature anything that couldn't be reverse-engineered or conditionally re-implimented by third-parties. Maybe some things are nonstandard, but if there's user demand for it then why complain? The native iOS runtime clearly isn't making everyone happy.
> I guess by sabotaging Firefox they were also "pressuring Firefox into making more capable software or something".
Nobody but you has been talking about Chrome's anticompetitive practices in this thread. I might actually agree with you, but I'm not going to discuss it because it's tangential to Apple's own anticompetitive practice.
> Google couldn't care less about the end user. All Google cares about is its dominance.
I'd have an easier time believing you if I couldn't use the web with my Open Source browser.
> but you will ignore these, too.
Both of those posts are actually valid complaints, and they're just as valid when the breakage is on Safari's side. Much as you'd rather minimize it, "who owns the web" is also a valid question when leveled against Apple too.
Nothing at all, really
> To my knowledge, Chromium doesn't feature anything that couldn't be reverse-engineered or conditionally re-implimented by third-parties.
To your knowledge. It's just Chrome-only Chrome-specific code inside a 50-million-line codebase that may or may not depend on very Chrome-specific things.
> Maybe some things are nonstandard, but if there's user demand for it then why complain?
Because you've just literally supplanted standards processes with "whatever Chrome ships is standard now". Are you even aware that Chrome ships 400 new web APIs a year?
> Nobody but you has been talking about Chrome's anticompetitive practices in this thread.
Indeed. Very few people talk about Chrome's practices, period. You could look up the thread why I started talking about Chrome's practices.
> I'd have an easier time believing you if I couldn't use the web with my Open Source browser.
Ah yes. The only thing that's needed for a company doing whatever the hell it wants is to provide the source. Who cares if no one has any say on what gets implemented in that browser. Who cares if even that company admits that no one contributes to that browser: https://twitter.com/RickByers/status/1715568535731155100
I mean, you could use the web with internet Explorer, too, so why complain?
And yes, there's an increasing number of sites (including sites from Google) that carry the "only works in Chrome" or equivalent banner. So no, increasingly I cannot use the web using an open-source browser of my choice.
> Much as you'd rather minimize it, "who owns the web" is also a valid question when leveled against Apple too.
I don't minimize it. I point out the one-sidedness of the judgments leveled against Apple.
If you want to circle back around to the point, I'm glad to keep discussing it.
The core problem is not Chrome's adoption of random features. It's Apple's neglect of the native platform, which in turn creates demand for absurd workarounds. As I said way further up in the thread, they're not pushing proprietary browser extensions; so how is it anticompetitive?
Whether Web Bluetooth, Web HID etc should be implemented in a browser engine is really irrelevant in this context - but the thing is they CAN be implemented in a browser engine. So can pretty much any native functionality currently guarded by the App Store.