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Comment by lxgr | Hacker News Reader

It's now possible, at least if you live in (and don't leave for more than 60 days) the EU.

Now the ball is in Mozilla's court! I do wonder if they'd have to send their developers to the EU for on-device debugging as well.

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I think Mozilla has already said they won't do it. Firefox on Webkit isn't half bad, though. The extensions, however...

I don't think that's accurate. Mozilla has said the current malicious compliance plain is "painful", but no blanket rejection: https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/26/24052067/mozilla-apple-io...

I’d like to have more diversity of engines but at least WebKit is good so I can live with it. However Firefox iOS have a crappy UI compared to Safari and it doesn’t looks like Mozilla is bothering a lot about it.

It's open source? Have a crack at it m8

Have you seen the list of Apple rules you need to follow to publish an alternative-engine-using browser in the EU?

Are you sure? As I understand it, iOS still uses Webkit at the base level, and any browser app on iOS has to use the Webkit engine. This EU ruling seems to be less about allowing alternate engines and more about removing "roadblocks" to user choice, even if the different browsers are more or less still Safari with a different coat of paint.

For instance, Brave on iOS doesn't have built in TOR functionality like it does on non-mobile versions, so the browser is functionally limited to what Webkit allows.

The EU forced Henry Ford to paint the Model Ts in something other than black? What a load of fucking drama for nothing.

I .. don't think the EU forced Ford to paint the Model T in colors other than black

I believe their point was more that if the whole push was just to inform users that other browser options exist, but they are still running on the same underlying engine no matter the "skin" the browser is using on top of Webkit, it would be similar to forcing Ford to offer alternate colors on the same vehicle in the EU and congratulating themselves on "regulation done well". As someone else pointed out, the legislation does force Apple to allow alternate browser engines, but creating one would be quite a burden for someone like Firefox.

You got it. Perhaps my analogies are too obscure. Firefox already has a browser engine all they need the possibility of running it and printing it to the screen. That possibility is what I thought the EU was going to force not just another "coat of paint", which already existed AFAIK.

> ... Apple announced yesterday it will start letting developers submit non-WebKit-based browsers — both for full web browser apps, which offer an alternative to using Safari, and for developers offering in-app browsers for displaying webpages within their iOS apps...

https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/26/apple-dma-webkit/

*Terms and conditions apply:

- must be submitted as a separate binary, no migration path from existing WebKit version of a browser

- only available in the EU, unclear how non-EU web developers can test for compatibility

- ban on non-WebKit PWAs

>- must be submitted as a separate binary, no migration path from existing WebKit version of a browser

I can imagine this one being really annoying as you are probably required to go through the entire app review process again (so they can make sure you didn't sneak anything cool in there)

New versions of AltStore and Spotify are both stuck in App Review since the DMA passed 3 weeks ago.

Mozilla has now the chance to release a Gecko version of iOS Firefox to people living in the EU. That version currently doesn't exist and, depending on how valuable Mozilla thinks a port of Gecko to iOS would be, might never exist. But Apple would be unable to keep it off the App Store without drawing some serious ire from the EU, which is probably not a good thing for them.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/browserenginekit

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