Apple Adopts 6 of OWA's Browser Choice Architecture Recommendations
open-web-advocacy.org
open-web-advocacy.org
… only to have Google to force feed “You should install Chrome” on every Google search page.
And in Gmail. Also, what I find most egregious is when in the Gmail or Google Maps app on my phone, if I tap a link it prompts me to open in Chrome, Safari, or my default browser. I don’t even have Chrome installed, but rather than just opening the link, it tries to get users to go to the App Store and download Chrome.
There is an option to remember the choice, but it doesn’t. It still asks me all the time.
What’s the point of a default browser if Chrome is going to pop-up and ask what browser I want to use anyway, and create friction until the user complies. I haven’t tried it (and won’t on principle at this point), but I’m betting if I download Chrome and make it my default, that prompt will go away.
It drives me insane whenever I get this "finish setting up your iPhone" emails from Google after signing in on my phone.
How google continues to get away with such a heavy hand in pushing their products everywhere is beyond me. Yes I know they are being investigated, but it is seriously too late and the damage has been done.
Edit:
Oh and unless I am mistaken, you still can't disable the prompt every time you start chrome (if you do need it for some reason but not as your primary) to make it your default, at least on Mac. I caved and clicked it because it was driving me insane, but I hate it.
Because while Mozilla is was interested in social justice, galas, and literally everything but Firefox… Google completely took over the web and now we suffer because of it.
Knee capping google for there past decade of behavior is something everyone should agree on. However… google plays more than just the web game.
But I have a critical plugin I use for work that is Chrome only.
The reality is, even though it's now theoretically possible for Chrome and Firefox to be properly ported here, it's practically impossible. At any rate it's not happening yet. Last I heard they decided against it as it would require all of the coding to be done within the EU! So Apple is still effectively blocking alternatives on its platform even here.
It would be nice if the USA and Japan also pursue their own anti monopoly charges and force Apple to open up across the world
For Windows, I use this "browser" app as my default browser. Its main function is to show a list of installed browsers (including customizable options) whenever a link is opened from another app, allowing you to choose which browser to use. It's great! Recommended if you use different browsers for different things https://github.com/mortenn/BrowserPicker
No. No no no no no.
Once my default is set, it is SET. I don't want Safari or Chrome or Firefox or $UNKNOWN_FOURTH_OPTION to prompt me every single time to make it my default browser. I just want the browser to know that it is running. Period.
Is there any good reason for the browser to know whether it's the default? Serious question. Because the only reason I can think of is whining about not being the default.
E.g., I don't have xdg on one of my systems, so "default browser" is not a meaningful concept there. Still, the only browser I have, keeps showing me the sad-face "Firefox is not your default" prompt.
That is exactly the reason.
The charitable reason is so that the browser, upon launch, can ask the user if they want to make it the default.
The problem is that the only incentive browser vendors have to not ask repeatedly is the frequency threshold past which the user will not use the browser.
Disallowing other browsers and making other browsers' experience worse than the default— bad, anticompetitive. Having a default is fine. Having a single engine is fine but more is certainly welcome. It's not like we don't already put up with a billion other iOS APIs.
Government mandated ad real estate for a specific kind of app is ridiculous. Especially with garbage like giving those vendors metrics so they can make their ad copy more effective.
My god this document is insufferable, it's no wonder Apple is being so petty, this is blatantly an outcome driven law and exists to dark pattern the other direction. Having to show the choice screen twice if users chose Safari the first time is egregious.
Apple to update EU browser options, make more apps deletable
They want the browsers to be pre-installed? You know that people are just going to install whatever “sounds cool” to them on first install without knowing anything about their choice. How is that freedom? Why not establish “sane” defaults, then give the choice to them later on?
With choice comes the responsibility to actually understand what you're choosing, but I'm pretty sure most users don't bother. For now, they'll just have to listen to the FUD from browser vendors - eventually it will be for every aspect of the OS.
Why prioritize “browser choice” over “full experience choice”? The answer is obvious if you're an ad company browser harvesting users to sell.
Paradoxically, forcing browser choice across the whole market will reduce choice, and Google knows it.
. . .
A handheld appliance recommendation that says this:
The user’s choice of default browser must be used for In-App Browsing (SFSafariViewController)
Currently most In-App browsing on iOS is locked to Safari which provides Apple a very significant advantage and a lot of traffic. It is critical for browser choice that if a user decides on a particular browser, that browser is then used for web browsing by default across the OS including in In-App Browsers.
... is developer hostile, security hostile, and ultimately user hostile.
A key benefit of developing native apps for iOS is that you no longer have to develop for the wild west. The lack of fragmentation (browser engines, OS flavors, UIs, hardware...) is what lets you, the developer, build once and trust that it’ll work everywhere—rip that away, and you're throwing your users into a fragmented, glitch-ridden mess. Consistency is stress-relieving for the user, and the expectation that app store apps will behave differently inside themselves doesn't fit anyone's mental model of how apps work.
Even billion-dollar banks can't (or won't) untangle the extra care needed for making Firefox or Safari work with their systems on a PC. So why on earth would we expect, or want, indie devs to battle with arbitrary web engines inside their native apps? No developer wants users yelling at them because OIDC flow, embedded maps, or any other in-app webview doesn’t work in the developer's app just because the user clicked "accept" on a browser-swap ad. Billion dollar bank, or indie dev, the easy way out will be a Get Chrome button.
Most of today’s new programmers weren’t even alive for the Internet Explorer hegemony, so they can’t be blamed for not grokking the decay that sets in when a single engine dominates. But when the last defense against “Chromium Everywhere” is bulldozed by those who can’t stand the thought of consumers choosing a product that just works, we're all worse off no matter our device, OS, or, yes, browser of choice.
The inevitable single choice across the entire device market and app ecosystem is no choice at all.
Pretty sure that's not what that says.
This could have reasonable anti-spam protections built in. We’re planning on expanding this in more detail.