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Comment by Nextgrid | Hacker News Reader

> unless you move to the EU or Japan

Not only that, but the "entitlement" (Apple lingo for code-signature flag that grants capabilities) needed to publish a browser effectively requires to be an established company, ensuring hobbyists can't really get there with an open-source project even though the sources of Firefox are available and could technically be ported.

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It goes well beyond requiring an established company. It's so onerous that no company has yet successfully navigated all the gates required - even Google. Apple is maliciously complying with the EU's Digital Rights Act, and many years later, the EU has not concluded its investigations. I am incredibly disappointed.

Apple is the only thing holding back Chromium / Blink from becoming the only browser technology that matters. I hope they keep fighting that fight.

They don't fight it for that reason though. They don't care about an open web either.

I don’t care why they do it. It’s just nice that their interests and my interests are aligned on this.

I care about the open web and see setting Google up for a monopoly on web browsers to be just about the worst thing that could happen. A duopoly isn’t much better, but it is better.

It's not a great alternative though. After all, Apple doesn't even provide a version of Safari for non-Apple platforms. They used to, but they stopped with the windows version years ago.

That means Safari will be locked in at most at the Apple marketshare which is only about 8% on desktop: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide... . Not really a monopoly-breaker.

And not everyone on Mac uses Safari of course, I didn't use it much when I still was on Apple because Firefox could sync my bookmarks with all my other computers.

On mobile it's a different story of course (they are at 31% there, and nobody is allowed to run a different engine) but a browser isn't so important there because most services have en app.

Nobody would install chrome on iOS even if they could, for the same reason they don't try to install safari on android.

You'd be wrong. One of six iOS users install Chrome. I do as I use 3 OSes and want all my stuff synced across them, something I can't do with Safari.

You're the minority.

Not sure your point. You claimed "Nobody would install chrome on iOS even if they could". That is provably false by easily checkable usage metrics. Heck, You can just go to the App Store and see it's one of the top downloaded apps.

I standardized on Google Password Manager, so use it for banking and stuff on many machines.

Should I use 1password, or setup passkeys and TOTP separately for iOS? I have no idea.

there is sites that simply don't work in safari, I have family that sometimes I have to help them do something by opening what they want on my android phone that does support chrome and firefox. In order to accomplish their tasks. It would be great if apple supported other browsers

If WebKit is superior, they have nothing to worry about. They are worried because WebKit is not superior. Partly because Apple has worked diligently to ensure WebKit wrappers cannot compete with native apps. It undermines their entire business model. So if Chromium were made available, people would flock to it. I am not in favour of forcing people to use inferior technology for no other reason than it prevents Chromium retaining dominance. Competition is good and Apple should be forced to improve WebKit.

Is this a new rule? I had my own browser published on the App Store about a year ago (as a solo dev).

A browser that does not use webkit.

Aren't all browsers on iOS required to use webkit?

You had a Safari wrapper published. Not a browser.

I thought all browsers published on iOS were Safari wrappers, or did that change?

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