Oh look, cracking down on Big Tech works. Brave, Firefox, Vivaldi surge on iOS
Oh look, cracking down on Big Tech works. Brave, Firefox, Vivaldi surge on iOS
Thanks to Europe forcing Apple to offer a browser choice screen. Now, about ditching WebKit ...
Since Apple implemented a browser choice screen for iPhones earlier this month to comply with Europe's Digital Markets Act (DMA), Brave Software, Mozilla, and Vivaldi have seen a surge in the number of people installing their web browsers.
It's an early sign that Europe's competition rules may actually … get this … enhance competition – an outcome that skeptics deemed unlikely.
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Have they actually made non-Webkit versions though, or is it still just WKWebView? A part of me thinks Apple has already kind of won this. They started allowing plugins and such a while ago, and at this point it covers my needs. Safari is really well-designed for phones as well, and the times I've tried using Firefox it just feels awkward and clunky - not because of the engine, but because of the general UX.
I'm sure opinions differ, and I really do hope more people will swap over to Firefox (Brave and Vivaldi can fuck themselves), but it doesn't really feel like a big win unless you get more tangible benefits; different engines, plugin support, etc.
I use Firefox on all my machines and I enjoy having my Sync account available everywhere. If I were to get an iPhone, I'd absolutely choose Firefox again.
Yeah this is the one thing I've considered myself. I just can't get over how much better Safari's UI is on iPhones. It's a bit whatever on iPad, but on the iPhone it's just so intuitive. I think the two things I like the most are
The bottom of the screen UI Chrome, because that just makes so much sense. Sure iOS has that accessibility feature (which I really hope Android adopts soon) where you swipe down on the bar at the bottom to bring the top of the screen down, but that's one extra gesture I have to use to access the URL bar. Other than preference there's no real reason to keep it on the top - which there's a setting for in Safari, so you could have either way.As I wrote this I was like "but what if there's a setting for it in Firefox as well?" and there is, so consider that point moot!
It also lets you navigate tabs without having to open the tab switcher. Swiping left takes you to the previous tab, and right to the next, if there is no next tab it opens a new tab. It's also really snappy so it's easy to navigate between like 2-8 tabs or so.
So as a bonus thing; I really like the transparency effect. It's super superficial, I know, but it makes the view feel bigger somehow, and it fits with the overall native UX which is something I as a developer generally consider a good thing. Though honestly it's not a dealbreaker for me.
If the tab switching was implemented, and they swapped over to Gecko I'd probably consider switching to Firefox altogether on my mobile devices.
Firefox has tab switching exactly like you describe. The only exception is that i don't think it will automatically open a new tab.
Oh, nice! Where do you enable that?
⋮ --> Settings --> Customize --> Scroll down to gestures --> Swipe toolbar sideways to switch tabs
At least this is for android. It may be identical for iOS?
There's no Gesture section at all on iOS, checked both in the in-app settings as well as the app settings in the Settings app. Honestly the settings page is a bit of a travesty in terms of UX design. There's a "Theme" section that when clicked, takes you to an on/off switch for "Use system theme" and nothing else. Why not just have the switch directly on the main settings page? Maybe under its own subsection, but not a completely different page?
I installed Firefox on my Pixel 6 (work phone, pretty much only use it for Teams and two authenticator apps), and it's a completely different experience.
The iOS version wastes a lot of space, and there's a lot less room for customisation.
On Android the setting was under
Settings > Customisewhich by itself has a decent amount of settings.
And the iOS settings page, slightly scrolled down to hide my email address, looks like this (imgur link).
As I wrote this I was like “but what if there’s a setting for it in Firefox as well?”
This is every interaction I have with Apple fans. Except often there's also a "and it's had this option for years". And it's not just Firefox, it's every other option for every other software and hardware.
Not an Apple fan. I enjoy the general hassle-free and polished experience that is their products, but Apple themselves can go die in a fire. I don't "like" any companies.
Um what did Vivaldi do wrong? Is it just cause it's Chromium?
Yeah, it's just because it's Chromium. I don't know anything about the company so I don't have any opinion there.
I used to be of the opinion that it'd be nice if the web unified under one platform. Honestly, I still hold that opinion, but the caveat there would obviously be that no single company should control that platform. Google does control Chromium. All Chromium based browsers will see Manifest V3, and that's just one thing. Google can do more or less what they wish, and the rest of the web will just kind of have to take it.
They're in a similar position that Microsoft was in back when Internet Explorer was an actually good browser, but unlike Microsoft I don't think Google will rest on their laurels. It's really worrying to me that Google essentially owns the internet.
2021: “The rendering engine doesn't matter that much because everyone ends up seeing the same internet”
2022: “How much can google really do with a monopoly on the back end?”
2023: “They still don't control the underlying structure of the internet.”
2024: “well shit.”
I was foolishly hoping that there'd be some sort of regulation where Chromium ended up being democratised. Fools hope, pipe dream, whatever. It obviously won't happen because I don't think the powers that be quite realise how dangerous it is; it's too technical for them to grasp.
It's really worrying to me that Google essentially owns the internet.
Lemmings, please Get Firefox (.com) if you haven’t already!
I was asking because they're generally fairly anti Google in terms of all the tracking changes and such, and while manifest v3 can't be blocked by them the built in ad blocker shouldn't be affected.
That's fair, and you should absolutely not feel bad for asking.
Like you say, they can't really block Manifest V3, which in this case sure, their built-in adblocker will still work, but what about the next unblockable change? I've no idea what that might be, but Google isn't our friend, they're a massive, hungering corporation.
I'd honestly be all for these alternative browsers if they decided to adopt Gecko instead, honestly. Until then they're just "Google Chrome But..."
Chromium and proprietary.
That is not the complete source code. The UI components are proprietary.
It is what's called "open core software"
There have been rumors that Apple would open it up for iOS, but I wasn’t sure if they still require Webkit, so I looked it up.
Apparently, in the EU, they can use their own tools as of 17.4 (which just released) but I guess US still uses WebKit.
Yeah, I'm in the EU so it's been decently big news here. That said I'm having a hard time believing that they'd make separate versions of their browsers for the EU and then the rest of the world. That's a lot of work for a potentially very small market.