Mozilla Firefox not coming to iPhone, iPad until Apple relaxes iOS browser rules - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by anonymouse 

I wonder how long till Google pull the plug on Mozilla?

That would be a sad day, in my humble opinion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pedromartins 

I really believe Apple has a pair of aces for search. They will bring it to google and I'm not talking about using Bing as the default search engine, even if that is enough to hurt google (and maybe even a nice deal with microsoft). Such hypocrisy, they are bad.

Have you seen the "Bing it On" commercials? 

If you go to BingItOn you are presented with a search bar and results of two search sites (bing and google) side by side. You vote on which results you like better. 

Now, most average people may not realize which one is google, but even knowing which one was, I voted honestly. Google won, sadly. Had the better top 3 results in 3 out of 5 searches (with the other two being a draw).

Though, to be honest, if I think more about it, I think they would have all been a draw

Quote:

Originally Posted by lightknight 

That would be a sad day, in my humble opinion.

It's inevitable, Mozilla's days are numbered.

I have been using Safari in windows 7 for several years now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Euphonious 

The concern is that Webkit is coming close to having a monopoly in the browser market. It effectively already does in the mobile and tablet space.

 

When one rendering engine has a monopoly, that engine becomes the standard, complete with its bugs and foibles. That isn't good for an open, progressive internet. Webkit may have fewer bugs than IE6, but web standards are evolving all the time and the risk is that the Webkit way becomes the only way.

Wow, never thought I'd see the day when someone would complain about open source having a monopoly.  Actually there are lots of open source projects that have a monopoly on their particular corner of open source.  One of the biggest issues with Linux & why it still struggles to go anywhere is it is too fragmented and that has actually decreased stability not increased it.  

That aside WebKit didn't become big because people got locked into it, it's a great project & has revolutionized browsing on mobile devices, you only hate it because it was backed by Apple.  Maybe you can hate it a little less to learn it originated with KDesktop in the html rendering engine inside Konqueror.  Course I guess you might be a Gnome fan so maybe you're hatred runs deeper than Apple.

By the way, comparing to IE6, really?!  You're really going to compare a proprietary platform locked browser engine to WebKit?!

I am a FF fan but think this is childish! Release the browser and eventually Apple will ease the standard.

I am very happy with Safari and can also see why people will want choices, and I am sure it will come with time. Apple is and always has been skittish about letting 3rd party apps have control and this is why we typically get a really good UX. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Euphonious 

The concern is that Webkit is coming close to having a monopoly in the browser market. It effectively already does in the mobile and tablet space.

 

When one rendering engine has a monopoly, that engine becomes the standard, complete with its bugs and foibles. That isn't good for an open, progressive internet. Webkit may have fewer bugs than IE6, but web standards are evolving all the time and the risk is that the Webkit way becomes the only way.

As a developer, I am happy to see standards move towards a singular standard. It's bad enough with the webkit flavors, but to try and code for all the engines that, at will, follow HTML5 and CSS3 standards is a bother! 

Quote:

Originally Posted by lightknight 

That would be a sad day, in my humble opinion.

Not going to happen as long as Firefox has the market share to matter (currently hovering around 20%).  If google pulls the plug, you dont think Microsoft wouldnt jump at any chance to push bing and try and screw google?

All these people who support webkit to the exclusion of all else have very little context.
 

It is very bad if webkit becomes the defacto standard.  Reasons:

1) Its bugs and quirks will become the norm

2) Web developers wont bother to code towards standards but towards webkit

3) Apple is not particularly to allow the web to compete with its native applications (no WebRTC because it competes with Facetime)

4) Webkit is not future proof

---> Modern rendering engines from Trident to Gecko to Webkit are NOT going to survive the transition to massively parallel

---> Sure webkit has mitigated this for now, but I doubt you would see much difference between using 64 cpu cores and 256 cpu cores.  How long will it take use to get there?  10 years?  20?  But fundamentally, separate processes are only a stopgap solution.

---> Mozilla is already building another engine (servo) for this exact purpose and you can bet that MS, Apple and Google are all doing the same exact thing.  These wont adhere to webkit quirks at all but will be build from the actual standards (which is far far easier) and will have quirks of their own.

---> In this future, all webkit centric sites will be worthless!  So its much better for all of us to consider the future and not take the lazy way out jumping on the webkit bandwagon.

Originally Posted by happymissle 

It is very bad if webkit becomes the defacto standard.  Reasons:

1) Its bugs and quirks will become the norm

No, it means they'll be fixed.

Uh, coding for webkit IS coding for standards. There's no browser called "HTML5". And no browser supports everything from HTML5 or CSS3. But having ONE platform on which to develop allows both developers and browser creators the freedom and reason to add support for every facet of both.

Is this a sentence?

Of course it is.

They already did, didn't they? WebKit2.

This is true of any application on any computer for any reason. We're talking about the Internet. My G3 iMac could still easily render any website.

You don't seem to know anything about rendering engines, so maybe go read up on what a standard actually is?

@Tallest Skil

Some good points and some ad hominem attacks...

Anyway, if you think Apple and Google are going to keep webkit together forever and ever.  You are probably mistaken.

Originally Posted by happymissle 
@Tallest Skil

 

Some good points and some ad hominem attacks...

 

Anyway, if you think Apple and Google are going to keep webkit together forever and ever.  You are probably mistaken.

So no rebuttals; got it. I know I'm not right about everything there, but if I'm wrong you would have at least put some effort into proving me so.

Also, nice strawman. Nowhere did I claim that.

Originally Posted by enjourni 
I mean seriously, if people want to use an app that renders in something other then webkit, why should apple stop them?

It's their platform.

It smells of not knowing what a monopoly is, at least.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lightknight 

@nagromme In practice, they banned third party browsers, by making it impossible to make a complete browser. You can make something that looks, feels, sounds like a browser. It is not one.
Rest of your post is extremely interesting


What i'm most concerned with is that Apple seems to be Internet-Explorer-Six-ing the iPhone, and since Apple has much better UI/design/usability capabilities than Microsoft ever had, nobody cares about the issue...

WebKit is open source, end of your complaint.

Quote:

Originally Posted by happymissle 

 

Not going to happen as long as Firefox has the market share to matter (currently hovering around 20%).  If google pulls the plug, you dont think Microsoft wouldnt jump at any chance to push bing and try and screw google?

 

 

All these people who support webkit to the exclusion of all else have very little context.
 

It is very bad if webkit becomes the defacto standard.  Reasons:

1) Its bugs and quirks will become the norm

2) Web developers wont bother to code towards standards but towards webkit

3) Apple is not particularly to allow the web to compete with its native applications (no WebRTC because it competes with Facetime)

4) Webkit is not future proof

---> Modern rendering engines from Trident to Gecko to Webkit are NOT going to survive the transition to massively parallel

---> Sure webkit has mitigated this for now, but I doubt you would see much difference between using 64 cpu cores and 256 cpu cores.  How long will it take use to get there?  10 years?  20?  But fundamentally, separate processes are only a stopgap solution.

---> Mozilla is already building another engine (servo) for this exact purpose and you can bet that MS, Apple and Google are all doing the same exact thing.  These wont adhere to webkit quirks at all but will be build from the actual standards (which is far far easier) and will have quirks of their own.

---> In this future, all webkit centric sites will be worthless!  So its much better for all of us to consider the future and not take the lazy way out jumping on the webkit bandwagon.

Google will continue push their WebKit based  browser, Apple will push theirs and others who are free to use open source WebKit will push theirs.

Win, win, win, all around as contributions are shared.

Quote:

Originally Posted by enjourni 

I mean seriously, if people want to use an app that renders in something other then webkit, why should apple stop them? 

Security issues for one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by i-John 

Firefox is a piece of junk anyway, so who really cares.

It is, but I found one good use for it.  It plays nicer with the crappy WIFI authentication servers at the University I go to, compared to Opera and Chrome (on SUSE LInux).  On a stable, decent WIFI connection (basically any that doesn't belong to the University), Chrome is much better though. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by nagromme 

"until Apple relaxes iOS browser rules"

This isn't about rules, or Apple trying to "control" you... Apple could just BAN 3rd-party browsers if they wanted that. But there ARE 3rd party browsers, and some are good, regardless of some JavaScript benchmark number. (However: Apple SHOULD let you pick a default browser, I feel. And email. Maps too--although that gets more complex due to the range of OS-level requests that a map service may need to handle.)

What this is about is a legitimate security concern--one which is very old news and long ago laid to rest:
http://daringfireball.net/2011/03/nitro_ios_43
(Interesting that even Apple-focused sites that should know better are failing to note this bigger context, and are parroting the misleading statements of Mozilla. Not just AI.)

Nitro (or a similar just-in-time compiler) in third party apps would mean they could put data into RAM and make it executable--a HUGE malware vector and source of risk. Unsigned native code can now run. The only reason Apple allows this risk in Safari is because they can work to keep Safari free of security flaws that would allow exploits. Apple can't control that in other apps, so they're not opening the door to such problems.

That's the trade-off: speed vs. security. Apple has found a good compromise I think, but yes, JavaScript will run slower in third party apps--in other words, at the same perfectly acceptable speed Safari did before Nitro (only faster because today's hardware is faster). I've used Chrome and Mercury on iOS, and haven't felt they were slow.

If Firefox thinks that loaded half-truths will get Apple to abandon security just to help Firefox hit a better-sounding benchmark number for the 17 people who choose a browser that way, then they're deluded. Firefox will need to play WITHIN the rules if those rules have a good reason. This time, they do.

I hope Firefox changes their mind and proceeds on iOS. We don't really need a non-WebKit rendering engine: WebKit is excellent. We certainly don't need security holes that turn iOS into the nest of malware that Android is. But we COULD use some choice in browsers--the experience/UI/features that surround our browsing and manage our pages/tabs/bookmarks. Firefox COULD make a WebKit Firefox for iOS, and I'd welcome the option.

well said about the security issue. none of the Mozilla fans commenting dealt with your points at all.

users who want speed actually upgrade to 4G products. that makes a real difference. but they pick whatever browser that has the UI features they prefer, not the hottest specs.

mainly, what we are hearing are sour grapes and excuse making - because Firefox is falling back in popularity now after once looking like it was going to be #1. sore losers at Mozilla.

but i see no issue with Apple locking its own apps as the defaults. iOS obviously does not have a monopoly - if it did, that would be different. people who don't want those defaults have plenty of Android products to pick from instead, even if BB and WP die. that "walled garden" Apple ecosystem IS the core idea of iOS. if you don't realize that is what you are buying into, you are simply "not clear on the concept." you must know Apple won't ever change. techies want to tinker with everything, so are carping constantly about Apple's lockdown, but consumers want it to Just Work.

Dear Firefox,

Ok.

Thanks,

IPhone Users