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Apple is finally allowing full versions of Chrome and Firefox to run on the iPhone
(www.theverge.com)
Apple: innovating, despite their best efforts
this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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Privacy
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Sorry for the devs who had years of nightmares and insomnia to get their browsers to work on this thing
Chrome Engine isn't called Chromium, it's Blink.
I wish I was born in europe rn lol. tbh with india's population the gov could try something similar and apple would likely comply to not lose a huge amount of potential consooomers. Android has always been the dominating mobile os here but apple is slowly gaining numbers and they wouldn't like to see the graph go down.
Only in the EU which is typical. I wonder if there will be a way to spoof it for the US
Oh I'm sure there will be. It will be technically difficult (but not impossible) for them to allow other app-stores and sideloading but have the hardware and software be different enough in both markets to not have some slip through.
I suspect there will be lots of hacky shit for this.
I remember that there was an identifier based on model number. FaceTime wasn't allowed in the Middle East for a while, there was a way to tell if the model will support it based on the last character after the / in the model number. Middle East models won't even have the app at all.
Propably they'll do the same for models sold in the EU.
There are already hardware variants of the same iPhone. I think the US gets an iPhone with all eSIM, and China has two physical SIM slots.
FaceTime wasn’t allowed in the Middle East for a while
But why?
No idea. Could be encryption or to protect telecom companies interests, WiFi calling means bundles need to change.
Most providers are government owned.
Edit: WhatsApp calling is still blocked in the GCC. Users there mostly use Snapchat as an alternative.
Sounds like jailbreaking with extra steps
This is actually huge.
I'm far FAR from an Apple user, but the moment this is available, I'll be seeing if I can install FireFox with µBlock Origin on my partner's phone.
Blocking is far better on the VPN routing level then bothering with a browser extension.
It's the other way around. DNS based filters are more efficient since connection attempt is simply dropped, but browser based adblocks are a lot more feature rich allowing blocking specific HTML elements not just domains. Additional CPU power to have such extension is miniscule compared to what you gain.
I use a combo as I like the blocks happening within apps as well.
Same here, but I have disabled it for Firefox and let uBlock handle browser. Some sites detected and disliked DNS level blocking.
Cool! Are you talking about something like pi-hole or something else? In what way is it going to lead to better outcomes? I already have a pretty much flawless experience with my adblockers (especially when it comes to easily creating custom rules, using the element zapper, and testing new blocklists).
I find that my suite of browser extensions serves me really well, and it keeps working even when I enable my VPN, but something like pi-hole stops working if you do that.
How does the solution you're talking about differ? How does it provide a better experience?
For what it’s worth you can get uBO on Orion browser right now.
Last time I tried to use that browser it was too buggy for me though.
Yeah tried it like a month ago and it was too buggy for me as well. Safari on iOS does already support ad blockers though they’re not as good as ublock origin most likely.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
With iOS 17.4, Apple is making a number of huge changes to the way its mobile operating system works in order to comply with new regulations in the EU.
One of them is an important product shift: for the first time, Apple is going to allow alternative browser engines to run on iOS — but only for users in the EU.
Apple is clearly only doing this because it is required to by the EU’s new Digital Markets Act (DMA), which stipulates, among other things, that users should be allowed to uninstall preinstalled apps — including web browsers — that “steer them to the products and services of the gatekeeper.” In this case, iOS is the gatekeeper, and WebKit and Safari are Apple’s products and services.
Even in its release announcing the new features, Apple makes clear that it’s mad about them: “This change is a result of the DMA’s requirements, and means that EU users will be confronted with a list of default browsers before they have the opportunity to understand the options available to them,” the company says.
Apple argues (without any particular merit or evidence) that these other engines are a security and performance risk and that only WebKit is truly optimized and safe for iPhone users.
But in the EU, we’re likely to see these revamped browsers in the App Store as soon as iOS 17.4 drops in March: Google, for one, has been working on a non-WebKit version of Chrome for at least a year.
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