I am too. But what makes me laugh, and respond to your comment is the idea that perhaps half of the opposition to Apple's walled garden among the HN crowd would go away if they just allowed ublock origin.
Chrome is available (and dominant) on desktop yet Firefox and a dozen other alternatives are doing just fine. There's no reason why it shouldn't be the same on iOS.
According to StatCounter Firefox's market share of all browsers is 2.93% followed closely by Samsung Internet(?) 2.59% and Opera 2.26%
I wouldn't call that "just fine".
If not for Safari (18.84% market share) Google could just dictate what happens on the Internet, because Chrome-based browsers would be the de facto standard.
The only reason sites still bother to support non-Chrome browsers is the fact that people on iOS monetise REALLY well compared to other segments.
While I agree that Firefox probably is nowhere close to Chrome in terms of market share, StatCounter isn't a great source of information here. StatCounter works through trackers, which are blocked by default on common Firefox installs.
Sites work well in practically every browser because we're not living in 2005 anymore. Some missing APIs are broken, but how often do you really need WebSerial on your phone.
> people on iOS monetise REALLY well compared to other segments
And therein lies the motivation to "open up" Apple's ecosystem, people just can't stand looking at all those dollar signs without being able to get their hands on them any way possible.
"So Apple just gets exclusive access to their users' money?!?" Well, they are the ones that built and maintain the ecosystem. Everyone else just wants to get in there and extract wealth like slash-and-burn rainforest developers or strip-miners.
The "problem" is that Apple gets most of their money from hardware sales, they don't need to be able to uniquely identify their users to make huge bank.
Thus they go privacy first in things just because they can. Like randomising IDs used to identify players across apps and services. You should've seen the tears marketing shed when that change happened.
They are complementary of course, one could not exist without the other.
But the competition (Google) is by all measurements an ad company that does software and hardware on the side, they cannot go the privacy route. Ads require tracking and tracking implies privacy issues.
I believe Safari will improve though. Currently Apple has little incentive to put more money into Safari because there’s no competition. Once they have to open up iOS to competition, they’ll spent more money on Safari to stay competitive. The web is still an important platform they cannot just ignore. And they have the resources and the know how, so they have a good chance of succeeding. And they will still be the native and default choice (even with browser choice), so they will also have that advantage still.
The reason you don't think so is because you are likely equating developer features with investment. But actually Apple just has different priorities which are security, privacy and battery life. They aren't trying to push more pro-advertising features like Google is or turn the browser into an operating system.
It is delusional to think that if Chrome becomes more popular that they are suddenly going to abandon their values.
Priority should be to make the browser usable. It's not. For example it’s extremely unstable for video conferencing. Last time, I don’t know what exactly happened, but I had to reboot my MacBook because the system wouldn’t recognize the camera anymore after trying to join a video conference in Safari, not even in other browsers. Never experienced something like this in any other browser. Many work tools such as Confluence, MS Teams and Google Docs just work better in Chrome. I wish I could switch, and I retry after each major release, but it’s just not good enough yet. I always end up switching back to Chrome after 1-2 days. If Microsoft and Mozilla can do better why can’t Apple?
What is the user base of Firefox now? Single digits, last I hear. Chrome just keeps growing. Once iOS no longer uses WebKit as it’s base, the Chrome Blink will dominate.
Hahaha. It'd be pretty ironic if Firefox eventually dies solely because no one bothers to support it because single digits on StatCounter which Firefox itself blocks.
Someone should fix this. Don't block whatever trackers StatCounter use.
I think I maybe get the broader argument you are trying to make, but in the context of gp’s comment, forcing web devs to test in and fix bugs in mobile safari because of its forced 100% iOS market share isn’t making people test in Firefox. And it currently not possible to run actual Firefox on your iphone, just a branded WebKit wrapper.
Opening up mobile browsers _would_ be good if not for the fact the consequence will be bugs that won't be fixed by devs for everyone not using Chrome.
Just use Chrome is advice that will be given by the corps when these bugs arise.
Our legislators are about to sleep walk into Google determining web standards fairly much unilaterally. Manifest V3 is what they do when they don't quite have that power. And that is a problem for Firefox users.
Sounds like more people should stop using Chrome. Market power isn’t going to shift by tossing your hands in the air when viable alternatives not only exist but are free.
Market power is definitely going to shift if web devs only test on Chrome.
The viability of Firefox as a browser is definitely going to decrease if devs only test for chrome.
People need services like banking, paying bills, secure web based portals. If the only browser these institutions are testing for is Chrome we will be in trouble.
I could write a web app for a bank. I could write a payments platform for the bank. I cannot code a bank. I could write a platform for the wholesale energy market and a front end for payments. I cannot code an energy company.
All I can see any of this doing in the medium term is increasing Google's market power and making the web less free.
All in the name of getting Chrome on a device that is inherently unfree.
As a seasoned web developer who has worked on multiple FAANG “.com” domains, I think you’re overstating the impact. Every big web shop already codes for market share, which means chrome, then hopefully has an iPhone they don’t allow to update to test in older versions of safari (sourcing them from eBay if necessary) to then litter their code with if safariBadVersionWhatevers. Smaller ones test it on their latest updated phone and then throw it over the wall, and call anything non-chrome best effort. To the extent that I’ve seen Firefox, supported it’s because the developers of the site personally use it.
Nothing about the safari monoculture on iphones makes people support Firefox because support is 100% a function of market share, and the monoculture actually prevents the Firefox engine from getting a sliver of market share on iOS.
The state right now isn’t “people code to web standards because safari forces them to” - its that they spend time % proportional to market %. That means code to chrome and then fix bugs in mobile safari. And even if chrome was wildly successful in getting iPhone users to switch and destroying safari marketshars there, reducing testing on safari, it doesn’t hurt Firefox. Testing on safari doesn’t help catch Firefox bugs because it’s a totally different engine.
