Relatedly, on most browsers, you cannot choose the search engine you use. They give you a small list.
This is an issue for e.g. Kagi or other non-standard search engine.
With safari, edge, and chrome, you can use a janky extension to redirect it - at least on desktop.
Edge tends to be the most hostile here - when updated, it automatically switches your search engine to bing search and disables the extension. It is nice enough to tell you that they switched your search engine but no button to switch it back.
These practices are obviously monopolistic - using their dominance in one area to limit consumer choice in another. And it is significant because these tools are how we know about the world and communicate.
A cambrian explosion of unshitified apps that put the consumer first is due if we can ever get some blanket effective legislation against gatekeeping.
This could have huge secondary effects. A less manipulated population is probably a more civil, more effective one. It's something to be hopeful of. If only we could only get it right.
OpenSearch is a protocol for sharing search engine query-tenplates. You can just list it in your page's link tags, & the browser ought then be able to afford the user the option to add that's search engine.
https://github.com/dewitt/opensearch/blob/master/opensearch-...
It is alas a bit complicated I'm that this particular spec allows for multiple query-parameters. Where-as most browsers seem to have a single substitution, %s.
I thought you meant mobile browsers, but then you talked about desktop, and I got confused. Then I checked Chrome (which I don’t normally use), and there was no option to enter a custom SE. I would have bet money you could enter one there. Was this a recent (~last 5 or so years) change?
Not sure if this was inherited from Chrome or their own addition, but Brave lets me use custom search engines, all you need is to give it an url with placeholder for the search term.
While I think this change is great, I am not directly convinced Safari should be included in the list by their own rules, considering the app has not been explicitly downloaded by at least 5,000 users in the prior calendar year.
That seems like a strange claim. Any source for it? Safari can be deleted on iOS and I find it hard to believe that less than 5000 people do that and then re-download it a year.
When you delete it from the phone, you have to redownload it from app store to get it back. I would be shocked if less than 5000 people a year did that.
I knew that hackers still would not be satisfied. Thanks for spending some time to invent a reason to continue raging against Apple, so that the rest can go back to work.
I'm worried about Chrome's web dominance: they are already dominating the desktop web. With these changes I can only imagine that they will do the same for the mobile web with these changes. Apple's mobile market share in EU is way lower than Android's; web developers will start caring even less about (mobile) Safari.
Off-topic: why does the Firefox icon has that unappealing black background?
I don't understand why lately on iOS, MacOS, Android etc the app icon has that black (dark blue?) background. The Firefox website does not use a dark background icon anywhere, there's not one available in the design kit, although it does mention the preference for either light or dark backgrounds due to the color gradients being potentially confusing with mid-tones and color mixes. I still don't see the need to distribute such a broken-looking one - it makes it look like they messed up the transparency setting on a png somewhere. Compare it to Chrome's (in the OP) which looks fresh, lively and friendly.
> all applications need to look like rounded squares.
Looking at the screenshots there are several browsers (Chrome, Edge, Brave and even Safari) for which the icon neither has a background nor rounded corners.
Your wording gives the impression that you are implying that Firefox is different. clarifying for anyone who doesn't know: Firefox on iOS is just another Safari wrapper, just like the others.
I think the simplest explanation is that people like to stick to what they use on desktop. Firefox has a 6% market share there so it makes sense it would also be lower on mobile.
Amazon and Apple both picked their names to show up early on in lists, and anyone who remembers the phone book days remembers all sorts of plumbers with names like "AAA plumbing"
The British company Acorn Computers picked their name to appear even earlier in the alphabet. Acer of Taiwan beat that, is there any company earlier than Acer?
(Acorn was the original "A" in ARM, the Acorn Risc Machine.)
I was surprised to see Blackberry's Access browser in the lists for three countries. I wonder if that's because it's especially popular due to business users there, or if the number of other popular browsers is lower.
This design looks mildly anti-user, they're being asked to make a choice they probably know nothing about with no hints about which is the best option to pick. I assume this is legislatively required, so Apple really should be allowed to say "we recommend Safari" or to put it first in the list. A lot of people are using iOS specifically for the social contract that Apple will make this sort of decision for them.
The point of the DMA, for better or worse, is that it is no longer allowed to outsource this decision to your OS vendor.
Perhaps if you think this is anti-user, then it may be logically congruent to conclude that the DMA is mildly anti-user. I would agree, generally speaking.
That said, what is most convenient and easy for most users is ultimately bad for society and markets. The lack of sideloading specifically on iOS is a big danger, but day to day protects many users from malware.
It removes the ability of a user to choose a vendor that will 100% abstract away the responsibility of keeping a phone secure and free of malware. It requires that the user educate themselves a fair amount to input answers to decisions about browsers such as the one discussed here, versus allowing their OS vendor to just do whatever they think is best.
Many users don’t want more options, they just want an opinionated and reasoned one-size-fits-all experience. Such a desire is incompatible with a fair and open market for browser software or app stores, for example.
Allowing a user to choose any app store means the user can no longer choose not to ever be able to choose an app store, for example. This increases the chance for malware or deceptive software to end up on the user’s device.
The only way I can think of squaring this circle is for Apple to sell two different SKUs of every iPhone: one that can sideload (and allow apps such as alternate app store apps to install other apps), and one that cannot. Then users can choose their overall security model once at time of purchase.
Absent that, the DMA is choosing the “you must have more choices” choice for users, whether users prefer that or not. Many users choose iOS because the security choices are already made for them and can’t get fucked up by their own configuring.
> The only way I can think of squaring this circle is for Apple to sell two different SKUs of every iPhone: one that can sideload (and allow apps such as alternate app store apps to install other apps), and one that cannot. Then users can choose their overall security model once at time of purchase.
Well, no, the Android model for unlocking the bootloader works well here - just make it awkward enough that a typical user can't do it without jumping through a few hoops.
No, this is insufficient. Unskilled users will listen to people they shouldn’t and will jump through the hoops when instructed appropriately by those who wish to deceive or surveil them.
Remember the whole Facebook surveillance VPN thing?
> Many users don’t want more options, they just want an opinionated and reasoned one-size-fits-all experience. Such a desire is incompatible with a fair and open market for browser software or app stores, for example.
Many users want what marketing told them they'd want, and that's not snarky, I include myself in it. Guess what, I even own an iPhone and two Macs. It's all fun and games until this create megacorporations which are more powerful than democratic states. If the price to pay to try to reduce monopolies is "forcing" normal people, which, on average, are not stupid, to use their brain for literally 3 seconds per couple years, I do think it's not that stressful.
But have no fear, they'll choose Chrome as automatically and with the same level of stress that they'd just open Safari before that. So they'll 100% abstract away the responsibility of keeping a phone secure and free of malware ... to Google.
> Allowing a user to choose any app store means the user can no longer choose not to ever be able to choose an app store
Wait what ? This sentence doesn't even make sense. And furthermore you just have to tap the App Store icon to not choose not to use the App Store (lol).
> The only way I can think of squaring this circle is for Apple to sell two different SKUs of every iPhone: one that can sideload (and allow apps such as alternate app store apps to install other apps), and one that cannot. Then users can choose their overall security model once at time of purchase.
Mmmmmh, so now you think the users can choose. But let's go deep in your theory. Let's say that Apple chose to do that. You understand that this would translate to the same object with just a software flag somewhere ? Why couldn't I, a responsible human, owner of this iPhone 13 Mini, decide to switch this theoretical flag without buying a new phone ? And they don't even sell 13 Minis anymore.
> Absent that, the DMA is choosing the “you must have more choices” choice for users, whether users prefer that or not. Many users choose iOS because the security choices are already made for them and can’t get fucked up by their own configuring.
The DMA doesn't disallow users to choose the Apple way. In fact it's still the default everywhere in the OS, the process to sideload other stores is pretty hidden and clunky. But yes, you are right, DMA forces them to click on "Safari" on a setup screen and maybe it'll be the root cause of a future PTSD epidemic.
> If the price to pay to try to reduce monopolies is "forcing" normal people, which, on average, are not stupid, to use their brain for literally 3 seconds per couple years, I do think it's not that stressful.
They can't assess >10 browsers in 3 seconds. I haven't even heard of a few of them, it'd take me an hour or so of research to figure out if some of those options were reliable if I didn't already know what browser I wanted because I install things like Debian for fun.
Being confronted with a list of browsers you know nothing about, a decision most people don’t understand the consequences of, the first time you use your phone, is very annoying, confusing, and stressful.
Mildly annoying at best. And it's a screen you see once every few years at best.
> Confusing
Not any less confusing than opening an app that requires a paid account, but with absolutely zero indication on how to attain said paid account (Apple's anti-steering rules for Netflix / Spotify / etc.)
> Stressful
If a simple browser screen stresses someone out, I fear for how they navigate the rest of their digital life.
More importantly, what is anti-user is two tech giants using their market power to force companies and users into a duopoloy, in which they can then suck 30% out of every single bit of value created.
This is a very tech savvy opinion. Consider Grandpa, nervous about getting his first device, hearing that Macs are friendly, and then being faced with this decision. People who are not familiar with computing are often terrified of screwing it up.
Grandpa also needs to do his banking online, his taxes, needs to manage his online identity, car registration, medical things.
Most of these have terrible, cruddy, confusing interfaces. In the grand scheme of things, a one-time crystal-clear popup list where all he needs to do is press the familiar "red yellow green blue" (Chrome) icon is not what is going to stress him out or undo him.
I was tempted not to respond, but honestly this comment makes me slightly angry. As someone who is young, and works on software this comment does not seem very worldly to me. Have you seen the US government, Japan, and other places struggling to still switch away from antiquated technologies? Yes, they are partially incompetent, but also there is a certain level of justifiable trust in the system working in its current form.
> Grandpa also needs to do his banking online, his taxes, needs to manage his online identity, car registration, medical things.
No, they don't. They can use paper, phone, and fax still (at least in the USA). One of my grandparent's did this until very recently (when they sadly passed away) for most things. I was at one point told by the same grandparent that the "the familiar 'red yellow green blue'" you so describe they suspected was a virus and they don't understand how it appeared on their computer. Another grandparent struggled with the concept of folders (as in file explorers), and when they first received their a phone would shut it down and then was confused on why it wouldn't receive phone calls. These people were successful and educated (they had gone to college and used their degrees in their professional life). They just don't care about technology and when Apple makes a choice for them on the default browser they are happy.
I don't know how it is in USA, but in EU, if you don't know how to use a phone as 2FA you are basically out of almost every bank. And more and more apps are adding it. TRy to login to gapps/gmail and you get a question if you want to setup a passkey or something like that.
Annoyance is okay if there is value in it. This provides no value since 98% of users have no idea they are being asked. And I’ll bet 98% of the rest don’t know off the top of their head which mobile browser is best.
The confusion in signing up for Netflix, Spotify etc is just as bad or worse, I agree! It’s bad for consumers to have confusing interfaces.
If I’m trying to use my phone for the first time and I have to choose from a list of software I’ve never heard of, with no information about the impact of the decision, then if you aren’t stressed, you don’t realize the meaning of the choice, back to the confusion.
I don’t think it’s anti-user to have a built-in web browser. Let’s regulate what the platforms can do with the data, sure, and force them to allow other options, yes. If it’s so valuable to own the default web browser in an OS then we are far too loose with what web browser vendors are allowed to do.
I think you're exaggerating the stress and annoyance aspects. But I do agree that confronting a new user with "pick your browser" will be confusing for non-tech people. (Go ask any of your non-tech family members what they'd prefer based on the short descriptions each browser provides and you'll be lucky to get more than a blank stare)
I find such choices extremely stressful and annoying. If someone is not stressed out by it, that just means they don’t appreciate the impact it will have in terms of who has access to what data about you. (The chances of most folks ever revisiting this decision or even realizing they can are near zero.)
The only browsers shown will be those that undergo Apple's rigorous review process - so what exactly is the problem here?
Thanks to Apple and their exceptionally high standards, you can be sure that no matter what you choose, you'll get a safe, private, and awesome user experience ... at least that's what the arguments in favor of their app store monopoly say.
This is an issue for e.g. Kagi or other non-standard search engine.
With safari, edge, and chrome, you can use a janky extension to redirect it - at least on desktop.
Edge tends to be the most hostile here - when updated, it automatically switches your search engine to bing search and disables the extension. It is nice enough to tell you that they switched your search engine but no button to switch it back.
These practices are obviously monopolistic - using their dominance in one area to limit consumer choice in another. And it is significant because these tools are how we know about the world and communicate.
A cambrian explosion of unshitified apps that put the consumer first is due if we can ever get some blanket effective legislation against gatekeeping.
This could have huge secondary effects. A less manipulated population is probably a more civil, more effective one. It's something to be hopeful of. If only we could only get it right.