Japan: Apple Must Lift Browser Engine Ban by December - Open Web Advocacy

This is indeed a very good move, I really wish this could expand in the EU and US though!
But hey I guess japan users can now have the more secure chromium or the more insecure gecko engine (unless It’s Tor Browser), or ladybird, I’m personally not judging :eyes:

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This is already the case in the EU afaik

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Impressive! Japan is usually behind everyone else.

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I hope that’s true but all I see is that they still utilize WebKit so far.

It is but afaik there are no browsers using anything but WebKit because the investment is hard to justify for just the EU market. These sorts of anti-trust actions are starting to become a global trend though, so I expect this will change soon.

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Thanks for clarification!

Nice but AFAIK 3rd party browser engines don’t really exist (yet). Google has been working on “real” Chrome iOS for quite a while now and even Google with all the money/resources has no complete engine to show for.

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it is their chance until december obviously to have a working one!
Hopefully firefox and others too but yeah

@GorujoCY
Is the Gecko used in Tor Browser really more secure? Or is it just more private

I invite people with good knowledge of Japan to correct me, but IIRC Japan is one country, maybe the only country, that didn’t have a single COVID lockdown, the government citing “it would violate human rights.” Similarly, some of the nasty bullshit the West is currently attempting to impose worldwide may never eventuate in Japan on the same basis.

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No, it is not more secure.
It may however be slightly more secure in some contexts when set to higher security levels, but that could be achieved in Firefox with about:config changes.

It’s also due to a lot of hurdles Apple put in their way

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maybe my final destination is Japan

Thanks for the link. I had no idea they were putting up such a fight. 1. “Apple has not confirmed they will not disable browser updates (including security patches) if an EU user travels outside the EU for more than 30 days. This, far from being a security measure, actively lowers users’ security by depriving them of security updates.” 2. “Apple now permits browser vendors to test their own engines outside the EU. Yes, you read that correctly, Apple initially attempted to block Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft from testing their own browsers.” 3. “However, the most critical barrier remains firmly in place: Apple still forces browser vendors to abandon all their existing EU users if they want to ship a non-WebKit engine. This single requirement destroys the business case for porting an engine to iOS. Building and maintaining a full browser engine is a major undertaking. Requiring vendors to start from scratch in one region (even a region as large as the EU), with zero users, makes the investment commercially nonviable.” 4.”Instead, transaction and overhead costs for developers will be higher, rather than lower, since they must develop a version of their apps for the EU and another for the rest of the world. On top of that, if and when they exercise the possibility to, for instance, incorporate their own browser engines into their browsers (they formerly worked on Apple’s proprietary WebKit), they must submit a separate binary to Apple for its approval. What does that mean exactly? That developers must ship a new version of their app to its customers, and ‘reacquire’ them from zero.”:grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

edit. I gave it some more thought because it’s funny how they make things so difficult, or basically impossible. I’ve used Apple devices and I know how good the user experience is and how well they work together. So I wouldn’t want to break that ecosystem either. For those who want to use different devices, there are options, although I think they’re pretty weak on the phone side of things. On the PC side, there isn’t really the same problem, but when it comes to laptops, nothing beats Apple.

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I know! It’s been mostly talk so far. I really hope Apple will do the right thing and allow third-party web engines and stop resisting.