Everybody is talking about Chrome, but I tell ya what I have that disabled on my Android in favor of Firefox. Firefox on mobile with full-fat uBlock Origin is the closest thing to parity with desktop web access you can get.
I don't just block ads, I block elements on sites I don't care about with :has-text RegEx rules. You can't do that on Chrome even on desktop anymore.
I'm this close to swapping to the Android as my primary device-- it's iMessage that has me chained. It's just too dang nice to respond to chats from my Mac during work so I don't need to pick up my phone.
Everything else is better on the Android. Don't get me started about the iOS keyboard or Siri.
FF with uBO was the killer app that kept me on android. If Apple let me run that, I'd have bought into it years ago.
Have you considered messages.google.com? I think you need to use Google's messages app (not the Samsung messager or equivalent) but it does as you describe and supports RCS.
The consent-o-matic extension is also incredibly worth it on mobile firefox. Automates clicking through almost every cookie banner I've come across, which is much more annoying to do manually on a phone than on desktop.
I've been using https://messages.google.com to get something like the desktop iMessage experience with Android- does that work for your use case? (I don't use iMessage so I could just be missing some killer feature it has, or something.)
If you can live with SMS instead of iMessage: KDE Connect on Android works very nicely for messaging from the desktop (the Desktop application is available for Linux, Windows and MacOS. Functionality varies per platform but SMS works on all of them). https://kdeconnect.kde.org/
I spent years laughing at other people’s autocorrect fails until I switched from Android. The iOS keyboard experience is unspeakably bad. There’s a point every day where I think, “maybe I’ll just sell the iPhone and get another Pixel, despite Google’s creep factor.”
If its the difference-maker for you: Google Messages has a web experience, and in my not-recent experience it works great.
The iOS 26 keyboard (public beta) is the biggest regression I've ever seen Apple make, and they're a company infamous for regressions. It for me has been the tipping point.
I will second Google Messages, your SMS messages go to your phone and your desktop at the same time. Easily respond from either. I don't know if SMS messaging gets to iMessage, because I don't use Apple products.
No Apple hardware or software/service (when it comes to Apple software/services they deserve a LOL) has me chained.
It's just how disgusting Google has kept Android for anyone who wants privacy, safety (both usage and data safety in case of loss etc), and reliable updates that people stay in Apple ecosystem even though software/services wise technically they are miles ahead.
If someone ever even proceeds to tell me that "something in apple's stable is technically comparable/better than Google's.." I might rudely ask them to get their head examined.
I just can't reconcile with the fact that Google would track me every milisecond and then use my data for ads and I can't do anything about it. The good news is very soon Apple will start doing the same, if they have not, because they are already an ad company now.
As far as ditching iMessage is concerned - the last time I ditched WhatsApp in my country, I ditched it and after I didn't feel a thing. And WhatsApp in my country is not only instant messaging - it's literal-bllody-ly everything. Everything!
PS. Signal should launch a "Import from iMessage and WhatsApp" :D (Oh, but then how would they prioritise crypto ;-))
Looks like Japan learned from the malicious compliance shenanigans Apple is pulling with the EU. I hope Apple gets served some substantial fines that really hurt when they try to pull the same shit there. And I say, "when", not "if".
But I like the walled prison where I can't screw up and make choices for myself. I appreciate that Apple makes it so I can't accidentally give my coordinates and have some Monarch track me and murder me or leak my noods.
+4500 upvoots
(I always thought it was suspicious that the anti-apple headline had +30k upvoots on reddit, but the top comment was pro-apple with significantly less. Its almost like they paid an external marketing team/troll farm to do reputation management)
I would welcome if this global legislative push would end up in a more open app ecosystem for iOS overall.
BrowserEngineKit is a thin wrapper over XPC and iOS' extension system. The system would be so much better to develop for if XPC was an open API, and JIT for isolated sub-processes was permitted without Apple's blessing.
* Messengers could have separate sub-processes for preprocessing untrusted inputs -- iMessage already does this, third-party messengers are single-process and cannot.
* Applications could isolate unstable components for better user experience and crash recovery.
* Emulators, e.g. for retro systems, would benefit from speedy emulation.
* WASM would become useful in iOS.
* Browser could use XPC without special-purpose API wrappers such as BrowserEngineKit.
But alas, all of this would make it easier to load code that runs at native speed into an iOS app after a store review happened, and as we all know that'll be the end of the world.
>and as we all know that'll be the end of the world.
I'll enjoy seeing all the accounts on MacRumors clawing their eyes out when that happens.
It would be naive to think that Apple isn't funding sites and narratives on the internet to serve their economic interests.
One of the most outlandish one being that freedom to use your phone however you want would necessarily compromise security and privacy for everyone. It's such a bizarre and indefencible take, and yet it's repeated over and over again on those Apple-worship platforms.
This also shifts a tremendous amount of the burden for preventing system-level malware onto the app sandbox, which today is only one component of a multi-layered defense-in-depth system of notarization, entitlements, app review, etc.
To be clear I support letting people run whatever apps they want, but let’s not pretend that this won’t make the median iPhone more prone to have a malware infection (like Android). There are reasons other than anticompetitive greed that Apple does things this way (although I am sure greed is the primary motivator).
The browser itself is some kind of app store, and we run app from it all the time without Apple's review. Given this, I'm not sure why Apple and its fanboys make so much of this supposed security of the AppStore
Not only speedy emulation, but more efficient too, since it doesn't have to struggle so much through interpretation. That would help battery life and keep phones from heating up just playing a game from 2008.
> the determination is made based on the degree of likelihood that [it will prevent alternative browser engines]
If you interpret that very liberally, doing a region-locked "you can release
alternate browser engines but only regionlocked to japanese apple accounts" could be seen as intentionally preventing alternative browsers from existing.
Why would mozilla port firefox when it can only target a tiny fraction of its users?
I know it's not super realistic, but maybe there's a path to global browser choice in there.
> oing a region-locked "you can release alternate browser engines but only regionlocked to japanese apple accounts" could be seen as intentionally preventing alternative browsers from existing.
That's one of the things Apple has been doing with EU
> Why would mozilla port firefox when it can only target a tiny fraction of its users?
Mozilla is used to only a tiny fraction of users anyway. Why would this be any different? It could also be a chance to release a version for QA by the users before the rest of the market opens up.
So after the EU and the UK, Japan is now putting an end to Apple's iOS alternative browser engine ban too.
Those are 3 large jurisdictions, I wonder if that's now a market big enough for Chrome and Firefox to invest into iOS versions of their browser that use Blink and Gecko under the hood. From what I heard this was one of the main reasons they haven't done it yet.
Culturally, the Japanese aren't likely to care. Take a look at Linux usage in Japan to get what I mean. You will have a small but very dedicated group of users who won't change for anything, and then the masses who just use what is convenient. They don't like tweaking.
I wonder if it would make more sense and be easier for Firefox to switch to Blink, working together with Google making an alternate browser engine for iOS.
AFAIK the main reason is that only the EU+UK cared about these rules and their market share is too small for companies like Google or Mozilla to invest into.
Because of the way the App Store works, browser engines segregated by region need to be two different apps. That means maintaining two source trees (EU+UK+JP vs worldwide) and two releases with two reviews.
I expect niche browsers to have a go at porting to iOS at some point (I'd love to see a project like Ladybird be the first non-Safari browser on the app store!) but for the major companies it seems like too much of a hassle at the moment.
Safari is not a good browser, by design, because it's in Apple's interest to cripple the Web as a platform. If they want their browser to be actually competitive instead of forcing people to use it, they should make a good browser. That is markets working as they are supposed to.
You'd be able to use proper Firefox there. And it is a good thing, it weakens Apple's malicious control over Web standards (sabotage of using SPIR-V for WebGPU is Apple's fault).
Japan has a funny relationship with Apple. For example, the Felica ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa ) based ticket system is built into every iPhone globally, making life in Japan significantly easier for foreign iOS users. More surprisingly actually using the tickets does not require any app at all - you just use Apple Pay.
This is all narrowing the scope of what advantages native apps have (they do still have advantages), but it's hard to argue they simply aren't moving gatekeeping to other areas.
FeliCa Networks support is the direct result of the fact that mobile transit and mobile payments use in Japan predates the iPhone. Mobile Suica and Osaifu-Keitai already existed, and Apple needed to compete. It started with Japanese SKU iPhones but expanded globally.
Even now in Japan, mobile payments are anything but a monopoly. When Apple is forced to compete, they do things like add Suica with Express Transit. PayPay, a made-in-Japan QR code payments app is more prevalent than credit card payments here.
* in Japan. Apple has made it clear that they are willing and able to only allow consumer choice if they are in the jurisdiction where they are required to. I live in Norway, so I’m not able to sideload apps, because Norway, despite usually being lumped in with “the EU” is not actually part of the EU, and thus not covered by the EU ruling.
I found the power of "It can be done" amazing. One country does it, everyone else thinks "It can be done, we don't want to be left behind" after 20 years of this being impossible.
We've got to assume that Google have internally been developing "real" Chrome for iOS for a long time, so that it'll be ready to go immediately, right?
Presumably they would have invested more resources into it and been done by now, if there was a viable path to release, which there isn't yet due to Apple's EU geofencing, and because there were a number of bugs and limitations in Apple's BrowserEngineKit which browsers are forced to use.
> The iOS build supports compiling the blink web platform. To compile blink set a gn arg in your .setup-gn file. Note the blink web platform is experimental code and should only be used for analysis.
> This results in no effective browser competition on iOS, and web apps being deprived of the APIs and performance they need to compete with native apps.
To my eyes, the regulators hit the nail on the head here. It's not about other browsers, it's about keeping the iPhone browser crummy so the app store and the 30% Apple Tax stays humming along.
Finally, Japanese will experience popups, location requests, notifications and constant tracking along with battery drain and zero days as glorious first party android users.
IOS don’t need more spyware in form of chrome or firefox. If you need it, get spydroid with ios theme.
I think this is a net good in the long term. Even if you completely exclude obvious benefits, like being able to support more APIs than Safari, it forces Apple to actually compete with other browsers and implement things if they start getting real market share.
Not that you really should, but Safari has a limit of 500 tabs. Why? It's arbitrary. Safari doesn't support WebRequest in blocking mode, so you can't have real adblockers (just MV3 style content blockers, like uBOL). There are all sorts of edge cases too, like if you want cross-browser sync and extensions. Sure, you can totally run Safari with extension support, but extensions in e.g., Orion are shaky at best.
The biggest claim that Apple made about this whole thing was that web browsers offered an attack surface increase as a result of giving JIT to other browsers, and they could be owned. Frankly, though, I would take a browser without JIT if I had a real adblocker.
The EU did make these requirements, Apple ignored them, the EU made Apple pay a big fine, and Apple put out some token process for browser engine approval that's not actually possible to pass but looks to bureaucrats like it meets the requirements.
What does Firefox give you, I mean what are the benefits? Some extensions that only work in Firefox, I guess? This is the only annoyance I'm aware of but it's real.
There's a lot of nonsense buried in safari and webkit. For example, loading certain URLs will deep link to on-device apps. If you surf to amazon urls in the browser, the amazon app will be notified. I'm pretty sure this is unblockable snooping people don't realize is going on.
So I think this is great news, maybe we get rid of nonsense like that.
However, I'll bet apple will make this japan specific just like eu laws don't affect their behavior in the US.
For example, a japanese iphone will always make a sound when you take a picture. If you leave the country, that will go away, unless you're in airplane mode and then it will start making sounds for every picture again. country-specific behavior.
I don't see why apple wouldn't do the same thing -- firefox works in japan, but not outside japan.
This is good news, the US should join in aswell in stopping this despicable behaviour by Apple. Apple handicaps browsers because web apps are the only viable alternative to Native Apps which generate huge commission for Apple.
It's a factor in the DOJ antitrust case that's going to trial soon -
> 43. Developers cannot avoid Apple’s control of app distribution and app creation by making web apps—apps created using standard programming languages for web-based content and available over the internet—as an alternative to native apps. Many iPhone users do not look for or know how to find web apps, causing web apps to constitute only a small fraction of app usage. Apple recognizes that web apps are not a good alternative to native apps for developers. As one Apple executive acknowledged, “[d]evelopers can’t make much money on the web.” Regardless, Apple can still control the functionality of web apps because Apple requires all web browsers on the iPhone to use WebKit, Apple’s browser engine—the key software components that third-party browsers use to display web content.
More likely because otherwise companies would have no reason to support Safari, they'd tell everyone to download chrome like they do on desktop - then google would have no incentive to optimize chrome for iOS because what would you use otherwise?
If we get there maybe it'll lead to a culture of something beyond "people on iOS don't truly use Chrome so I guess it's not really a problem worth doing anything about yet".
Ideally, the next step is for the US FTC to break up Google. This will probably have to wait until 2028, but it could happen earlier — it doesn't seem to be hard to get on this administration's bad side.
Of all the things that iOS could do, why browser engine is so important? Is there anything to them other than UI nowadays, especially on small form factor?
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
duffyjp|6 months ago
I don't just block ads, I block elements on sites I don't care about with :has-text RegEx rules. You can't do that on Chrome even on desktop anymore.
I'm this close to swapping to the Android as my primary device-- it's iMessage that has me chained. It's just too dang nice to respond to chats from my Mac during work so I don't need to pick up my phone.
Everything else is better on the Android. Don't get me started about the iOS keyboard or Siri.
two-sandwich|6 months ago
Have you considered messages.google.com? I think you need to use Google's messages app (not the Samsung messager or equivalent) but it does as you describe and supports RCS.
extraduder_ire|6 months ago
Rusky|6 months ago
zevon|6 months ago
not_your_mentat|6 months ago
827a|6 months ago
The iOS 26 keyboard (public beta) is the biggest regression I've ever seen Apple make, and they're a company infamous for regressions. It for me has been the tipping point.
[1] https://messages.google.com/web/
nuker|6 months ago
I think uBO is not disabling PPA, does it?
- June 2024. Mozilla acquires Anonym, an ad metrics firm.
- July 2024. Mozilla adds Privacy-Preserving Attribution (PPA), feature is enabled by default. Developed in cooperation with Meta (Facebook).
- Feb 2025. Mozilla updates its Privacy FAQ and TOS. "does not sell data about you." becomes "... in the way that most people think about it".
leptons|6 months ago
ThePowerOfFuet|6 months ago
I've been doing this on Signal for years.
exoji2e|6 months ago
crossroadsguy|6 months ago
No Apple hardware or software/service (when it comes to Apple software/services they deserve a LOL) has me chained.
It's just how disgusting Google has kept Android for anyone who wants privacy, safety (both usage and data safety in case of loss etc), and reliable updates that people stay in Apple ecosystem even though software/services wise technically they are miles ahead.
If someone ever even proceeds to tell me that "something in apple's stable is technically comparable/better than Google's.." I might rudely ask them to get their head examined.
I just can't reconcile with the fact that Google would track me every milisecond and then use my data for ads and I can't do anything about it. The good news is very soon Apple will start doing the same, if they have not, because they are already an ad company now.
As far as ditching iMessage is concerned - the last time I ditched WhatsApp in my country, I ditched it and after I didn't feel a thing. And WhatsApp in my country is not only instant messaging - it's literal-bllody-ly everything. Everything!
PS. Signal should launch a "Import from iMessage and WhatsApp" :D (Oh, but then how would they prioritise crypto ;-))
scantron4|6 months ago
crinkly|6 months ago
I'm using AdGuard for blocking ads in Safari. Works fine.
I do have a GrapheneOS pixel 7a as well but I'd rather not let Google near my shit.
ygritte|6 months ago
namibj|6 months ago
resource_waste|6 months ago
+4500 upvoots
(I always thought it was suspicious that the anti-apple headline had +30k upvoots on reddit, but the top comment was pro-apple with significantly less. Its almost like they paid an external marketing team/troll farm to do reputation management)
HHad3|6 months ago
BrowserEngineKit is a thin wrapper over XPC and iOS' extension system. The system would be so much better to develop for if XPC was an open API, and JIT for isolated sub-processes was permitted without Apple's blessing.
* Messengers could have separate sub-processes for preprocessing untrusted inputs -- iMessage already does this, third-party messengers are single-process and cannot.
* Applications could isolate unstable components for better user experience and crash recovery.
* Emulators, e.g. for retro systems, would benefit from speedy emulation.
* WASM would become useful in iOS.
* Browser could use XPC without special-purpose API wrappers such as BrowserEngineKit.
But alas, all of this would make it easier to load code that runs at native speed into an iOS app after a store review happened, and as we all know that'll be the end of the world.
yupyupyups|6 months ago
I'll enjoy seeing all the accounts on MacRumors clawing their eyes out when that happens.
It would be naive to think that Apple isn't funding sites and narratives on the internet to serve their economic interests.
One of the most outlandish one being that freedom to use your phone however you want would necessarily compromise security and privacy for everyone. It's such a bizarre and indefencible take, and yet it's repeated over and over again on those Apple-worship platforms.
sneak|6 months ago
To be clear I support letting people run whatever apps they want, but let’s not pretend that this won’t make the median iPhone more prone to have a malware infection (like Android). There are reasons other than anticompetitive greed that Apple does things this way (although I am sure greed is the primary motivator).
prmph|6 months ago
skeezyboy|6 months ago
devinprater|6 months ago
TheDong|6 months ago
If you interpret that very liberally, doing a region-locked "you can release alternate browser engines but only regionlocked to japanese apple accounts" could be seen as intentionally preventing alternative browsers from existing.
Why would mozilla port firefox when it can only target a tiny fraction of its users?
I know it's not super realistic, but maybe there's a path to global browser choice in there.
troupo|6 months ago
That's one of the things Apple has been doing with EU
tristan957|6 months ago
fkyoureadthedoc|6 months ago
dylan604|6 months ago
Mozilla is used to only a tiny fraction of users anyway. Why would this be any different? It could also be a chance to release a version for QA by the users before the rest of the market opens up.
agust|6 months ago
Those are 3 large jurisdictions, I wonder if that's now a market big enough for Chrome and Firefox to invest into iOS versions of their browser that use Blink and Gecko under the hood. From what I heard this was one of the main reasons they haven't done it yet.
Sayrus|6 months ago
ChocolateGod|6 months ago
immibis|6 months ago
a_vanderbilt|6 months ago
charcircuit|6 months ago
jeroenhd|6 months ago
Because of the way the App Store works, browser engines segregated by region need to be two different apps. That means maintaining two source trees (EU+UK+JP vs worldwide) and two releases with two reviews.
I expect niche browsers to have a go at porting to iOS at some point (I'd love to see a project like Ladybird be the first non-Safari browser on the app store!) but for the major companies it seems like too much of a hassle at the moment.
ajaimk|6 months ago
meibo|6 months ago
cguess|6 months ago
troupo|6 months ago
On the one hand Apple must be made to open up iOS more.
On the other hand it just leads to Chrome monopoly.
NotPractical|6 months ago
shmerl|6 months ago
sunaookami|6 months ago
fidotron|6 months ago
This is all narrowing the scope of what advantages native apps have (they do still have advantages), but it's hard to argue they simply aren't moving gatekeeping to other areas.
Shank|6 months ago
Even now in Japan, mobile payments are anything but a monopoly. When Apple is forced to compete, they do things like add Suica with Express Transit. PayPay, a made-in-Japan QR code payments app is more prevalent than credit card payments here.
delfinom|6 months ago
Every Google Pixel has FeliCa its just turned off on non-Japan phones due to said licensing, though people have rooted the phone to turn it on.
Hilift|6 months ago
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/japan
unknown|6 months ago
[deleted]
LadyCailin|6 months ago
nuker|6 months ago
tristan957|6 months ago
KingOfCoders|6 months ago
ACCount36|6 months ago
[deleted]
frou_dh|6 months ago
concinds|6 months ago
Presumably they would have invested more resources into it and been done by now, if there was a viable path to release, which there isn't yet due to Apple's EU geofencing, and because there were a number of bugs and limitations in Apple's BrowserEngineKit which browsers are forced to use.
fragmede|6 months ago
> Checking out and building Chromium for iOS
> Building Blink for iOS
> The iOS build supports compiling the blink web platform. To compile blink set a gn arg in your .setup-gn file. Note the blink web platform is experimental code and should only be used for analysis.
> [gn_args] > use_blink = true > ios_content_shell_bundle_identifier="REPLACE_YOUR_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER_HERE" > ios_chromium_bundle_id="REPLACE_YOUR_BUNDLE_IDENTIFIER_HERE"
> Note that only certain targets support blink. content_shell and chrome being the most useful.
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/i...
xnx|6 months ago
https://9to5google.com/2023/02/06/google-chrome-blink-ios-we...
jgalt212|6 months ago
To my eyes, the regulators hit the nail on the head here. It's not about other browsers, it's about keeping the iPhone browser crummy so the app store and the 30% Apple Tax stays humming along.
viktorcode|6 months ago
Aleklart|6 months ago
Shank|6 months ago
Not that you really should, but Safari has a limit of 500 tabs. Why? It's arbitrary. Safari doesn't support WebRequest in blocking mode, so you can't have real adblockers (just MV3 style content blockers, like uBOL). There are all sorts of edge cases too, like if you want cross-browser sync and extensions. Sure, you can totally run Safari with extension support, but extensions in e.g., Orion are shaky at best.
The biggest claim that Apple made about this whole thing was that web browsers offered an attack surface increase as a result of giving JIT to other browsers, and they could be owned. Frankly, though, I would take a browser without JIT if I had a real adblocker.
natch|6 months ago
shmerl|6 months ago
BaardFigur|6 months ago
immibis|6 months ago
t1234s|6 months ago
natch|6 months ago
zerr|6 months ago
m463|6 months ago
So I think this is great news, maybe we get rid of nonsense like that.
However, I'll bet apple will make this japan specific just like eu laws don't affect their behavior in the US.
For example, a japanese iphone will always make a sound when you take a picture. If you leave the country, that will go away, unless you're in airplane mode and then it will start making sounds for every picture again. country-specific behavior.
I don't see why apple wouldn't do the same thing -- firefox works in japan, but not outside japan.
daedrdev|6 months ago
hbn|6 months ago
Hope you guys like Chromium!
garyclarke27|6 months ago
benoau|6 months ago
> 43. Developers cannot avoid Apple’s control of app distribution and app creation by making web apps—apps created using standard programming languages for web-based content and available over the internet—as an alternative to native apps. Many iPhone users do not look for or know how to find web apps, causing web apps to constitute only a small fraction of app usage. Apple recognizes that web apps are not a good alternative to native apps for developers. As one Apple executive acknowledged, “[d]evelopers can’t make much money on the web.” Regardless, Apple can still control the functionality of web apps because Apple requires all web browsers on the iPhone to use WebKit, Apple’s browser engine—the key software components that third-party browsers use to display web content.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.njd.544... (p22)
edude03|6 months ago
kjfaejgoaeijhei|6 months ago
zamadatix|6 months ago
scythe|6 months ago
amadeuspagel|6 months ago
pjmlp|6 months ago
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leoapagano|6 months ago
ginko|6 months ago
unknown|6 months ago
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devinprater|6 months ago
ImHereToVote|6 months ago
khana|6 months ago
skeezyboy|6 months ago
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notanastronaut|6 months ago
unknown|6 months ago
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coupdejarnac|6 months ago
dzhiurgis|6 months ago