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Platform Tilt

nox101
33 replies
1d14h

They mention both Android and Microsoft have some apps that don't launch the user's browser choice.

I have a related problem which is apps that launch their own web view as a builtin web browser when you click a link in the app. This lets them spy on any web activity that you do while in that embedded web view.

I think I wish that both the Android Play Store and the iOS App Store required apps to launch the user's browser for all 3rd party websites. To do this, they'd have apps categorize themselves as "web browser" or "not web browser".

For a "not web browser", the app would have to make a short list of domains (5? 10?) that it's allowed to talk to. Any others would be blocked by the OS.

For a "web browser" the app could contact any domain.

I don't know what legalize like language they'd use to define "Web browser" but apps like Facebook, FB Messenger, Google Maps, and others who's primary use is not "Browsing the web" could be clearly in the "not web browser" category.

There's multiple reasons I want this.

1. Apps with embedded web views can spy on all network activity and web view activity. By preventing apps from having embedded browsers that problem is solved.

2. Passwords, addresses, other things are synced in my browser profile. Every time some app launches an embedded browser I get none of that

3. Bookmarks are synced in my browser profile. Any sites I view in an embedded browser I can't bookmark

4. History is synced in my browser profile. Any sites I view in an embedded browser don't show up in my history

One other feature I might require if I was ruler of the world is that these apps that launch links be required to support a context menu for "open in private browser window"

tempestn
11 replies
1d12h

I feel the same way personally, but recently discovered that most others don't. When we launched the autotempest app we had it use the user's default browser for all third party links, which are common for us, as we link directly to vehicle detail pages on various other sites. Turns out people hated that, and really wanted to load those pages inside the app instead. (So we made that the default, but left the option to use the default browser.)

neongreen
8 replies
1d12h

Did they provide any feedback on why they hated it, btw?

tempestn
6 replies
1d11h

Not really. My impression was that people just felt it was a cleaner experience having everything in the app. Objectively it didn't have a significant effect on load times either way, but I could see a couple of potential reasons that could make sense, like leaving around open browser tabs that would have to be manually closed. Also some may not know how to quickly switch back to the previous app. As well as giving the option to just open by default in browser, we do also now provide a button along with the webview to open a given page in the browser, which seems like a good balance to me. That way if you want it in browser for bookmarking or what have you, it's easy to get that, but if you just want to take a quick glance, there's no need to leave the app.

vages
5 replies
1d11h

I have observed non-technical people struggle with phone multitasking. They usually fail to notice the apps switching, and if they do, they often use a slow path back to the original app (for example opening an app via the Home Screen) rather than through the app switcher.

Andrex
4 replies
1d4h

Gesture nav makes the app switcher impossible to discover (or "discover often enough to learn") for non-technical users.

I don't know what my mom and dad would do if Android ever took away the three button option.

Aachen
2 replies
18h42m

To answer the question: have a child (you) that teaches it to them so they don't need to randomly discover it.

I'm more worried about others that don't have savvy children

And this might be a perfect example of where manuals make sense. Not a 300-page book (not that I'm opposed to that as a reference option), but a few pages that explain the basic gestures rather than having to randomly stumble upon it. My grandma asked for a manual when she needed a new smartphone (upgrading from Android ~5 to ~9 I think) and honestly I think it would really help her to have some pages of written instructions for the basics (not help pages or a document file to prevent a catch-22)

Andrex
1 replies
17h46m

Their short-term memory persistence is not what it once was.

For example, they recently converted from DirecTV to Chromecast with Google TV (...with YouTube TV), and they use it every day, and my mom still has trouble using the d-pad to navigate menus in four directions. She was entirely used to DirecTV's menus, which (mostly) just scroll up and down using the channel rocker button.

It's been a year and despite saving probably 50%+ on their monthly TV bill, it's all my mom can say -- "When are we going back to DirecTV? It was so much easier. Google makes me feel stupid."

Windows/Xerox PARC put running applications in a dedicated spot on the screen so they're always visible and there's no guesswork for a reason. If multitasking on phones is to improve, it can't be hidden away and invisible. (And it wasn't, Android's multitasking button was at least how my dad got comfortable with the concept.)

We have decades of UX research telling us not to hide critical functions, but we keep doing it anyways because fashion/art/trends/etc.

Aachen
0 replies
6h11m

Very good points, I'm starting to experience that as well (in the one grandparent that uses any technology at all, that is)

mook
0 replies
1d1h

I have a device where the app switcher is literally broken. I don't think it's due to gesture navigation, because the gesture works fine on a device from a different vendor (so I think I know how to do it correctly).

So yeah. Lenovo sucks.

wahnfrieden
0 replies
1d11h

People don’t like littering tabs and changing the focused tab in mobile safari. And they don’t like switching back to another app instead of just closing a modal.

The safari view component solves the privacy issue when adopted.

baq
1 replies
1d10h

I would prefer in-app view of links if apps wouldn’t have a broken back button.

In-app web view back buttons go back to the app instead of one page back in the history. It’s driving me nuts.

tempestn
0 replies
1d8h

We did get that right at least!

naitgacem
5 replies
1d14h

this is already the case, you can click open in browser. but I'm not sure it's in Google's best interest here.

remember that it's been 9 generations of android major versions since they added runtime permissions for camera and such. internet access is still not requiring a permission...

warkdarrior
4 replies
1d10h

What are you talking about? Android apps must request the INTERNET permission to use the network.

naitgacem
3 replies
1d10h

I'm talking about a runtime permission, something like "App_name wants to use internet" with options "allow once" , "while using the app", and reject. Same with camera microphone storage etc. Internet is the reason camera and mic access are sensitive in the first place after all.

cma
1 replies
1d4h

An OS made by an ad and tracking company won't let you turn off the internet to one app. It's probably intentional.

naitgacem
0 replies
1d4h

that's kind of my thoughts too, but in the spirit of HN wanted to leave that part out

TrianguloY
0 replies
1d8h

Edit: apparently they added it back! Now the play store shows the full permission list (and not that horrible simplified version). I missed the change.

(Original incorrect post below)

Not only that, but on the play store that permission isn't mention at all. Is like "all apps will use it so why bother" but some of us create apps without it, and we cannot probe it.

filleduchaos
3 replies
1d12h

...don't points 2-4 (the sandboxing of the webview's context, so that it does not overlap with your actual web browsing activity or with other apps' webviews) contradict point 1 (the level of danger from apps' ability to control their own webviews)?

For a "not web browser", the app would have to make a short list of domains (5? 10?) that it's allowed to talk to. Any others would be blocked by the OS.

What does "allowed to talk to" mean in practice? Off the top of my head, either you only check the domains of URLs that are explicitly navigated to (too lax, easily circumvented) or you check the URLs of literally every request (too strict, many developers would not be able to load their own sites).

jstanley
2 replies
1d9h

check the URLs of literally every request (too strict, many developers would not be able to load their own sites).

This is why it's 5 or 10 domains instead of just 1. You just need to list every domain you actually use.

plagiarist
0 replies
1d4h

Heck, why not list all the domains? Put that list in the app store.

filleduchaos
0 replies
20h51m

Have you looked at the average website recently? Plenty of sites make requests to far more than five or even ten domains.

zilti
1 replies
1d10h

Number 2 is easily solved with a password manager, at least

jefftk
0 replies
1d6h

That solution makes your passwords potentially accessible to the developers of the in-app browser. I trust Mozilla and Google not to steal my identity; I don't trust some random app that decides to use an in-app browser.

xg15
1 replies
1d3h

I think I wish that both the Android Play Store and the iOS App Store required apps to launch the user's browser for all 3rd party websites.

Meanwhile Google built the Custom Tabs feature[1] to push Android devs into the exact opposite direction: Even when the app just wants to open an unrelated page (e.g. from a user-provided link), its now encouraged to open the page in a "custom tab" instead of the default browser - with the explicit goal of keeping the user from leaving the app because precious precious engagement etc...

Naturally, there is no systemwide setting for users to turn it off, you have to find the setting for each app separately (or rather hope it has a setting at all).

[1] https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2023/02/bringing-b...

Rohansi
0 replies
15h24m

I like the Custom Tabs feature. It avoids security concerns with web views and the back button works how you'd expect it to within a single app. If you want to open the page in your browser there is a button in its menu to open it in Chrome (or whatever your browser is) instead.

teekert
1 replies
1d5h

Like Google maps? Every time it asks me which browser I want with chrome on top, then Safari and at the bottom “default”. That’s DDG browser for me. Absolutely annoying.

Luckily I only need it when Apple Maps can’t find something (or In need biking directions).

jwells89
0 replies
1d4h

All Google apps on iOS do this to try to push Chrome, and yes it’s incredibly annoying. The OS default browser setting exists for a reason.

mtomweb
1 replies
1d7h

Fixing the issues with In-app browsers is one of our highest priorities. It’s made complex by what’s possible within the scope of the Digital Markets Act. Your spot on that this is a really important issue.

If you’d like to help out with the effort please get in contact with us (open web advocacy)

Terretta
0 replies
1d4h

Of course it's tough, and regulatory capture[^1] is no accident. These "consumer protection" acts to "open" markets are written by the consumer exploiting adtech incumbents.

Legislators and media fail to understand the systemic consequences of user-hostile "open" language, so do things like (a) force users to deal with 'must have' apps becoming only available outside of pro-user curation so adtech can exploit them (b) force genuinely user-friendly subscriptions management to be "opened" so billions more dollars can be pulled from user wallets without users realizing or understanding or having the willpower to overcome barriers to cancelling.

The knock-on consequences to device security, performance, reliability, and user privacy, are not understood or discussed, and if understood, would not be wanted by normal users.

This is all beautifully orchestrated by black-is-white named foundations and interest groups funded by surveillance capitalism[^2]. It's dystopian.

[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

[^2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism

akoboldfrying
0 replies
1d14h

I was sceptical at first, but the "small whitelist" concept really does provide a clear, fair and easily enforced delineation.

CJefferson
0 replies
1d3h

On the other hand, I can’t make Firefox my default browser because my work VPN opens the system browser for logging in, and it only works with edge or chrome. I wish the VPN would just open an edge web view for it’s messed up weird website.

AtNightWeCode
0 replies
1d7h

It also breaks many user flows like when a site in an app opens an other app to complete a process. Then there is no way to get back to the site that works in all cases.

runlevel1
20 replies
1d15h

App Store forbids third-party browser engines

Mozilla is justified in challenging it, but I don't know if they want to go pulling that thread.

Safari's monopoly on iOS devices is the only reason a sizable number of developers care about non-Chrome support. Currently, they have to. If the message to users becomes "broken feature is not broken on Chrome" we're on the road to monopolyville. And then Google really doesn't need consensus when it creates new web standards.

The status quo is all sorts of messed up, but it could be worse. Hopefully I'm wrong about this.

pjmlp
5 replies
1d11h

The day it is free reign on iOS, I am betting plenty of people will install Chrome, basically all PC owners whose only Apple device is an iPhone.

madeofpalk
1 replies
1d7h

Lots of people already install Chrome on iOS.

I don't think people actually care about browser engines. Maybe they have a notion of 'this website only works on foo browser', but im doubtful that happens a lot on the modern internet.

People already install and use Chrome on iOS because they want the non-rendering engine features, like syncing bookmarks etc.

pjmlp
0 replies
1d5h

That is not Chrome, rather a Safari skin, which matters from Web developer point of view, where Google has turned the Web into ChromeOS.

ksec
1 replies
1d6h

I submitted it [1], Desktop Browser Market Share Worldwide – December 2023. Both Firefox and Chrome saw a sharp increase in December.

Edit: Looking further into it, turns out MacOS system market share has a sharp decline in December for whatever reason.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38833412

[2] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide...

pjmlp
0 replies
1d5h

3.36% hardly matters for most Web agencies, and is in danger zone for many government guidelines.

jwells89
0 replies
1d3h

And those who don’t install Chrome on their own will be pushed to do so by aggressive marketing by Google and by devs who want to test against a single browser engine only. Bits will be stolen away by similar efforts from other Chrome-clone browser vendors (MS chiefly).

It would be a pleasant surprise if Firefox for iOS got a marketshare bump large enough to move the needle, but I wouldn’t bet on it because the odds are against that happening.

commoner
5 replies
1d10h

Of course it's in Mozilla's interest to challenge Safari's Apple-imposed monopoly on iOS. Firefox does not benefit from being suppressed on iOS just because Chrome is also suppressed on iOS. Removing Apple's restrictions that prevent Firefox from implementing Gecko and Gecko-based WebExtensions (especially ad blockers) can only increase Firefox's market share on iOS. Those new iOS Firefox users would then be encouraged to adopt Firefox on their desktop computers, because they would finally be able to sync desktop Firefox with an adblock-enabled Firefox on iOS.

rollcat
3 replies
1d6h

Disclaimer: I use Firefox on iOS, macOS, Linux, and OpenBSD.

Those new iOS Firefox users would then be encouraged to adopt Firefox on their desktop computers, because they would finally be able to sync desktop Firefox with an adblock-enabled Firefox on iOS.

That's not true. People don't care about adblock-enabled Firefox on iOS, because they don't care about Firefox whatsoever. And they don't care about Firefox whatsoever because Mozilla doesn't care - they seem to be focused on just about anything (mostly CEO bonuses), except actually improving the browser to be a competitive product.

I use Firefox as my daily driver, and believe me - the temptation to just switch to Chrome is there, every day. Chrome is not only a better browser, the incompatibilities and annoyances (resulting from its de-facto monopoly) are enough to drive people away from Firefox.

The only reason why Firefox still exists, is because Google keeps paying Mozilla money to be their default search engine - and it remains in Google's best interest, it's their insurance card in a possible antitrust case.

Of course it's in Mozilla's interest to challenge Safari's Apple-imposed monopoly on iOS.

Of course it is in their interest - because they are Google's sock-puppet.

Personally, I do hope that Apple's rules for iOS web engines get challenged - but only as a followup to an antitrust case vs Google, ideally with an outcome of separating the browser from the adtech company.

danShumway
2 replies
17h36m

That's not true. People don't care about adblock-enabled Firefox on iOS, because they don't care about Firefox whatsoever. And they don't care about Firefox whatsoever because Mozilla doesn't care - they seem to be focused on just about anything (mostly CEO bonuses), except actually improving the browser to be a competitive product.

Firefox has seen meaningful improvement over the 2023 and (imo) is competitive with both Safari and Chrome and out-delivers both browsers on some metrics. To say that Mozilla does not care about Firefox is to say that the entire browser ecosystem is so stunted that an organization of Mozilla's size can keep pace with two of the richest companies on the planet while actively trying to focus their attention elsewhere.

It's nonsense.

In 2023, Firefox finally shipped fully offline translation support (a feature that literally no other browser has), they (finally) brought back full extension support to mobile devices, Linux support on Wayland improved, Manifest V3 for Firefox is now shipping (with blocking web request support) and it's actually pretty good, voice commands are now supported on Mac, Firefox managed to start surpassing Chrome's speed on Speedometer (for all the test's flaws, this is still an achievement). PDF editing launched, picture-in-picture view got a redesign. I'm sure there's more that I'm forgetting

I know that plenty of people would have preferred that Mozilla not spend so much time and attention on rewriting parts of mobile Firefox, but even there it's silly to argue that they significantly rewrote parts of mobile Firefox because they're not focused on Firefox.

This claim comes up all the time and I genuinely don't understand how people can possibly believe this. You think that Firefox would be competitive with Chrome and Safari if Mozilla didn't care about it? Is the idea here that Chrome and Safari engineers are so lazy that Mozilla can keep pace with them by doing nothing?

rollcat
1 replies
3h59m

Thanks for your perspective. I realize the way I framed my argument makes it seem as if Firefox was barely palatable, yet I haven't switched away somehow. It's an OK browser - but it's not 2002 anymore. IE6 was distilled shit, literally everybody hated it, the market could hardly wait to be disrupted. I even managed to convince my boss to put a banner on our website, telling IE visitors to use a different browser. The bar this time is much higher, and it requires a proportional amount of effort to clear. Meanwhile:

https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html

https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5053290/mozilla-2023-annual-...

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/01/mozilla-blinked/

Firefox does not just have to improve faster than the competition, it needs to already be better, and to continue getting better, faster than two among the biggest behemoths of all time, to even hope to be competitive in a "free" (LOL, sorry.) market. Being objectively better by a huge margin is literally step 1, and we're. not. there.

Antitrust is the only way, and all three companies need a kick in the balls. Mozilla perhaps the gentlest, but a kick nevertheless.

danShumway
0 replies
3h27m

Lunduke and JWZ seem to both have a bone to pick with Mozilla for various reasons, and some of their criticism is apt and fair, and some of it feels extremely personal. These articles tend to pop up from both of them every time that we reach a year end or donation campaign from Mozilla.

While sometimes I agree with them (and in particular I agree that Mozilla has gotten way too comfortable with advertising and with partnering with extremely questionable and/or harmful people and technologies), an issue with the criticism I keep coming back to is that Mozilla is in a position where it often gets blamed simultaneously for relying too much on Google for revenue and also for every single revenue stream it comes up with that isn't Google being somehow a distraction from Firefox.

I'm not actually a fan of Mozilla's current CEO or many of Mozilla's recent decisions, I do think on some levels Mozilla is floundering around. And you're never going to get an argument from me that CEOs shouldn't be paid less across the board. But it is worth adding some context to Lunduke's criticism in particular that the last few years have also seen some of the strongest financial developments for Mozilla in a while and I'm not completely sure what critics like Lunduke want if they're going to simultaneously call Mozilla out for being in the pocket of Google and call Mozilla out for looking to diversify revenue and push development towards what is by far one of the most popular buzzwords for financial investment and product investment/monetization in the entire tech industry at the moment. If Lunduke wants independence from Google, then short of antitrust this is how you get it: you build things that are actually monetizable. By that metric, even people who are critical of the CEO like me need to be willing to admit that she seems to on some points be doing an actually fairly decent job. Under her, Mozilla has finally started taking meaningful steps to diversify funding away from Google's influence.

I don't want to act like the frustration isn't legitimate. I do feel frustration when I watch Mozilla rewrite their Android tech stack for the Nth time. That effort could be better spent elsewhere.

But I'm also very firmly of the belief that you could replace Mozilla's CEO with anybody and the markestshare decline would look the same. This is not a problem of leadership. This is a problem of antritrust and Mozilla flat-out is not big enough to out-compete an anticompetitive market. I'm all for Mozilla getting better, but sometimes I see criticism here that if they just straightened their act up and made a fantastically better browser it would change everything. It wouldn't.

----

As a thought experiment:

In June of 2024, Mozilla Firefox will be the only mainstream browser with fully effective uBO support. Manifest V3 will be out so it will be gone from Chrome. Safari already has terrible adblocking extension support. Brave is not deprecating those APIs, but Brave also (as far as I know) doesn't have an extension store and relies on Chrome's so if those extensions get dropped from development on Chrome they will also not be available for Brave.

Come June, do we think that Firefox having indisputably the best adblocking of any other browser will move the needle on its market share?

I don't. I don't think consumers will care. I can't count the number of times that I have told people about features in Firefox that are objectively better than Chrome's implementations (multi-account containers, profiles, android extension support, fully offline translations, the TOR uplift project, actually encrypted cross-device sync, etc, etc...) and they didn't even know those features exist. Yes, some of that is that Mozilla is genuinely terrible at marketing. But a much bigger part of that is that the browser market doesn't really work that way anymore; default positioning and anticompetitive behavior are more effective steering tools than any browser feature set.

I agree that it comes down to antitrust. But the only thing I can think of that Mozilla can do about that is to

A) continue to diversify their revenue from Google (because Firefox itself is not monetizable) and to

B) start campaigning for intervention (which they are doing right now in this article).

Because even if Mozilla was able to build an indisputably better browser than Chrome, it wouldn't matter. You've said it yourself, alternatives were much better than IE6 and it still didn't matter. Does anyone think it's even physically possible for a company of Mozilla's size to outpace Chrome even more than Chrome and Firefox outpaced IE6? Plenty of other companies (including Microsoft) have been in Mozilla's position and have tried to do what Mozilla is doing, and their conclusion was that they couldn't compete with Chrome; they couldn't develop a separate browser engine from Chromium and keep pace. Microsoft decided that what Mozilla is doing right now was too difficult to attempt.

CharlesW
0 replies
1d1h

Firefox does not benefit from being suppressed on iOS…

You have to understand that from the POV of 99.99% of users, Firefox is not "suppressed".¹²

Yes, Firefox on iOS has to use WKWebKit. But "if Firefox could use their own browser engine on iOS then Firefox would be popular on iOS" is magical thinking. Other than a handful of technical gurus, users absolutely do not care.

¹ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browsers/mobile/ios/ ² https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/firefox-private-safe-browser...

bitpush
4 replies
1d15h

Safari's monopoly on iOS devices is the only reason a sizable number of developers care about non-Chrome support.

Sounds like you like monopoly.

gleenn
1 replies
1d15h

I don't think that's charitable. They are stating that iOS enforcing the second browser to exist makes at least some space for the third to exist and preventing Chrome from completely taking over.

sangnoir
0 replies
14h15m

At the expense of Firefox. I'm not surprised that Mozilla would not cheer Safari on because Apple doesn't care for Mozilla's mission.

yjftsjthsd-h
0 replies
1d13h

If a small monopoly prevents a large monopoly, it might be the lesser evil.

girvo
0 replies
1d13h

Two is greater than one.

petesergeant
0 replies
1d12h

Came to say the same thing. Safari and the inability to replace it with Chrome on iOS is the only thing stopping the complete dominance of Chrome, for better or for worse

danShumway
0 replies
17h55m

Mozilla is justified in challenging it, but I don't know if they want to go pulling that thread.

If they didn't, Safari would be used as an excuse to ignore their other complaints from other companies, because the truth is that Mozilla is right about Apple's behavior and it would be hypocritical for them to complain about Google/Microsoft without mentioning Apple.

----

I also want to (respectfully) push back somewhat hard and bluntly against this idea in general.

I'm really tired of the status quo defense because the status quo is not headed in a positive direction and is not going to change unless bold moves happen, and nobody making the status quo defense for Apple seems to have any plans on how the status quo is going to get better. Safari is not enough to stop Chrome's dominance on its own. And that status quo might not even be preserved in the long-term anyway because there's a nontrivial chance that browser engines get forced open in the EU at some point after the EU's app-store rules take effect.

Here is the reality of the situation: we are currently closing out on a political administration that has shown a historic level of willingness to pursue antitrust against tech companies. People really haven't grasped just how unbelievably friendly the Biden admin is to antitrust in a way that is not common for US presidents. Maybe that administration will continue for 4 more years, and maybe it won't. But taking that uncertainty into account, this is likely one of the best opportunities presented since the early Windows antitrust cases to argue for actual intervention on Google/Apple/Microsoft. The intersection of an administration that is extremely open to antitrust in comparison to other presidential admins, along with shifting consumer sentiment against big tech, combined with Apple facing pressure on multiple fronts around iOS, combined with Google getting ready to hobble ad blockers in June makes this a great time to make these arguments and to push hard for changing the status quo.

Is it a little risky? Yes. But waiting longer is not going to make the situation better, it's only going to mean that Firefox is less relevant when it makes its case, that the administration has more chance to roll over, that Mozilla can't seize on public sentiment. There is never going to be a point where it's an easy 100% win for Mozilla to make this case, and if they don't make this case, they will eventually be driven out of the market entirely.

I fully support them firing all cylinders at everybody, Apple included. It only makes their case stronger. If we're worried about Chrome dominance if iOS is opened up, the way to deal with that problem is to regulate Google. This is the best time to make that case.

This is not the time for us to hem and haw about what could happen if Apple isn't allowed to be anti-competitive. If we wait, it will only become harder to deal with Chrome.

Aachen
0 replies
18h34m

Safari's monopoly on iOS devices is the only reason a sizable number of developers care about non-Chrome support

The reason I make my websites work in Firefox is really not because I need to make it work for Safari. Firefox usually works out of the box, but even if it didn't, Safari being a neglected platform that always needs extra work really wouldn't make me feel like putting in yet more work on another tech stack

shadowgovt
15 replies
1d16h

Browsing information like history, bookmarked sites, and cookies isn’t accessible to third-party browsers on Android.

As a user, why the hell do I want third party applications to be able to access my browser's history, bookmarked sites, and cookies?

That's an obvious privacy leak!

Firefox can have that data when it's generated by Firefox while I'm using Firefox and not in other contexts.

no-dr-onboard
4 replies
1d16h

This is mostly for importing to/from other browsers. It’s a very common operation for onboarding.

jwells89
3 replies
1d16h

One way to accomplish this that doesn’t make it easy for unscrupulous apps to suck up browser data is for the OS or stock browser to be able to export an archive of user data that Firefox (or other browsers) could then import. Adds a bit of friction but much more difficult to abuse.

deno
2 replies
1d7h

There are two problems with that: 1) Mobile users don’t know how to use files 2) Where do you export it? If you put it in one of the shared folders now the unencrypted archive of all user’s data is just sitting in a folder that many unrelated apps can access.

jwells89
1 replies
1d3h

Make a standardized file type for web data archives, which then allows other browsers (which can open it) to show up in a share sheet that shows up when the user taps an export button.

This sends the file directly to the other browser which can then do as it pleases with the data. No filesystem knowledge required, and share sheets are common mobile user knowledge.

shadowgovt
0 replies
19h43m

The problem is that the question of what is a "browser" is an easy question for humans to answer but doesn't line up to software.

The short story is that the permission model would have to be changed; they have to add an Android permission for sharing browsing data that apps would have to declare and users would have to opt into. And of course that increases the risk surface area; We know from past examples that malicious apps sneak through (or non-malicious apps previously signed off on end up purchased by someone else and become malicious) and users really don't understand security.

The state is extractable via Google take out and the safest solution might honestly be to not support this directly on Android and instead require Mozilla to figure out how to import a takeout archive via the cloud.

naitgacem
2 replies
1d13h

I think this is disingenuous. we can already import contacts and other sensitive data with no "privacy leak". they're not requiring unvetted import functionality, from the issue:

  Android is able to mediate access to other sensitive data with user consent.

johanbcn
1 replies
1d9h

Yeah, but that means all major browsers agreeing on a standard, and we all know how that goes.

naitgacem
0 replies
12h19m

Doesn't have to be all major browsers. Android itself can mediate this. we already have that for other types of data. apps can request to read SMS or your contacts, these are called `ContentProvider`s.

crummy
2 replies
1d16h

As a user who wants to easily migrate to a new browser, I would like the new browser to have access to the old browsers bookmarks etc to make the process easier.

zimpenfish
1 replies
1d7h

You'd implement that as an export from the old browser though - that way it's an explicit "yes, please" from the user allowing the new browser access rather than allowing holes that nefarious people will exploit.

Vinnl
0 replies
1d7h

Yes, and an export from the old browser would count as "making it accessible to other browsers".

But that's not possible, hence it being listed among the issues.

Qwertious
1 replies
1d12h

As a user, why the hell do I want third party applications to be able to access my browser's history, bookmarked sites, and cookies?

That's an obvious privacy leak!

No it's not. It's only a leak if they access that data without your permission. There's nothing wrong with them being able to request that data, with you-the-user being able to respond to that request "fuck no".

pmontra
0 replies
1d10h

Better than that, add an export feature to Safari that must be activated by a user action. That would probably be in the spirit of GDPR's right to access one's own data.

g-b-r
0 replies
1d15h

For history and cookies it's definitely objectable, but it's essential that the bookmarks be exportable and reimportable.

Something that Firefox on Android doesn't support, by the way :facepalm: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/417

charcircuit
0 replies
1d16h

I agree. The justification "but desktop operating systems let us do it" means nothing to me because desktop operating systems are known for having bad security. It only works on those systems because there is no security for programs reading each other's data.

KTibow
5 replies
1d13h

As an Android user the main reason I don't use Firefox is that it feels slower, not because of any anticompetitive behavior. In Firefox, there's often layout shifts when I load the home page, keyboard animations sometimes jump around, I can't use the "release to select" menu option, etc.

yorwba
2 replies
1d12h

What is "release to select"?

OJFord
1 replies
1d7h

You right click and hold, context menu opens, you navigate to the option you want, and release your click to select that option.

It's definitely configurable, I don't know what the default is, but I had it on accidentally once and it took me a while even to figure out what was happening (I kept accidentally opening new tabs, or whatever the top item is).

yorwba
0 replies
1d7h

I probably should've asked "What is 'release to select' in the context of Android?"

recursive
0 replies
1d13h

I've been using it for years and never been able to notice this.

cma
0 replies
1d4h

Also basic keyboard nav shortcuts (external keyboard) don't work at all on Firefox.

ijhuygft776
3 replies
1d6h

The government need to force Google to advertise Firefox on Google.com...

jwells89
1 replies
1d3h

I would settle for forcing Google to stop leveraging their other products (search, YouTube, mobile apps, etc) to further entrench Chrome.

ijhuygft776
0 replies
1d3h

sounds like a fair compromise, if google hadnt been doing that for many years (the damage is already done)

acdha
0 replies
23h15m

I think federal regulations should be created to require two things:

1. Anyone who makes a browser is prohibited from advertising it on other sites owned within the same corporate hierarchy: no lying to YouTube users that they will have a better visit if use Chrome, etc.

2. Any organization which has a majority stake in a browser has to test every web app in every browser with more than 0.5% share, and has a time limit to fix any compatibility or performance issues except those caused by a browser not having good support for W3C standards. The idea there is preventing stuff like the long period where YouTube used a Chrome-only web components draft rather than the standard version Firefox and Safari implemented and served them a dog-slow polyfill instead but still allowing them to tell Apple that feature X doesn’t work well because the implementation in Safari needs to be improved.

madeofpalk
1 replies
1d6h

https://github.com/mozilla/platform-tilt/issues/3

JIT Support on iOS

This has been such an under-commented on factor of the whole "EU is going to force third-party rendering engines on iOS!" bit. Would Apple allow apps to support JIT? A new entitlement browser developers must apply for? It'll be interesting :)

I doubt it.

irq-1
0 replies
31m

LuaJit lists ios as supported: https://luajit.org/status.html#ios

Does anyone know if this is accurate? Was it true for old versions and no longer supported?

jwells89
1 replies
1d16h

Most of these are understandable, but the one talking about Messages integration on iOS gives me bad vibes. Specifically a “recently sent links” API for Messages that the user must opt into wouldn’t be a problem but full access to message data is not something that I (and I suspect many others) would ever consent to a third party app having (even if Mozilla is the dev).

As for extensions on iOS, Orion has the capability to install extensions from both the Chrome and Firefox extension galleries which would suggest this either isn’t actually a problem or slipped past App Review and has somehow remained available for years.

captn3m0
0 replies
1d9h

Yeah, Orion's support for Firefox extensions is a big red flag. These 2 issues on the Firefox-iOS tracker[0,1] around extensions and content blockers have long mentioned Orion, but there's no response from Mozilla.

[0]: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios/issues/7374

[1]: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios/issues/9155

Havoc
1 replies
1d8h

Great website...now we just need tech new reporters to be aware of it.

Aachen
0 replies
18h7m

But reporters don't care about things that already are. People click on things that are new. This Tilt site would need a "sort by newest" with some description sounding like "safari now does xyz" before anyone would bother reporting on it

This is also a large part of why we're so horribly misinformed about how well the world is doing. Ask anyone who "stays current" how it's going in the world, then look at virtually any statistic for any country spanning medium-range timespans (say, 15+ years) such as poverty, access to healthcare, longevity, basic vaccinations rate, education, equal gender opportunities... We have trouble with the intangible (such as climate change: 2 degrees across a generation are can't be noticed and attributed in an obvious before-your-eyes manner), but everything else is constantly improving everywhere and nobody reports that.

Trusting reporters to tell you what's up is a fool's errand, unfortunately, and I'm not even sure it's their fault

BitPirate
1 replies
1d7h

My biggest gripe with Firefox on Android is that sometimes I enter a domain in the address bar, press enter and nothing happens.

This behaviour seems to be erratic and only affects a few websites, such as https://forum.syncthing.net.

Closing the tab or using a different one doesn't solve the problem. I need to force close the app to fix this.

Aachen
0 replies
18h23m

I have this issue on desktop. They made some changes to the address bar that were essentially a no-op, boasted about it in a blog post I think, introduced some async race issues while making those changes, and left it broken for years after.

Still better than a google browser, even if I have my gripes...

sneak
0 replies
1d17h

Right-clicking a selection in macOS and selecting web search (perhaps only in Mail.app, I don’t recall) always opens Safari even if you have a different browser selected as default. They missed that one.

silon42
0 replies
1d4h

The main thing that I have to switch to non-Firefox is various video/audio conferencing software.

pmontra
0 replies
1d10h

"Google Search within the Google app"

Correct but I don't notice that because I search by opening Firefox and typing the search query there. It's an icon tap anyway. I don't use the search widget on the home screen, I removed it.

lamontcg
0 replies
1d15h

Copy and paste in google colab works correctly with chrome and not firefox.

dang
0 replies
1d16h