rgadellaa’s avatarrgadellaa’s Twitter Archive—№ 9,437

                              1. Reading through the comments, I noticed certain themes / lines of thought that keep popping up: - 3rd party browsers on iOS will allow Chrome to become dominant - Related: Web devs just want to build and test against one browser - OWA is pushing the Chrome agenda 🧵👇 x.com/MacRumors/status/1498998983796002818
                            1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
                              (Disclaimer: I've been involved with Open Web Advocacy (OWA) group for a little while, my opinion and especially wording below is my own but, in large, it should mostly cover the OWA standpoint regarding these matters) TL;DR: Read my full reply here: forums.macrumors.com/threads/web-developers-form-advocacy-group-to-allow-other-browser-engines-on-ios.2336367/page-5#post-30895966 2/n
                          1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
                            Let's tackle this first: - Allowing 3rd party browsers on iOS will allow Chrome to become dominant - Or: Apple is preventing a browser engine monoculture - Related: Web developers just want to build and test their sites for one browser 3/n
                        1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
                          First of all: none of these arguments are made by Apple (afaik?) as to why they only allow WebKit-based browsers on iOS. They point to privacy and security as the primary reason. 4/n
                      1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
                        Seeing how WebKit security bugs take the longest (and a full OS update) to fix when compared to other browsers - and that these bugs affect every single iOS user, no matter which "browser" they use - this argument can be quite easily dismissed. googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2022/02/a-walk-through-project-zero-metrics.html 5/n
                        oh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their API
                    1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
                  1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
                    Apple is certainly not the steward of browser competition and diversity (that's Mozilla's job ;)). Apple is, in fact, quite the opposite. 7/n
                1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
                  Apple enforces a browser monoculture on an entire platform that has up to 50% mobile market share in most western countries! No other major general computing device prohibits 3rd party browser engines. 8/n
              1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
                Meanwhile, Apple, the world's richest company, seems to starve the WebKit team from resources needed to compete (or even keep up) whether it comes to security fixes or APIs. 9/n
                oh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their APIoh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their API
            1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
          1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
            The OWA's hope is that allowing competition will create incentive for Apple to actually compete and invest in WebKit so users want to keep using it even if there are alternatives and developers want to support it because it's a great browser. 11/n
        1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
          Many macOS users use Safari (power of the default + it's actually a nice browser - from a user perspective, at least). Safari has unique selling points. And again, it's the default. 12/n
      1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
        The OWA actually wants *more* browsers on iOS like we have on every other general computing device, not less. 13/n
    1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
      Regarding developers and supporting multiple browser engines: supporting WebKit is quite a pain right now. You have to own a mac and at least one iDevice to debug any of the many bugs Safari will throw your way. 14/n
  1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
    Just look at this graph and you can probably tell which browser causes the most issues when building a site: 15/n
    oh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their API
    1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
      When Apple is forced to compete they will hopefully fix many of the current bugs, add features and improve the dev tools so devs can more easily debug those bugs that remain. 16/n
      1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
        There will always be sites (especially highly specialized web apps) that require a certain browser because they rely on a specific feature that no other browser (yet) supports. This is already the case right now. 17/n
        1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
          If WebKit catches up, the chance that a site requires specific browsers should actually decrease. If WebKit ends up ahead (as it once was, Google chose WebKit as the basis for Chrome for a reason), it will be the browser that the web app will target. 18/n
          1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
            I also noticed how quite a few Firefox users are choosing Apple's side, often times citing the Chrome monoculture argument. 19/n
            1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
              It strikes me as odd that people who use and/or work on a browser whose mission is to ship an independent alternative browser engine argue that it's a good thing that WebKit is the only engine allowed on iOS. Shouldn't they want a full Firefox browser on iOS? 20/n
              1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
                Now, on to the next topic: - OWA is pushing the Chrome agenda Again, the OWA wants *more* browsers on all platforms, not less. 21/n
                1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
                  We want more choice and we want that choice to matter. For example, we also strongly oppose apps like Google Search (on Android) and OSs like Windows not respecting default browser choice. We oppose apps like Facebook making it hard to open links in your default browser. 22/n
                  1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
                    It may seem like the OWA only targets Apple, but please believe me when I say we're not. The iOS browser ban is what we believe is the biggest issue that holds back the entire web - and we would like to see that fixed ASAP. But it's far from our only goal :) 23/n
                    1. …in reply to @RGadellaa
                      So head over to open-web-advocacy.org/ and check out what we're up to! #OpenWebAdvocacy #AppleBrowserBan 24/24
    2. …in reply to @RGadellaa
      Ugh the image is missing the explainer of what you're looking at: "Number of tests which fail in exactly one browser" In other words: lower is better :) #TweetsButEditable
      oh my god twitter doesn’t include alt text from images in their API