Open Web Advocacy in Elk: "For example in the Mozilla Web De..."

Both @mozilla and @apple have just published their views on the

in response to the UKs investigation into mobile browsers.

Mozilla wishes to be allowed to port Firefox with Gecko to iOS.

Apple firmly refuses to remove the WebKit restriction.

Mozilla believes that neither @apple nor @google should be able to grant their own browsers exclusive privileges on their respective operating systems. OWA strongly supports this position.

Mozilla believes that browser vendors should have access to certain operating system APIs in order to allow greater browser competition and differentiation (even if those APIs are not being used currently by Safari). The remedy must take careful consideration of security concerns.

Mozilla supports the CMA’s investigation into in-app browsers:
“In-app browsers can be used to bypass consumer choice … In-app browsers can also be used by native apps to undermine user privacy, for example collecting data without the consumer’s knowledge or consent”

Finally Mozilla believes that both Apple and Google should participate more in various browser standards bodies to ensure interoperability.

We encourage you to read Mozilla’s full response here:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63e22fa1d3bf7f172f6ce872/Mozilla.pdf

Apple is concerned that the UK regulator has already decided that browser competition on iOS would be beneficial to consumers. This is misleading as Market Investigation References are EXPENSIVE and only launched in the event the CMA believes there are severe competition issues.

Apple contends that Safari is an excellent mobile browser that rapidly implements features for developers. They fail to mention some of these changes (such as Push Notifications) are in direct response to the pressure from regulators (and OWA) to allow third party browsers on iOS.

Notifications came out for Native Apps in 2009, but Apple “coincidently” started working on Push Notifications, two weeks after OWA met with the UK regulator. Our primary example of a critical missing feature was Push Notifications, but our proposed solution was real competition.

In Apple’s opinion the competition for browsers and browser engines is robust and that Apple’s approach (banning rival browser engines, effectively banning rival browsers) in fact increases competition for browsers and browser engines.

Ignoring the evidence to the contrary, Apple states that they are meeting the needs and demands of developers. Additionally they state that they only do not release features due to security and privacy considerations as opposed to budget or Web App competition with their App Store.

For example in the Mozilla Web Developer Needs Assessment 2020 Survey when asked which browser caused the most issues (ignoring the now deprecated Internet Explorer), developers overwhelmingly picked Safari as the browser causing the most issues.

February 8, 2023 at 10:57:20 AM

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And in the State of CSS survey when asked about “pain points”. Developers overwhelmingly discussed Safari which is mentioned 369 times, Chrome and Firefox are only mentioned negatively 12 and 11 times respectively.

Apple states that browsers on iOS can compete now as certain features can be added without modifying the browser engine. Rival browser vendors are UNABLE to add or fix the vast majority of browser features on iOS due to the UNMODIFIABLE WebKit WebView being imposed.

Apple brings up infrequently updated browsers as an issue. They do not propose the reasonable solution that regular updates could be a condition of entry.

This should not be onerous as iOS Safari is tied to OS updates and thus does not update as frequently as Firefox, Chrome and Edge.

Apple is concerned that allowing a choice of browser engine on iOS will remove iOS's users' choice not to have a choice of browser engine on iOS, a point of differentiation from Android.

OWA found this argument to be both absurd and amusing.