Open Web Advocacy
Google is working on bringing Chromium to iOS 🥂
After a more than decade long ban of competitive third party browsers on iOS, code commits shows that Google working on bringing Chrome to iOS.
A great step, but the battle is not over...
https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/03/googles_chromium_ios/
Eric Eggert
@owa Yay, looking forward to Google being finally able to ship Chrome-only features in docs, maps, mail, and YouTube. Finally they can use their monopolies to their full potential! Looking forward to be sold ads to even more efficiently because Google is finally able to track my every move. This will finally bring the golden age of browser diversity (unless you want to use any Google service, then use Chromium). Freedom!
Eric Eggert
@LovesTha @owa Other browsers that don’t work with Google products and that render websites slower because Google’s ad code is programmed in a way that delays other browsers? They have done it on the desktop. Normal users don’t care and when Google tells them that “Chrome ja the bee’s knees” on every property they visit, they will use it as they did on the desktop. It’s the end of browser diversity for most people.
LovesTha🥧
@yatil @owa probably means you'll be able to use a whole host of other browsers pretty soon too
Adrian Cochrane
@yatil You know, I've had this argument a Chrome dev recently. Fundamentally we couldn't get past that he thought browser engines had to be as complex as they currently are, and I don't.
Eric Eggert
@alcinnz It was always a mediocre idea to make the web something that has to compete with native apps instead of making it the best place to retrieve and share information. We stagnated in HTML for more than a decade now, after WHATWG took over to innovate and then did effectively nothing for semantics. So much wasted time.
Adrian Cochrane
@yatil Well, I hope to illustrate the potential which was lost!
I've got an auditory browser which is pretty-much complete, & have started one for use via TV remotes! I have had a bad experience with smart TV browsers...
Charles U. Farley
@yatil @alcinnz Perhaps you've forgotten or weren't around then, but the native app landscape was (in fact is IMO) pretty awful. So awful that people were willing to use browser-based apps even before V8 and Chrome came along to make JS speeds tolerable.
Eric Eggert
@freakazoid @alcinnz People made browser-based apps because it was easy to do. Had and has zero to do with speeds, indeed page weight has gone up and speeds down over the years. (And most use cases are better met by native apps for me. Better usability and platform integration. That’s important to me.)
Charles U. Farley
@yatil @alcinnz Yep. They made VB apps for the same reason. But those only worked on Windows. On Mac they made Hypercard apps. The web was the only thing that worked across all the platforms people used. That's still the case.
Adrian Cochrane
@freakazoid @yatil The main complaint I've heard at the time was regarding the difficulty of installation. I admit I've been pretty insulated away from that for a while now thanks to elementary & free desktops!
We've long had what are now being called "app stores", and with less controversial curation!
LovesTha🥧
@freakazoid @yatil @alcinnz we are getting closer to a native apps that run everywhere than we've ever been before, still unlikely and a way off. But it's a nice dream.
Adrian Cochrane
@freakazoid @LovesTha @yatil What about SDL? That's pretty universal!
Charles U. Farley
@LovesTha @yatil @alcinnz Yep, and the universal APIs are the web APIs, so I guess we need to figure out how to live with it.
Adrian Cochrane
@gnuplusknoppers @yatil @freakazoid I am the one who's stalling! /s
GNU/Knoppers
@yatil @freakazoid @alcinnz guess why platform integration on the web is not as good as on native mobile -- hint: it's not Google who's stalling
Charles U. Farley
@alcinnz @gnuplusknoppers @yatil Apple has ruined mobile just like Google has ruined the web.
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