Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apples-browser-engine-ban-persists-even-under-the-dma/

by yashghelani • 1 year ago

514 345 1 year ago

open-web-advocacy.org

v5v32• 1 year ago

That you for your ongoing work Open Web Advocacy.

Tepix• 1 year ago

Yes, Thank you! Someone has to do it, Apple is clearly dragging their feet as much as possible.

v5v32• 1 year ago

Just so you know, my post thanking you has 15 upvotes at present.

So 16 people are thanking you together.

simondotau5• 1 year ago

The open web requires browser diversity in order to remain healthy, far more than it needs individuals to have browser choice. The former is important for the health of open standards; the latter only matters if you believe the web is whatever Google implements in Chrome.

Without healthy browser diversity, the web might as well be renamed the Chrome Protocol and the "browser choice" you care about so much is gone.

quitit3• 1 year ago

Android already has all of the things being demanded of Apple and there is no dawn of a new age. No demand for web apps. No demand for alternative browser engines. All that's there is the Chrome desert with a near-total market share and a sprinkling of alternative app stores that few trust or use.

It's a form of regulatory capture, coopting legislation to rid the market of remaining competition.

concinds• 1 year ago

That's a deeply fallacious argument.

https://infrequently.org/2022/06/apple-is-not-defending-brow...

mtomweb4• 1 year ago

Thanks so much! it’s been a four-year journey just to get this far, and none of it would have been possible without the volunteers who donate their time just for the belief in a better future for the web! Will be passing this comment on!

TheDong2• 1 year ago

I agree with the point about non-EU web developers.

As long as people in the US can't test their web app on "firefox for iOS" without first buying a plane ticket to the EU and getting an EU sim card, all eu-only browser engines on iOS will be second-class citizens.

I think the next logical extension is that actually limiting general public use across the entire world makes apple less compliant with the DMA. Mozilla will not be able to justify putting significant effort into the iOS port as long as it can only reach a small fraction of users, so in reality the way to get browser-engine competition in the EU is to mandate that apple _not_ impose EU-specific rules about what apps can be installed.

mtomweb4• 1 year ago

And it can’t just be the woefully insufficient TestFlight 10k users because there are possible upwards of a million developers who need to test their websites/web apps in the EU.

ThatMedicIsASpy2• 1 year ago

What a load of BS. How can I test my website on safari without owning Apple hardware? I can't so I don't.

conradfr3• 1 year ago

Not the most practical but you can rent a macOS VM.

freeAgent• 1 year ago

It’s relatively easy to own Apple hardware when one lives outside the EU, but basically impossible to use that hardware to run their own browser engine on iPhones or iPads.

lmm• 1 year ago

How can I test my website on safari without owning Apple hardware?

Download the windows version from their website?

If Apple doesn't want to make their browser available for other hardware that's on them and they'll suffer the consequences. Blocking other entities from making their browser available on Apple's hardware is very different.

TheDong2• 1 year ago

I mean, ideally you can choose to _not_ do so, tell your users "We only support Firefox and Chrome on iOS, and not Safari, because we do not own apple hardware", and then report bugs to mozilla/chrome if iOS users report differences.

Being able to run cross-platform browsers on iOS does in fact make the very thing you're complaining about better.

I would love it if the EU did in fact force apple to release a cross-platform iOS emulator to allow web developers to properly test iOS browsers, but presumably apple would argue that there are strong technical reasons there (and the DMA differentiates real technical reasons from monopolistic arbitrary roadblocks).

For making browsers available across regions, that's very obviously not driven by strong technical reasons. Making cross-platform code has real technical burden.

pmontra2• 1 year ago

I develop on Firefox and it works on Chrome and Safari with no issues on all OSes (Windows, Mac and Linux). In the extremely rare case when there are some platform specific issues customers tunnel to my dev machine and check the web app (it's Vue) with their iPhones or Macs. I remember only two issues in about 3 years with this customer, all of them with the Apple ecosystem:

1. A form that could not find anymore a picture when they selected it from the Mac Photos app. Apparently Photos creates a temporary file that disappears before the browser submits the form, when probably reads it again from disk. No problems when the picture is loaded from a normal folder. We should read the picture into the memory of the browser and add it to the form from there, of transition to a JSON request. My customer decided that it's a niche case and it's not worth working on it.

2. A slight misalignment of an arrow and a checkbox, but that also happens in a different way with Chrome and Firefox, so there is some structural bug in the DOM/CSS of those UI elements. We're working on that.

Except those issues I can't remember any cross browser or cross OS problems in the last years. If it works in Firefox it works in Chrome and Safari too.

jeroenhd2• 1 year ago

You can run Gnome Web for free. It's the open source version of WebKit so you won't be able to see all the tweaks Apple adds to their proprietary build, but it's close enough that obvious differences are visible, at least on desktop.

Safari on iOS cannot be tested without paying Apple so I generally don't for my personal stuff either.

All of that said, American developers often can't even be bothered to support characters like ñ or é, so I think it's quite reasonable to expect an EU browser to be a second class citizen for American developers. We can work around that pretty easily by simply not buying products and services that don't work well in the EU.

bookofjoe• 1 year ago

Go to an Apple store or use a friend's hardware.

Terretta• 1 year ago

How can I test my website on safari without owning Apple hardware?

Arduously?

Check this very surprising thing out:

https://github.com/WebKitForWindows/WebKitRequirements/relea...

This is how Playwright has a webkit engine. An old discussion:

https://schepp.dev/posts/running-webkit-on-windows/

And this visual engine rendering compare tool leverages it:

https://github.com/niutech/splitbrowser

Separately, not sure if/when this will be a real thing for Linux:

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/03/kag-orion-web-browser-co...

oblio4• 1 year ago

As long as people in the US can't test their web app on "firefox for iOS" without first buying a plane ticket to the EU and getting an EU sim card, all eu-only browser engines on iOS will be second-class citizens.

VM is EU. Heck, it can be an ephemeral instance on EC2, so it would only cost money while in use, probably tens of cents or something.

If there's a will, there's a way.

tehbeard• 1 year ago

Remote debug on iOS is ass unless you are fully invested into their ecosystem.

And apple has some "nice" licencing nonsense around their software that makes VMs not the "obvious" solution.

agust3• 1 year ago

Testing mobile interactions such as scrolling and swiping, as well as animations' performance cannot be done through a VM.

Only real devices allow to test these aspects properly.

oefrha• 1 year ago

I have a bit of experience with cloud mobile simulators (like Appetize). Ignoring the question of whether their simulators have EU builds that allow running alternative browser engines, the experience simply sucks for developing interactive apps.

amadeuspagel• 1 year ago

You can't develop an app if you aren't able to test it like a real user would use it on a real device.

extraduder_ire• 1 year ago

Apparently, a faraday bag and an ESP32 is all that's needed to make an iOS device think it's in the EU.

I saw it posted on hn before. Apparently, you emulate some wifi APs that are geolocated to inside the EU and that's enough.

selckin• 1 year ago

This Apple policy is the only thing stopping chrome from having a full monopoly, and we should be careful trying to remove it

elashri2• 1 year ago

It is shame that this is true. However it should not mean that we need to accept this situation. Hopefully Google anti competitive practices with Chrome can be addressed at the same time.

systemtest2• 1 year ago

Those popups I get multiple times a day about how this website works better on Chrome , which cover half my screen and which forward me to the App Store, are incredibly misleading. I have misclicked many times and then the App Store opens up. If you go back to the browser and hit the back button, it will again open the App Store. I have to press and hold the back button and skip multiple pages to get back to what I was doing.

windward• 1 year ago

Monopolies are made illegal because they limit consumer choice and the role of competition in the free market, distorting incentives.

The status quo has all of the problems of a monopoly. Doing this or not doing this won't change that. But it will remove another barrier to consumers being able to do what they want.

simondotau5• 1 year ago

I care about the web remaining a truly open platform based on standards rather than the whims of a singular software project. What matters is browser diversity, even if it's at the expense of browser choice. Because without healthy browser diversity, the web might as well be renamed the Chrome Protocol and you lose browser choice anyway.

Apple, with their iOS browser lock-in, is the greatest gift ever to the open web.

yxhuvud• 1 year ago

No, the status quo has the problems of a whole series of interconnected monopolies. More than one will need to be broken up before we are out of it, but one step at a time. I'd be surprised if chrome is still part of google when the politicians have reached a happy state.

eviks• 1 year ago

We're very careful, it's not being removed even after blatantly illegal actions, and even then the mandate isn't global, and we've waited for many years.

oblio4• 1 year ago

If Chrome has a full monopoly, guess what's the next logical action...

Might as well get it over with quickly.

In case it's not obvious, these crutches should be removed.

Treat Google paying Apple for the use of Google's search engine and Mozilla for the same thing, as anti-competitive (they're token gestures propping up the monopoly).

And break Google up in multiple companies. Not sure along which lines but I would steer towards platforms (Android + Chrome + Search + Docs + Cloud; banned from entering advertising), Play Store, Ads.

The same thing should be done to Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. Nobody has the guts anymore.

bapak3• 1 year ago

Nobody has the guts anymore.

I think nobody has the manpower to deal with all the shit. The EU already regularly fines big companies, but for every fine they get away with so much.

bapak3• 1 year ago

I would not be surprised if Google is lobbying like the whole company depended on it.

rafaelmn• 1 year ago

Google has an incentive to make everything work through the web. Safari has the incentive to gatekeep the app store revenue, which is why PWAs are a joke on iOS.

Google also has bad incentives (Android, ads) but Safari is the IE6 of modern web.

idonotknowwhy3• 1 year ago

Chrome is the IE6 of the modern Web. Devs are building hacky sites that only work in Chrome.

It's the browser we're FORCED to have installed for the occasional shitty flight or hotel booking that doesn't work in Firefox.

superkuh• 1 year ago

Work? No. Google has an incredible incentive to make everything javascript so they can make money through spying. The web is HTML.

ec1096852• 1 year ago

Are PWA’s better and more popular on Android?

idonotknowwhy3• 1 year ago

100%! Without the Safari walled garden, start ups won't bother considering cross platform testing.

utf_8x• 1 year ago

Maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing. Maybe chrome capturing the majority of the iOS market would finally be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back and pushes regulators towards forcing Google to sell Chrome.

9dev4• 1 year ago

Or… Sundar Pichai has lunch with Trump, brings with him a few nice cigars and a Google-sponsored Yacht (I hear he’s still short on these), explains to him how that’s all just a liberal media fake news campaign against good American products, and they decide to axe regulatory bodies instead.

zamadatix2• 1 year ago

Maybe when all browsing is under one monopoly then we'll finally care to regulate it properly instead of sticking our fingers in our ears and saying we have a different monopoly for iOS users so everything is fine.

amelius2• 1 year ago

We have to put more power in the hands of one organization that fights for our rights.

Consider adding this to your website:

    <script src="https://eff.org/defend_the_web.js"></script>

This link does not exist right now, but it will allow EFF to take control when necessary. E.g. by nudging people away from Chrome if it becomes too powerful.

beeflet2• 1 year ago

chrome could just block the script if they try this

resource_waste4• 1 year ago

That is some wild moral coating.

fkyoureadthedoc6• 1 year ago

It's the unfortunate truth. Nobody gives a shit about Firefox, not even Mozilla. Safari is the only major non chromium browser. You get rid of it and Google basically has full control of web standards and we've come full circle.

throwaway229864• 1 year ago

This is an understandable concern, but it's not actually supported by the data.

On MacOS, where there has long been engine choice, Safari market share is >50%. Defaults are powerful and many users are happy with the real and perceived benefits of the first-party brand.

Safari has >90% market share on iOS today. If engine competition were permitted, they might lose a few percent initially, but would be highly motivated to close any gaps.

There's no world in which WebKit usage among the world's wealthiest consumers drops low enough that web developers can target a chromium monoculture. The purpose of engine choice is to create real competition in order to motivate Apple to do better.

danaris3• 1 year ago

Unfortunately, the problem is that what's needed is for a massive special antitrust operation to address the tech sector as a whole, unravel all the various anticompetitive, bundling, and otherwise monopolistic behavior they all engage in, and implement remedies on all of them at once.

But the US's system certainly doesn't allow that (and, of course, there isn't going to be any serious antitrust in the US for the foreseeable future anymore). I have no idea if the EU's does, but I really don't think they have sufficient jurisdiction to do things like break up Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Which is definitely necessary to address these problems.

Make no mistake: the reason we are here is because of the morally- and intellectually-bankrupt shift to the Chicago School-backed philosophy of antitrust under Reagan, coupled with a government—at all levels, in all branches—that didn't understand technology, and collectively refused to learn, for decades.

freedomben3• 1 year ago

I don't disagree, but this is an "ends justifies the means" type of argument, which generally speaking I struggle with. I think sometimes the end does justify the means (within reason of course), but I try to be very cognizant when that is the position.

I do also think there are a lot of downsides to letting big tech companies exercise tight control over stuff, especially when it is anti-competitive. The slowing of Chrome is a good outcome, but there are plenty of other downsides that come along with allowing Apple (and others) to have these policies.

saagarjha• 1 year ago

Unfortunately the problem here is that Apple decides that they are the only entity that knows how to do security and no you can't see how they do it. This means whatever choices they make are clearly the right ones.

fabian2k2• 1 year ago

The simple fact that they restrict this to the EU, where they are forced to provide the option, shows that Apple is not serious about this. They're barely fulfilling the letter of the law here.

If this would be only about security as Apple claims, there would be no reason to restrict this to the EU and to force Browser vendors to publish other engines as separate apps after they meet the security conditions Apple imposes.

bapak3• 1 year ago

Apple is not serious about this. They're barely fulfilling the letter of the law here.

Is that surprising in any way?

They've been asked to not reject third party browser engines in the EU. Check.

Google has plenty of developers in the EU so I'm not even sure what people want exactly.

tonyhart72• 1 year ago

they want apple adhere to EU law for everyone outside the EU lol

how can people think like this

giingyui2• 1 year ago

It’s actually the opposite, no? If it’s about security it makes sense they choose to compromise the security of their platform only where they are forced to.

MangoToupe3• 1 year ago

Security for who against what threat? It's hard to make the case this is possibly in the users' interest.

This is about securing the phone in Apple's interest against the desires of the user.

tonyhart72• 1 year ago

"shows that Apple is not serious about this"

noo, that how law works

EU make an law that forces Apple to adhere, apple make changes that suit the new law

if its works in EU only then its working as intended

sealeck3• 1 year ago

The simple fact that they restrict this to the EU, where they are forced to provide the option, shows that Apple is not serious about this. They're barely fulfilling the letter of the law here.

Apple may or (more likely) may not be complying in terms of allowing third party browser engines, but I don't see how you can argue that not implementing this _outside_ the EU fails to comply with EU law (which applies _inside_ the EU).

That's not to say they shouldn't allow this elsewhere (although it will just cement the Chrome monopoly - actually _decreasing_ competition and solidifying the incumbent's position) but I don't think you can argue that this law requires them to do that.

fabian2k2• 1 year ago

I'm not saying this is against the law, but it is clear that Apple only moves exactly as far as the EU forces it to, not a bit more. And within the limits the law allows, they're doing everything they can to make it tedious and difficult to actually get alternative apps stores or browser engines on their OS.

bluesign• 1 year ago

Now basically the situation is: No browser vendor wants to port their engine, because cost > benefit.

I think the discussion should focus more on why benefit is this small for users to switch.

With browser selection dialog, I think vendors have already 0 cost channel for UA. I don't think new binary would make a big difference.

Jyaif3• 1 year ago

Safari is the highest margin product Apple has ever made.

Anybody has the number of committers to webkit from Apple? It would give us a good idea on the margin of the product.

Assuming 100 engineers costing Apple 500k per year, that's 50 millions in investment for 20 billion in revenue.

For each 1% browser market share that Apple loses for Safari, Apple is set to lose $200 million in revenue per year.

They should be investing like crazy to make Safari the best browser out there instead of just relying on their monopole. And why the fuck is there no Windows version to make their iOS users happy?

Batman8675309• 1 year ago

They should be investing like crazy to make Safari the best browser out there instead of just relying on their monopole. And why the fuck is there no Windows version to make their iOS users happy?

Simple. Apple doesn't want you to use Windows. They want you to buy an expensive Apple computer instead.

robin_reala• 1 year ago

Why would you only count engineers?

Jyaif3• 1 year ago

Same reason I choose 500k, it's an approximation.

doabell• 1 year ago

They should be investing like crazy to make Safari the best browser out there

So true. It didn’t occur to me that I had naturally assumed Safari to be worse, when it would have been better in a more competitive market. So by relying on monopolistic behavior, Apple is also partly responsible for the Chromium monopoly (that this law will help solidify).

layer83• 1 year ago

They don't want their iOS users to be happy using Windows.

llm_nerd• 1 year ago

FWIW, there is a very high probability that Google's $20B yearly payment to Apple is going to vanish, pending a current trial.

Safari is actually a pretty great browser, both technically and from a user perspective, and the complaints often levied on sites like this usually boil down to "Why do alternatives to Chrome exist? So annoying! I'm incredibly lazy and want to just deploy whatever half-baked non-standard ad-benefiting nonsense Google threw into Chrome this month". There was a Safari for Windows for some time but they had a small enough uptake that they abandoned it.

shusaku• 1 year ago

Honestly those barriers they complain about are not so high. I don’t believe any major browser vendor is deterred by this.

mtomweb4• 1 year ago

We do talk to the browser vendors. The bundle ID one by itself ensures it's unviable project. That's why 15 months in, there are no alternative browser engines in the EU.

pickledoyster3• 1 year ago

On top of that, iOS continues to push Safari on users by disregarding their default browser settings.

Steps to reproduce: 0. Select a different default browser, delete the Safari app (just for good measure, even though it's not really possible just like deleting IE in older Win versions) 1. Open the Books app 2. Select text 3. Select Search 4. Press Search the Web 5. Safari search results open as you stare in disbelief

boroboro4• 1 year ago

They do similarly with dates and calendar app. Disgraceful.

FirmwareBurner9• 1 year ago

Apple knows that what they're doing is against the law, but every day, every month, every year they can get away with it, till the hammer of the law inevitably strikes, is more money in their pocket. So delaying it by every means necessary is what's in their best interest, it's what their lawyers are paid to do because each such decision of conforming to the law boils down to an accounting decision for them: "are the potential fines bigger than the profits".

You know a company has long lost the innovation race when the company is run by the lawyers and bean counters instead of the engineers, trying to milk their product lines form 10+ years ago. I wonder how long until they resort to becoming a patent troll ... oh wait. Their final form will be selling ads to their users.

IshKebab• 1 year ago

Google does this too on Android in a few places. Stuff still opens in Chrome even if Firefox is the default.

xnx• 1 year ago

Do you know of an example? I use a non-Chrome browser on Android and can't remember encountering this.

0xTJ• 1 year ago

I have Chrome disabled, and every link that I open comes up in the standalone non-full-browser version of Firefox. I don't know if it would behave differently is Chrome was available, but I don't give it the chance.

the_third_wave• 1 year ago

No Chrome, no problem. Just remove it or - better still - never install it. Use an AOSP-derived distribution like Lineage, use Cromite as system we view and all your browser engines are belong to you.

sexy_seedbox2• 1 year ago

Install "Choose Browser": https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.ub0r.androi...

I have this installed and all links I can choose between Kiwi Browser or Firefox.

khalic• 1 year ago

This is because the safari app is a wrapper for apple’s webview, which is the only way to display web content on iOS, that’s what the article is talking about

pickledoyster3• 1 year ago

No. This is not webview, this is opening a full Safari browser instance and disregarding the user's default browser setting. It also used to be the case with doing a dictionary look up anywhere in iOS too, where the user selects a word, uses the popup menu to Loop Up, and then selects Search Web. This resulted in the absurd situation where you're using your default browser, looking up a word, selecting Search Web and then having Safari (again, not the default browser) open with a search query. Thankfully, at least that behavior has changed recently

resource_waste4• 1 year ago

That literally sounds like Windows 11 with edge.

int_19h• 1 year ago

Interestingly this is not the case on iOS. So much so that Apple Mail has an option in context menu for hyperlinks to open them in any of the installed browsers (while respecting your choice of the default).

nntwozz• 1 year ago

Another reminder of Rockefeller’s reputed remark, “Competition is a sin.”

Apple is behaving like the Standard Oil Company of the 2020s.

wdb• 1 year ago

I am not convinced this will help getting more browser engines in general. Currently, it's Chromium that dominates. That's worse than webkit only on iOS in my opinion.

pmkary• 1 year ago

I wonder why they should make iOS specific engines. To be honest only two things come to my mind: Shortcuts Integration and WebExtensions. Currently Orion is trying to bring extensions but I think there is a lot to be done for that to be considered operational and if that proves to work, then only remains Shortcuts which only lets you inject JS, or say get the content of a page from a "Safari" web page (while I think every webview is basically a Safari page).

That brings me to this: Chrome extensions are valuable and we know as early as the rumors of Apple being forced to open up, Google started working on iOS port, but really, is there any justification for bringing a browser engine to iOS? I really don't understand how will it be beneficial when the user probably will notice anything.

Also we only have like four players to enter: Google (which will come), Mozilla (broke and miss-managed as hell), GNOME Web (will never come), Ladybug Browser (they are crazy and will definitely come someday, but it takes a long time for them to be an actual player)

So my question is: Will all this effort even fruit?

agust3• 1 year ago

Browser engines define the capabilities of web apps and websites. When they don't support APIs or have bugs, they impact negatively web software.

Apple's WebKit is renowned to be lagging behind, refusing to implement crucial features and being rigged with bugs, hence limiting the capabilities and quality of web apps, and effectively preventing them to compete with native apps.

Getting other browser engines on iOS would be beneficial for developers, businesses and end user by making mobile web apps viable.

rgovostes2• 1 year ago

So these web apps will prompt the user to install and configure a third-party browser engine?

xcrjm• 1 year ago

To be fair to Apple, as a user of Safari, I mostly agree with their feature omissions. Web developers have shown near limitless capacity for abusing new platform features and Apple has provided sound explanations for why they won't implement eg. web bluetooth. On the other hand as a web developer I have definitely suffered my fair share of Safari's incompatibilities (however I find myself in these situations less and less these days).

dickersnoodle• 1 year ago

Hopefully not. If Chrome gets to take over the whole browser world, everyone's desktop will wind up looking like a scene out of "Blade Runner" with all of the ads.

tristan957• 1 year ago

GNOME Web is just chrome around WebKit.

stockresearcher4• 1 year ago

Even if you get past the roadblocks Apple has put in place, it’s not beer and skittles for browser makers in the EU.

The CRA, which is now in effect, lists browsers as class I important products. Technical documentation, design documentation, user documentation, security conformance testing, a declared support period at the time of download, software bill of materials, the legal obligation to respond to and make all your internal documents available to market surveillance organizations, etc.

And if the EU doesn’t publish harmonized development standards by 2027, you will be required to pay a 3rd party to come in and analyze you, your design, and the security of your browser, and make a report to send to the market surveillance organization, who gets to decide if you have the requisite conformance.

Are you sure that anyone but the big boys want to make a browser in the EU?

Here is the law, please point out where I am wrong. Much appreciated :)

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L...

op00to2• 1 year ago

Holy cow, they’re serious:

Penalties:

• Up to €15 million or 2.5 % of global turnover for essential requirement failures.

• €10 million or 2 % turnover for other obligations.

• €5 million or 1 % turnover for misleading or incomplete documents

On the one hand, these are important standards. On the other, it seems impossible for small shops to adhere to a lot of this.

FirmwareBurner9• 1 year ago

Hear me out, I have a tinfoil hat theory. What if, those requirements weren't put to help small shops making a new browser, but to guarantee the big shops who already have a browser are getting fined? *hits bong*

poisonborz2• 1 year ago

Watch them not enforce this at all whenever they need something from the US, like how they delayed (and afaik still do) heavy Google/Meta/Apple fines for DMA. Laws don't matter, only enforcement. See TikTok ban.

dns_snek• 1 year ago

As usual this is a panicked overreaction. No, startups won't be fined out of existence by the iron fist of regulators who despise innovation.

(93) In relation to microenterprises and small enterprises, in order to ensure proportionality, it is appropriate to alleviate administrative costs without affecting the level of cybersecurity protection [...] It is therefore appropriate for the Commission to establish a simplified technical documentation form targeted at the needs of microenterprises and small enterprises. [...] In doing so, the form would contribute to alleviating the administrative compliance burden by providing the enterprises concerned with legal certainty about the extent and detail of information to be provided. [...]
(96) In order to ensure proportionality, conformity assessment bodies, when setting the fees for conformity assessment procedures, should take into account the specific interests and needs of microenterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises, including start-ups. In particular, conformity assessment bodies should apply the relevant examination procedure and tests provided for in this Regulation only where appropriate and following a risk-based approach
(97) The objectives of regulatory sandboxes should be to foster innovation and competitiveness for businesses by establishing controlled testing environments before the placing on the market of products with digital elements. Regulatory sandboxes should contribute to improve legal certainty for all actors that fall within the scope of this Regulation and facilitate and accelerate access to the Union market for products with digital elements, in particular when provided by microenterprises and small enterprises, including start-ups.
(118) [...] specify the simplified documentation form targeted at the needs of microenterprises and small enterprises, and decide on corrective or restrictive measures at Union level in exceptional circumstances which justify an immediate intervention [...]
(120) [...] When deciding on the amount of the administrative fine in each individual case, all relevant circumstances of the specific situation should be taken into account [...], including whether the manufacturer is a microenterprise or a small or medium-sized enterprise, including a start-up [...]. Given that administrative fines do not apply to microenterprises or small enterprises for a failure to meet the 24-hour deadline for the early warning notification of actively exploited vulnerabilities or severe incidents having an impact on the security of the product with digital elements, nor to open-source software stewards for any infringement of this Regulation, and subject to the principle that penalties should be effective, proportionate and dissuasive, Member States should not impose other kinds of penalties with pecuniary character on those entities.

stockresearcher4• 1 year ago

I have two comments:

First, I believe that you are correct in that small enterprises are not going to be fined out of existence (unless they continually fail to adhere to CRA requirements). The issue is that if you want to make a browser in the EU, you have to be extremely serious about it.

Second, you are quoting from the section of the act that the EU uses to lay out their reasoning, justification, and thought process. This section is not legally binding. The actual text (page ~28 and beyond in the linked document) is what controls. We have seen from DMA enforcement in regard to Apple that the EC does not consider conflicts between the two sections to be important.

danbruc• 1 year ago

We are not generally used to this in our field but just think about the amount of paperwork you have to go through in order to construct a bridge or an airplane. Browsers have become a critical component and it seem not really unexpected that there will eventually be legal requirements to help to ensure that browsers are safe given the amount of software that runs on top of browsers. And this is also not new, there have been legal requirements for all kinds of software for a long time, you will just not think about those unless you work in an affected area.

Seattle3503• 1 year ago

How will regulations on browsers make us safer though?

dmitrygr• 1 year ago

Are you seriously suggesting that becoming more regulated like bridge/building builders is GOOD for software?

You sure you are ready to freeze all innovation forever? Cause there is a well documented inverse relationship between regulation and innovation. (Small teams cannot afford compliance officers and other such dross. Big ones do move fast, and, without competition from the smells, do not need to)

gruez3• 1 year ago

but just think about the amount of paperwork you have to go through in order to construct a bridge [...]

Yeah, I do. Guess which industry has seen negative productivity growth in the past 2 decades, even though the broader private sector grew by 50%?

https://www.economist.com/content-assets/images/20250712_WBC...

beeflet2• 1 year ago

Curious then that this safety regulation should apply only to browsers on iOS and not every other type of app distributed.

GGByron• 1 year ago

"Are you sure that anyone but the big boys want to make a browser in the EU?"

Surely that's the point - a collusive oligopoly making end runs around the "free market". Just look at all the other replies, rich with apologia.

hungmung• 1 year ago

Can somebody tell me if this applies to FOSS browsers?

paisawalla• 1 year ago

Someone will need to establish an entity to bring a distributable version of that browser to an app store, and in doing so, taking on the compliance liability.

scarface_747• 1 year ago

Two of the arguments just aren’t true.

If you use another browser today even if it does use Apple’s engine, Apple’s not making search revenue from Google.

The second point is that it came out in the Epic trial that 90% of App Store revenue comes from games and in app purchasing. Those apps are not going to the web.

Third, if the only thing stopping great web apps is Apple, why aren’t their popular web apps for Android and why do companies that produce iOS apps still create Android apps instead of telling Android users to just use the web?

lozenge• 1 year ago

Yes but there's no reason to use another browser today, because the browsers aren't able to add differentiating features.

I don't think you are correct to assume games can't go to the web. Any feature they need from native APIs can be added to the web. Full screen, gyro, vibration, multi touch, payment APIs, notifications, WASM and GPU support are already on the web!

scarface_747• 1 year ago

Then why aren’t profitable games based on web technology on Android if it is just Apple holding it back?

But it’s not about the technology even then. Games make money via in app purchases by whales. In app purchasing is easy and they are able to tap into kids spending money. Most parents aren’t going to put their credit cards on kids phones. They will let kids do in app purchases with parental controls that are available on the App Store.

robertoandred2• 1 year ago

Web browsers aren't supposed to have differentiating features. There's a web standard that everyone's supposed to agree on and implement.

jsnell2• 1 year ago

I think the argument is that as long as 3p browsers are forced to be just thin WebKit wrappers, it's harder for them to compete against. Why even bother switching from the default when it's going to be the same slop with a different brand?

scarface_747• 1 year ago

Most people don’t care about the web engine. The ones who use Chrome now on Android care about bookmarks syncing, Google passwords, etc.

mtomweb4• 1 year ago

1. If you use either "Safari" or "Chrome" on iOS, then Apple gets paid. That's 97% of the market on iOS.

2. Many of those games could be rewritten in WebGPU/WebGL2.. if it saved them 30% appstore tax, and the install process was decent and they had frictionless payments, they'd move.

3. Because Apple is the primary target market, and if you've already built native for iOS, what's the advantage of doing web for Android if your not making the cost savings of only having to build one app. 70% of Desktop usage is now the web/web apps... that tells you what's possible if browsers can compete.

JustExAWS2• 1 year ago

That’s not true. Apple only gets paid for search going through Safari to Google.

If the game makers are do interested in saving the 30% tax, then why aren’t they making the games web based for Android? Gabe makers want the easy in app purchases and getting kids who while they don’t have credit cards on their phones, do have access to buy content in apps with parental controls.

How is iOS the primary market when 70% of mobile phones both worldwide and in the EU are on Android?

If they already have a web app for PCs, then why do they need to make an Android app too if web apps are so great on Android?

And if the web makes such a good platform for games, then why aren’t there more great games on the web that would run on PCs and Android unmodified?

itopaloglu833• 1 year ago

If you use another browser today even if it does use Apple’s engine, Apple’s not making search revenue from Google.

Yes, but this would limit the browser technology to Apple's implementation, or lack there of.

Those apps are not going to the web.

It's likely because the mobile browsers don't support enough graphics and lacking robust control features of native applications.

Third, if the only thing stopping great web apps is Apple ...

Having wide browser support across all operating systems would definitely increase the adoption speed of new technologies. Remember how IE7 kept us back for years?

That being said, a lot of people are bothered by Apple's success and would like to access to iOS ecosystem without paying anything to them.

scarface_747• 1 year ago

That still isn’t logical. If Apple is the only thing holding great web apps back, then why don’t companies just spend money on a web app + iOS app instead of also creating an Android app?

Even if they did an iOS app + web app for Android, if it were just Apple, they would still save money on Android Play Store fees.

But the truth is that browsers aren’t good enough on Android even though it is “open” [sic] and most Android phones sold are so underpowered that you have to make a native app to get any type of responsiveness.

Having the Firefox engine or Chrome engine isn’t going to make it any better. If the alternate browsers that are on the Mac are any indication from both companies - they are going to be slower and less battery efficient.

ygritte• 1 year ago

Apple's malicious compliance all the way down. They need to get hit with fines that actually hurt.

pxeger1• 1 year ago

Relatedly, all Google apps (e.g. Maps) on iOS try very hard to push Chrome on you (even though iOS Chrome still has to use WebKit). When you click an external link, they present you the options of Chrome, Google (the search app), or Safari. This happens even if you don't have Chrome/Google installed, so they take you to the App Store instead of opening the webpage. If you choose Safari, it still doesn't open Safari, it opens a web view inside Google Maps, from where you have to press yet another button to get it to open as a actual Safari tab. The menu has a "remember my choice for next time" switch, but it seems to reset every few times so it constantly re-nags you.

If the link goes to something that should open in another app (e.g. goes to instagram.com when I have the Instagram app installed), unless I satisfy its demands to install Chrome, it takes like 3 extra clicks to open in that other app.

davidcbc2• 1 year ago

I have never experienced this on iOS. I just tested it in Google maps and despite having Chrome installed it opened in Safari (my default) with no prompting or extra steps, it just immediately opened Safari

DanielHB• 1 year ago

Are you in the EU?

empath75• 1 year ago

This just started with me with youtube links last week. Super obnoxious.

kalleboo• 1 year ago

I just had this happen to me in Gmail last week. The last time it showed the nag screen was probably a year or so ago when I turned it off, so it seems they flipped it back on to boost some quarterly KPIs.

layer83• 1 year ago

Google Maps on iOS has a toggle “Ask me every time” that you can turn off, which maybe you did at some point.

wodenokoto• 1 year ago

The most infuriating of those are when you do a web search from safari and google give you an overlay on the result asking if you want to “continue” and if you do want to “continue” it tries to install the google app and breaks any way of getting back to your search. Because continue doesn’t mean “continue what you are doing”

I can’t believe that their search deal with apple allows that.

simondotau5• 1 year ago

I get that all the time. It's such an overtly dark pattern. Sad and disgusting.

technimad• 1 year ago

As a user I don’t get why Apple allows this user hostile behavior in an app they distribute in their app store.The platform has alternatives. iOS has a sharing sheet. iOS has a default browser setting (in EU).

layer83• 1 year ago

Google Chrome and Search offer in-app purchases from which Apple receives a share.

mrkstu2• 1 year ago

You have to download Google Maps in the first place- my (older teen and adult) kids don’t even have an entry point for Google, they just use Apple’s built in apps + ChatGPT.

OptionOfT• 1 year ago

Same with Reddit. They have their own share sheet, and then 'other' which goes to the iOS built-in one.

I wish Apple was more strict on this. There is no reason for them to have their own. Same with the photo viewer.

I love the iOS photo viewer, it allows me to select text directly to copy it etc, but Reddit needs to use their own.

On the other hand, it should be possible for me to set up a default photo viewer.

eddythompson80• 1 year ago

Yes, Apple should start rejecting apps with bad UX. However Apple defines bad is good for me /s

fkyoureadthedoc6• 1 year ago

Also extremely annoying that they implement their own share menu that you have to do an extra tap on to get to the native share menu. Amazon does this as well.

I assume it's so they can track what option you choose.

jermaustin1• 1 year ago

Reddit does this, too. It is used to measure sharing something as some sort of analytic/goal on your account for engagement. I tend to just screenshot them now after the annoying middle menu started popping up for me.

I really am not a fan of apps wanting me to engage more with the app when I'm trying to engage with real-life people.

aikinai• 1 year ago

I despise that phantom Share menu!

kccqzy3• 1 year ago

I don't experience this extra Share menu in Google Maps. The share button at a location directly brings up the iOS native share sheet.

kccqzy3• 1 year ago

I do not experience this at all. I remember having seen the browser choice screen in Google Maps but it consistently remembers my setting and does not nag me each time. My default browser isn't even Safari (it's Quiche Browser) and Google Maps correctly opens Quiche Browser whenever I click on a link.

troupo4• 1 year ago

All Google apps will forget this setting at one point. Usually after an update.

They used to be significantly more aggressive with it, but have dialed it back

SpikedCola• 1 year ago

In the same way, Apple is equally difficult about forcing the use of Apple Maps.

If you receive an address in an iMessage, clicking/long-holding will always open in Apple Maps. There is no way to share to Google Maps (it doesn't appear in the list), and the default setting to use Google Maps doesn't affect iMessage.

You have to copy the address, switch to Google Maps, paste it in, and search. I would much prefer clicking the address to open in the app of my choice.

dagmx• 1 year ago

The sharing is because Google doesn’t register a share provider.

I can share just fine from messages to other apps like Tesla or other mapping software like ABRP. I don’t see a Google Maps share provider anywhere on my device though

vladvasiliu2• 1 year ago

That's not what I observe, it opens in the "default app" for "navigation". I've just tried this on my iPhone, running iOS 18.5.

If I click on an address received via iMessage, it will open the "default app for navigation". If I long press it, the context menu will say "get directions" which opens the "default app", open in "google maps" if it's set as the default app. There's no option to open it in Apple Maps. If the "default app for navigation" is Apple Maps, everything I said above changes to Apple Maps.

If I click "share", Google Maps doesn't show up in the list, but neither does Apple Maps.

stahtops• 1 year ago

I don’t want it to open google maps or ask me to open google maps. Stop trying to make things worse for everyone.

Google maps and google.com shouldn’t prompt either. No prompts.

graealex• 1 year ago

Look, it's Apple, Google and Microsoft being at their peak of customer hostility. Each of them constantly push their own browser in their own products.

teekert• 1 year ago

If you use DDG browser or FireFox you'll find it dangling even below Safari, in a unattractively colored button "default browser". A slap in the face of course, why do you think I have an alternative default browser?

te_chris• 1 year ago

Yeah it's so stupid. I'm this close to ditching them.

unethical_ban• 1 year ago

I notice something similar in GrapheneOS. I have Play Services installed, but have never installed Google Maps.

When I click on a Google Maps link, I get asked by the OS if I want to open it using an app from the store (GMaps). I say no, go to google.com/maps and then get asked if I want to use the app or "Keep using Web". And of course at each stage, it could remember my choice, but it does not.

Bing's mobile UI is highly annoying, covering half the map by default with "recommendations". I still use it rather than Google whenever possible. Though I do use Waze when driving.

lucideer2• 1 year ago

This happens even if you don't have Chrome/Google installed, so they take you to the App Store instead of opening the webpage.

Curious which Android flavour this is on. I'm running stock Android & I've found:

1. Chrome app can be set to "Disabled", but cannot be entirely uninstalled

2. When modifying any system settings that involve choosing defaults from a list of apps that could include Chrome, Chrome still appears (despite being "Disabled") & if chosen for that action opens up Chrome surprisingly fast & is magically suddenly no longer "Disabled".

On the contrary, I have not had the issue you describe with Google apps (I mainly use Gmail & Maps & both always open Firefox for me with no reversions). I also have an iPhone (for work) & Apple's complete disregard for browser defaults for links opened from most apps (including 3rd-party) drives me insane. Slack opens in Firefox but most other apps give me a popup with only Safari & (ironically) Chrome as options - clicking Chrome brings me to the App Store.

gruez3• 1 year ago

>Relatedly, all Google apps (e.g. Maps) on iOS
Curious which Android flavour this is on

emphasis mine

deepsun• 1 year ago

Well, iOS apps do that all the time from their side, so I don't see any problem there. User suffers because of that, yes. On Android you set a default browser (like Firefox Mobile) and it's used almost always (except some security-sensitive login screens to the Google Services I believe).

bitpush• 1 year ago

I admire your skill in bringing up, and distracting everyone with Google in a post about Apple's shenanigans. No love lost for Google, but wasnt expecting to read about Google as a top comment on Apple thread.

lern_too_spel4• 1 year ago

Especially because the thing he's complaining about doesn't happen on Android. Why? Probably because Android supported setting a default browser app from the beginning, while iOS forced all links to open in Safari by default.

odyssey7• 1 year ago

Gosh, thanks for laying that out more clearly for me. I'll try giving Apple Maps another go.

Yeul3• 1 year ago

Interesting on Android you can easily set default browser and never get bothered about it.

jlokier• 1 year ago

Several comments point out this doesn't happen on Android.

I'm using Android, with my default browser set to Firefox Focus, and I found:

- Every few months, the default browser gets reset to Chrome. I don't know this has happened until I realise I'm looking at something in Chrome. Then I look at the default browser setting, see it changed to Chrome (without my consent, and as far as I know, no notification), and I change it back to Firefox Focus. This has happened at least twice in the last year.

- For a while, when opening things from Google Search it opened them in Chrome. However I'm unable to replicate that now.

kevin_thibedeau• 1 year ago

I would suspect your phone maker or a rogue app is changing it on you. That doesn't happen on a Motorola phone with FF.

ziotom78• 1 year ago

This might depend on the brand of the smartphone, as I am a regular Firefox user and I never experienced any unwanted change in the default browser of my Huawei P20 and Samsung A52 phones.

artursapek• 1 year ago

I've always hated the in-app web views on iOS. They fucking suck. It's so easy to lose your state accidentally. And it confuses me later when I'm trying to find a tab I had open in the Safari app, and finally realize it was open in a stupid ass web view instead so it's gone.

notnullorvoid• 1 year ago

As someone who despises Apple's anti-competitive behavior, I would be okay with them removing apps for this kind of abuse.

Setting a default browser means when I open a link it should always use that browser without prompting.

Facebook/Messenger are another case of not respecting default browser, and always open with their own in-app browser.

moogly• 1 year ago

Unrelatedly, I would say.

mmmlinux• 1 year ago

I get really annoyed when I open safari type something in the top bar to search the google search happens. then google has a pop up asking me if i want to be using google search app instead. to which the answers are Continue(highlighted in blue) or stay on web (almost grayed out). and if you forget and click on continue it takes you to the fucking app store. then if i go back to the browser and try to go back to the search that it definitely did. it takes me to the app store again. if i go back twice, i end up where i was before doing the search. fuck google and their dark patterns.

ctippett• 1 year ago

Oh my god yes, it's absolutely infuriating. I chastise myself every time I accidentally click Continue, because it means I have to suffer through another Safari→App Store→Safari→App Store loop..

komali23• 1 year ago

Safari is the highest margin product Apple has ever made, accounts for 14-16% of Apple’s annual operating profit and brings in $20 billion per year in search engine revenue from Google. For each 1% browser market share that Apple loses for Safari, Apple is set to lose $200 million in revenue per year.

Right now in many MRT stations throughout Taipei, there's ads for Safari. I don't think I ever in my life have seen an advertisement for a web browser until now. I guess now I know why.

ingohelpinger• 1 year ago

sell your apple stonks

semiquaver• 1 year ago

  > Safari is the highest margin product Apple has ever made, accounts for 14-16% of Apple’s annual operating profit

Does anyone know what this means? Safari is built in to the OS, how exactly would you measure its margin? Are they just talking about the Google search deal?

nikanj• 1 year ago

Safari has a minuscule team and brings in the Google money

swores3• 1 year ago

I think it's a bit misleading to call Safari a "high margin product" based on that logic, considering they could have made even more profit by not making it at all and just charge Google the exact same money to let them ship Chrome as the default iOS browser... (I mean an actual Chrome browser, not the Chrome skin of a WebKit browser that Google currently has to settle for.)

I'm not saying I'd prefer that scenario, just that it would have been a feasible choice for Apple and as such their Safari costs are actually profit losing not profit generating (other than potentially indirectly, if Apple is correct that limiting devices to their own browser engine improves the product and therefore aids device sales, but I don't think anyone would argue that's significant enough to call it their biggest profit driver).

benoau• 1 year ago

They're referring to the "Google Search Deal", where Google shares 36% of ad revenue with Apple in exchange for being default search provider across their devices, an amount approximately $20b/year for basically just not changing the default. Which was revealed in Google's antitrust trial, where the deal has been deemed illegal.

mort96• 1 year ago

Interesting. So it doesn't have anything to do with the browser engine ban, since Apple presumably doesn't earn money from a Google search from Chrome on iOS regardless of whether it's powered by WebKit or Blink.

SoftTalker2• 1 year ago

Safari is the default browser and they don't support ad blocking very well. It's easily the worst web browsing experience of any platform I've used in the last 5 years.

tensor• 1 year ago

Safari supports ad blocking just fine. In fact I switched from a google pixel to iphone precisely for this feature. On the pixel there was no way to have ad blocking in embedded browsers, and of course so many apps defaulted to embedded browsers for that very reason. On iOS the blocking works everywhere.

Safari as a browser is great on iOS. The problem is the forced default of google search, and worse, you can't even use search engines outside of a very small number of built-in. E.g. I can't set the. default to be kagi. This is because the money from google is dependant on them sending users to the "search" site.

robertoandred2• 1 year ago

Ad block works fine on Safari.

openplatypus• 1 year ago

Can we finally start putting dimwit Apple execs in jail?

p0w3n3d3• 1 year ago

First of all.

  We must not agree that all the market will be taken by one engine (i.e. Chromium)

Sadly there's no incentive for this, of course we have Firefox (still, right?) but it may perish because of underfunding for example. We used to have opera, IE, those engines are lost.

So what I think about the EU directive is that it basically allows one company (Google) take over the whole market. Because what we have to choose between is MS Edge (Chromium), Chrome (Chromium), Vivaldi (Chromium) and other Chromium based forks. And I forgot about Firefox which is the margin atm.

I didn't want to say that Apple should allow other engines. What I wanted to say is that I'm scared that once iOS allows installation of chrome, there will become only one engine in the world and THIS will be THE MONOPOLY we don't want to have.

93po• 1 year ago

i think it's unlikely firefox would perish. there are endless open source forks of major browsers, including FF, and even of mozilla themselves fell apart over night, people would continue to maintain.

FF's real threat, as open source software, is either:

1. further capture of mozilla and intentional degradation by google to the point of obscurity

2. organizational implosion followed by google deliberating requiring changes to web standards that break firefox in a way that open source contributions struggle to keep up with

3. a paradigm shift in how we use the internet (i.e. people transition to interacting with AI 98% of the time)

p0w3n3d3• 1 year ago

True true true

amiga386• 1 year ago

Firefox [...] may perish because of underfunding

Hindsight is 20/20, but remember that Google has paid Mozilla 3.8 BILLION DOLLARS in the past 10 years alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Finances

You could do a lot with 3.8 billion dollars, if you spent it on your core mission and not chasing Bay Area trendy shit. Mitchell Baker is still there, making phat bank, she's just the chair of the Mozilla Foundation instead of being the CEO of Mozilla Corporation.

p0w3n3d3• 1 year ago

I'm not getting into details. Open Source is getting quickly beyond the "I'll do it in my garage in my free time" phase. It has a lot of illnesses (kernel patching acceptance problem etc), but if we want to have some neutrality, it should be funded. We've seen world with only proprietary software. And we don't want to come back there

troupo4• 1 year ago

So what I think about the EU directive is that it basically allows one company (Google) take over the whole market.

Yup. It's a lose-lose situation

jajuuka2• 1 year ago

I don't understand the fear of Chromium. What benefit is it to developers to have to run through three different engines to make sure their site conforms to all three? Users will naturally collect around one option and make it the most popular anyway. If Apple can only maintain relevance by preventing users choice and freedom, why is that worth keeping?

Even though all those browsers use the blink engine they are dramatically different experiences, features and support.

United857• 1 year ago

Edit: they finally did allow JIT for browsers.

The article doesn’t mention Apple’s persistent refusal of JIT support for 3rd party JavaScript engines, which is a main barrier to implementing a performant 3rd party browser.

ec1096852• 1 year ago

They relaxed that for browser makers: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/browserenginekit/p...

alex1138• 1 year ago

Why can't the internet just be fun for once

Spivak• 1 year ago

Because the web became too "capable." Fun is incompatible with a platform made by and for serious businesses looking to make money with it. It's why the cozy web is a thing that emerged from the corporate theme park that the clear web has become.

j45• 1 year ago

It's too bad Apple still doesn't allow different browser engines.

Perhaps there's some scenario where webkit usage collapses and chrome increases here that I'm not seeing, and/or some security management issues.

Increasingly I'm looking at remote streaming browsers to get what's needed for some use cases.

WarOnPrivacy• 1 year ago

    This browser engine ban is unique to Apple and no other
    gatekeeper imposes such a restriction.

What other gatekeepers are relevant to the above? Is it just Google?

DMA seems to be an EU thing, which I'm guessing makes Asia not relevant here.

croemer3• 1 year ago

Asian countries could just say "We piggyback on DMA and require you to comply with the same rules"

samat• 1 year ago

I've got a flashback from all the 'civil society/advocacy forums' I've attended. Big Co. send the representatives whose sole purpose is to make it look like they care. They do not.

Only state coercion — big fat fines (% of the total income) make any difference.

I think personal criminal liability would be a nice step to make corporations finally respect the law, but that's too much to ask from late stage capitalism.

Apple's Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA

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