It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Microsoft does it

Re:It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Micros... by wvenable on Friday May 11, 2012 @02:51PM (#3960697)

Apple blocks all non-Safari browsers from the store. Opera Mobile doesn't exist in the App store, only Opera Mini which uses a remote server for rendering. Other browsers in the store use iOS webkit and are effectively shells around the Safari rendering engine.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Micros... by Terretta on Friday May 11, 2012 @03:55PM (#3961031)

What's wrong with the webkit rendering engine?

Chrome started as "effectively a shell" around webkit. As far as most end users are concerned, the difference between browsers is the UI, not the rendering engine. I use iCab on iOS for its UI and amazing feature set (including Adblock and extensions), and apprececiate the choice. In fact, it syncs with Firefox bookmarks. Atomic is also nice.

It would be very interesting to do a Firefox-like UI for iOS and see what the end user uptake would be.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Micros... by wvenable on Friday May 11, 2012 @04:06PM (#3961101)

One example: The iPhone webkit doesn't support text reflow even though it's supported by webkit on Android and in Opera.

Many years ago you could have said "What's wrong with the IE rendering engine" because, at one time, IE was the best browser available on Windows.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Micros... by pbz on Friday May 11, 2012 @04:32PM (#3961231)

Nobody said there's anything wrong with it, only that you can't use any other engine.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:It's OK for Apple to block Firefox, but wrong when Micros... by sp332 on Friday May 11, 2012 @04:24PM (#3961201)

Even if your browser is a skin on webkit, it will run in a sandbox and have worse performance than Safari on iOS.

[ Parent | on HN ]