They mention both Android and Microsoft have some apps that don't launch the user's browser choice.<p>I have a related problem which is apps that launch their own web view as a builtin web browser when you click a link in the app. This lets them spy on any web activity that you do while in that embedded web view.<p>I think I wish that both the Android Play Store and the iOS App Store required apps to launch the user's browser for all 3rd party websites. To do this, they'd have apps categorize themselves as "web browser" or "not web browser".<p>For a "not web browser", the app would have to make a short list of domains (5? 10?) that it's allowed to talk to. Any others would be blocked by the OS.<p>For a "web browser" the app could contact any domain.<p>I don't know what legalize like language they'd use to define "Web browser" but apps like Facebook, FB Messenger, Google Maps, and others who's primary use is not "Browsing the web" could be clearly in the "not web browser" category.<p>There's multiple reasons I want this.<p>1. Apps with embedded web views can spy on all network activity and web view activity. By preventing apps from having embedded browsers that problem is solved.<p>2. Passwords, addresses, other things are synced in my browser profile. Every time some app launches an embedded browser I get none of that<p>3. Bookmarks are synced in my browser profile. Any sites I view in an embedded browser I can't bookmark<p>4. History is synced in my browser profile. Any sites I view in an embedded browser don't show up in my history<p>One other feature I might require if I was ruler of the world is that these apps that launch links be required to support a context menu for "open in private browser window"
> App Store forbids third-party browser engines<p>Mozilla is justified in challenging it, but I don't know if they want to go pulling that thread.<p>Safari's monopoly on iOS devices is the only reason a sizable number of developers care about non-Chrome support. Currently, they have to. If the message to users becomes "broken feature is not broken on Chrome" we're on the road to monopolyville. And then Google <i>really</i> doesn't need consensus when it creates new web standards.<p>The status quo is all sorts of messed up, but it could be worse. Hopefully I'm wrong about this.
As an Android user the main reason I don't use Firefox is that it feels slower, not because of any anticompetitive behavior. In Firefox, there's often layout shifts when I load the home page, keyboard animations sometimes jump around, I can't use the "release to select" menu option, etc.
<a href="https://github.com/mozilla/platform-tilt/issues/3">https://github.com/mozilla/platform-tilt/issues/3</a><p>> JIT Support on iOS<p>This has been such an under-commented on factor of the whole "EU is going to force third-party rendering engines on iOS!" bit. Would Apple allow apps to support JIT? A new entitlement browser developers must apply for? It'll be interesting :)<p>I doubt it.
Related: <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/01/19/platform-tilt/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/01/19/platform-tilt/</a><p>(via <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39059255">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39059255</a>, but no comments there)
Right-clicking a selection in macOS and selecting web search (perhaps only in Mail.app, I don’t recall) always opens Safari even if you have a different browser selected as default. They missed that one.
My biggest gripe with Firefox on Android is that sometimes I enter a domain in the address bar, press enter and nothing happens.<p>This behaviour seems to be erratic and only affects a few websites, such as <a href="https://forum.syncthing.net" rel="nofollow">https://forum.syncthing.net</a>.<p>Closing the tab or using a different one doesn't solve the problem. I need to force close the app to fix this.
Most of these are understandable, but the one talking about Messages integration on iOS gives me bad vibes. Specifically a “recently sent links” API for Messages that the user must opt into wouldn’t be a problem but full access to message data is not something that I (and I suspect many others) would ever consent to a third party app having (even if Mozilla is the dev).<p>As for extensions on iOS, Orion has the capability to install extensions from both the Chrome and Firefox extension galleries which would suggest this either isn’t actually a problem or slipped past App Review and has somehow remained available for years.
> Browsing information like history, bookmarked sites, and cookies isn’t accessible to third-party browsers on Android.<p>As a user, why the hell do I want third party applications to be able to access my browser's history, bookmarked sites, and cookies?<p>That's an obvious privacy leak!<p>Firefox can have that data when it's generated by Firefox while I'm using Firefox and not in other contexts.
The fact that if you mistype a command in a Windows Search bar and instead of opening explorer/the program you were looking for, it opens a Bing Search in Edge (with neither configurable in the OS settings) should be illegal. In fact, I thought there was a whole-ass lawsuit where Microsoft was legally mandated to make browser settings configurable.<p>The fact that somehow this doesn't apply to "searches from the start menu" is a joke.
> "Google Search within the Google app"<p>Correct but I don't notice that because I search by opening Firefox and typing the search query there. It's an icon tap anyway. I don't use the search widget on the home screen, I removed it.