{"id":298,"date":"2025-07-14T12:39:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T12:39:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/298\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T12:39:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T12:39:03","slug":"where-are-the-iphones-webkit-less-browsers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/298\/","title":{"rendered":"Where are the iPhone\u2019s WebKit-less browsers?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">It\u2019s been 16 months since a DMA ruling allowed iOS developers like Google and Mozilla to use their own browser engines in the EU, so\u2026 where are they? According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/open-web-advocacy.org\/blog\/apples-browser-engine-ban-persists-even-under-the-dma\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Open Web Advocacy (OWA)<\/a> \u2014 a nonprofit group of software engineers that advocates for the open web \u2014 Apple continues to place technical and financial restrictions on WebKit-alternative iOS browser engines that effectively stifle competition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">OWA says these barriers include insufficient testing tools outside of the US, hostile legal terms, and forcing browser developers to create entirely new apps to ship their own engines, causing developers to lose their existing European user base. Instead of allowing Google, for example, to simply update its existing Chrome browser with a Blink engine, Apple\u2019s rules require a brand new app for the EU audience, resetting the user count to zero. Developers would then have to maintain two separate browser implementations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">Mozilla told The Verge last year that it was disappointed by Apple\u2019s restrictions, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2024\/1\/26\/24052067\/mozilla-apple-ios-browser-rules-firefox\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">describing them as \u201ca burden\u201d<\/a> on independent browser providers. \u201cApple\u2019s proposals fail to give consumers viable choices by making it as painful as possible for others to provide competitive alternatives to Safari,\u201d said Mozilla spokesperson Damiano DeMonte. \u201cThis is another example of Apple creating barriers to prevent true browser competition on iOS.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">Apple added support for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2024\/1\/25\/24050478\/apple-ios-17-4-browser-engines-eu\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">non-WebKit browsers in iOS 17.4<\/a> to appease DMA rules that aim to prevent tech giants from disadvantaging third-party browser engines, but the OWA alleges that Apple\u2019s restrictions mean it is \u201cnot in effective compliance with the DMA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">\u201cEnsuring other browsers are not able to compete fairly is critical to Apple\u2019s best and easiest revenue stream,\u201d the OWA says. The group notes that Safari brings in $20 billion per year in search engine revenue from Google, accounting for 14-16 percent of Apple\u2019s annual operating profit, and that it\u2019s set to lose $200 million per year for every 1 percent of browser market share that Safari loses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1ymtmqpi _17nnmdy1 _17nnmdy0 _1xwtict1\">Outside of the EU, Apple is also facing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/news\/628472\/apple-safari-ios-google-android-chrome-cma-competition\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pressure from UK regulators<\/a> to allow developers to use alternative browser engines in iOS, following an investigation that found both Apple and Google were \u201cholding back\u201d mobile browser innovation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been 16 months since a DMA ruling allowed iOS developers like Google and Mozilla to use their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[304,59,50,305,229,306,227,86,56,54,55,307],"class_list":{"0":"post-298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-apple","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-policy","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-regulation","14":"tag-tech","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom","19":"tag-web"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}