<story><title>Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)</title><url>https://research.mozilla.org/files/2022/10/Mozilla-Five-Walled-Gardens.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lovich</author><text>&amp;gt;...(or better yet, Firefox Nightly) ...&lt;p&gt;I think this is some of the disconnect between users on this site who don&amp;#x27;t understand why people would possibly actively choose iOS even with the lockin. Most people do not want to use a product that is constantly updating and adding features in that are going to be taken out shortly, for something as basic nowadays as web browsing. If you&amp;#x27;re on the cool new technology people the average person likes rapid innovations. Once your tech is considered a commodity, then the average person wants a the equivalent of a toaster. Most people do not want to fiddle with their toasters or find out each day what new changes their toaster has. They want to put in bread, and get out toast. For browser, most people want to just be able to navigate to a handful of websites.&lt;p&gt;The restrictions are a feature and not a bug.</text></item><item><author>midoridensha</author><text>Just reading the beginning, it looks like they&amp;#x27;re mainly complaining about proprietary OS vendors restricting users&amp;#x27; choice in browsers through various shenanigans.&lt;p&gt;Linux users (for desktop systems) don&amp;#x27;t have this problem, and for mobile, Android users can easily install Firefox (or better yet, Firefox Nightly) through the Google Play store and set it to be the default browser.&lt;p&gt;Basically, if you want to have choice in a browser, don&amp;#x27;t use Apple products or a Microsoft OS.  And even the Microsoft OS isn&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; bad these days.  Apple is now the worst offender in forcing you to use your computing the device only the way &lt;i&gt;they&lt;/i&gt; want you to.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Lutger</author><text>You are making one mistake here: people actually do want a different toast if its significantly better than the current one that burns their edges too many times.&lt;p&gt;Chrome was able to outcompete everything else on Windows, despite Microsoft trying to prevent it. People actively installed it, just because it was better, also the so-called stupid users were able to install it.&lt;p&gt;If this was possible on apple devices, who knows? Maybe it would have been the end of safari.&lt;p&gt;Users just want toast, but they do prefer great toast above mediocre toast and will spend some effort on getting it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)</title><url>https://research.mozilla.org/files/2022/10/Mozilla-Five-Walled-Gardens.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lovich</author><text>&amp;gt;...(or better yet, Firefox Nightly) ...&lt;p&gt;I think this is some of the disconnect between users on this site who don&amp;#x27;t understand why people would possibly actively choose iOS even with the lockin. Most people do not want to use a product that is constantly updating and adding features in that are going to be taken out shortly, for something as basic nowadays as web browsing. If you&amp;#x27;re on the cool new technology people the average person likes rapid innovations. Once your tech is considered a commodity, then the average person wants a the equivalent of a toaster. Most people do not want to fiddle with their toasters or find out each day what new changes their toaster has. They want to put in bread, and get out toast. For browser, most people want to just be able to navigate to a handful of websites.&lt;p&gt;The restrictions are a feature and not a bug.</text></item><item><author>midoridensha</author><text>Just reading the beginning, it looks like they&amp;#x27;re mainly complaining about proprietary OS vendors restricting users&amp;#x27; choice in browsers through various shenanigans.&lt;p&gt;Linux users (for desktop systems) don&amp;#x27;t have this problem, and for mobile, Android users can easily install Firefox (or better yet, Firefox Nightly) through the Google Play store and set it to be the default browser.&lt;p&gt;Basically, if you want to have choice in a browser, don&amp;#x27;t use Apple products or a Microsoft OS.  And even the Microsoft OS isn&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; bad these days.  Apple is now the worst offender in forcing you to use your computing the device only the way &lt;i&gt;they&lt;/i&gt; want you to.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wrldos</author><text>It’s not that here. I use iOS because I don’t want anyone embedding several bloated half baked ancient hole ridden security nightmare browser engines in their apps which do everything possible to bypass system wide network restrictions so they can carry out whatever bad behaviour their business model thinks is acceptable. I want one system wide browser that respects the security configuration at OS level.&lt;p&gt;I want this for myself and the surface area of our 500 or so staff.</text></comment>