[karthiq]

Many are forgetting...mozilla is financed by google. So this is more of a google vs MS issue than apple vs MS.

[jscott418]

Same goes for Microsoft and OS like Windows Mobile right now. You can put a browser on Windows Mobile. But it must use the IE rendering engine. In my opinion it controls what the browser can do. If you start allowing other browsers you then have to decide things like plug ins and security issues. I have to question why Mozilla is bothered by Microsoft on this and not Apple? Its basically the same setup.

[KLanD]

Removed.

Why doesn't Mozilla just make a webkit FF?

This post has been edited by KLanD: 13 May 2012 - 03:36 AM

[crosswordbob]

JackNFranFarrell, on 12 May 2012 - 07:50 PM, said:

iOS getting a pass on denying customers the right to have access to any browser that can fit its API for browsing should be reconsidered.

Also, search apps that fit its APIs for finding music, location, news, etc. Should be permitted. Where does Apple get off denying editorial functions that better serve user needs from an interface with its operating system.

As I posted above, Apple does allow browsers that fit its APIs into the App Store—there are many such. Mozilla simply don't want to write/support a browser based on the APIs available.

Fatesrider, on 12 May 2012 - 08:48 PM, said:

If it was Microsoft doing what Apple is doing, you'd be all over them. Just because it's their hardware, it's not their device once it's sold. The end user has the right to determine what they do with that device. By restricting the end user from choices other than what Apple says they can do, they are imposing a monopoly on their user. There is no reason Firefox can't run on the devices. Any program can be made to do that. It's simply Apple's policy to limit competition. That's a monopoly.

The end user can do what they like with the hardware. But Apple don't have to make that easy or support them if they choose to neglect/circumvent the terms of their licence agreement. And again, Apple's decision not to allow browsers that use a third-party rendering engine into their App Store has nothing to do with competition—it's a requirement of their app sandboxing security model. Yours is an opinion born of ignorance.

This post has been edited by crosswordbob: 13 May 2012 - 08:39 AM

[Kahuna]

Microsoft gave good and sufficient reasons for its position on restricting browsers for WinRT: (1) reliability, (2) battery life, (3)security.

The same reasons Apple has.

I am siding with Microsoft against Mozilla and Google although all of my stuff is made by Apple.

NO hardware manufacturer should be forced to make any accommodation for the benefit of any third-party.

[MikePorter]

karthiq, on 12 May 2012 - 10:34 PM, said:

Many are forgetting...mozilla is financed by google. So this is more of a google vs MS issue than apple vs MS.

not true, mozilla is in competition with google, google pays mozilla to use google as their exclusive default homepage.

this makes sense. microsoft has been told before, owning so much market share comes with the responsibility of allowing fair competition...if their products are up to snuff, they should have no problems retaining users, but deliberately prohibiting competition on the OS that 90% of computers use is monopolistic and illegal.

This post has been edited by MikePorter: 13 May 2012 - 01:48 PM

[chensi]

I think Firefox is correct to block Microsoft. I will not purchase anything that has anything to do with Microsoft because their CEO, a multi-billionaire, spent several million dollars last year to defeat an WA initiative to tax people who make over 5 million dollors a paltry 3%. If he does not want to help the state why should we help him to make more money.

The same goes for Apple. Their CEO makes over $400 million a year. I am not going to put my money into his exorbitant income.

[waldojim]

Kahuna, on 13 May 2012 - 11:36 AM, said:

Microsoft gave good and sufficient reasons for its position on restricting browsers for WinRT: (1) reliability, (2) battery life, (3)security.

The same reasons Apple has.

I am siding with Microsoft against Mozilla and Google although all of my stuff is made by Apple.

NO hardware manufacturer should be forced to make any accommodation for the benefit of any third-party.

Except it has been proven time and again that MS cannot manage any of the 3 items you mentioned. If I want a reliable, battery friendly, secure browser, I use FireFox.

[LiveBrianD]

dk3d, on 12 May 2012 - 04:55 PM, said:

How many android tablets run Safari? Or Internet Explorer?

Hmmmm.....

What about Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Skyfire, and Dolphin HD?

[DaleFoster]

Mozilla are just dirty because MS are changing to the Metro system which requires them to re-write code instead of porting it across. Yet another company that claims success on the back of Microsoft while bagging them out.

[DaleFoster]

Mozilla are just dirty because MS are changing to the Metro system which requires them to re-write code instead of porting it across. Yet another company that claims success on the back of Microsoft while bagging them out.

[waldojim]

DaleFoster, on 13 May 2012 - 08:01 PM, said:

Mozilla are just dirty because MS are changing to the Metro system which requires them to re-write code instead of porting it across. Yet another company that claims success on the back of Microsoft while bagging them out.

You don't read do you?

[bogas04]

WTF is wrong with the writter of this post???

Firefox/3rd party browsers are NOT Blocked in Microsoft! It is just that they are not allowed to use Win 32 API , while IE10 is!

I hope this explains : http://www.flickr.co.../in/photostream

Its worse than being blocked coz they can't really implement their engines using only Metro Apis , hence leading to an incompetent browser , hence ruining their name...

[bogas04]

bogas04, on 14 May 2012 - 12:26 AM, said:

WTF is wrong with the writter of this post???

Firefox/3rd party browsers are NOT Blocked in Microsoft! It is just that they are not allowed to use Win 32 API , while IE10 is!

I hope this explains : http://www.flickr.co.../in/photostream

Its worse than being blocked coz they can't really implement their engines using only Metro Apis , hence leading to an incompetent browser , hence ruining their name...

Also , Firefox is not blocked in iOS , its just that once again they are not allowed to use their engine , even Chrome (which uses webkit APIS) cant really implement its browser , they can only use Safari's API that too without most of its features...

[ndmushroom]

Is this an actual article or a fanpage comment? I'd forgive it if it was the latter, but it doesn't seem to be so.
Apple is a producer. It manufactures hardware. It also manufactures the OS that said hardware runs. If I buy Apple, I know exactly what I'm buying, and that's the entire set. I can't run Windows on my iPad, and I can't run OS X on a computer not manufactured by Apple.
Microsoft is an intermediary. Others create the hardware, others create the software and MS creates the OS that enables the (third party) hardware to effectively communicate with the (third party) software. What Microsoft is doing right now is disabling certain features of the (I repeat, third party) hardware from being accessed by the (third party) software.
If it was ARM (or Intel, or Nvidia, or Dell, or Apple, or any other hardware manufacturer) saying "I don't want firefox to access my features" it's their right (in a "the management reserves the right to refuse admission " kind of way). Microsoft has no right to block other programs' access to (again, THIRD PARTY) hardware features.
Biased much, Mr. Gralla?

[michael1213]

jhenkinson, on 12 May 2012 - 08:48 PM, said:

preilly2, on 12 May 2012 - 01:15 PM, said:

I didn't know that Apple has banned Firefox. Just another reason not to use the totalitarian company's products.

thumbs up. It's quite a mystery to me sometimes as to why people would even put up with the all-walled environment Apple created.

Next time read the other posts that do have knowledge to share and which actually know something so you don't look so ill informed. As several said Firefox isn't banned. Developing a browser ignoring iOS guidelines is banned.

It seems to me the OS developer does have a legitimate interest in setting requirements as long as those requirements are reasonable and they follow them themselves. What you called "putting up with the all-walled environment" many others consider useful features.

[linuxpenguin]

crosswordbob, on 12 May 2012 - 03:39 PM, said:

This is because allowing third-party rendering engines would require the ability for the app to flag memory in its address space as executable (in order to support JIT JavaScript compiling), and this would compromise their app sandboxing security model.

1) No, JavaScript is handled by a JavaScript engine such as V8. Not the rendering engine. Safari's JavaScript engine is called Nitro.
2) You don't need JIT compilation to run JavaScript - it just speeds things up. Opera Mini works on iOS, and it's able to run JavaScript.
3) This doesn't compromise the sandbox. The JIT compiler is in a sandbox, too, as is the code it compiles.
4) You have it backward, the flag is "NX" for "Never eXecute" - and Android uses this as well. The OS controls setting and unsetting the flag - and because of that, the only way to unset it is to get the OS to unset it.

Since in iOS everything is in a sandbox, the only concern is that someone will figure out how to break out of the sandbox and use the JIT compiler to do it. But that has to do with the OS itself, not the JIT compiler.

Apple doesn't want competing browsers on iOS because it wants to control look and feel. Different rendering engines can make the same page look different, and that's what Apple intends to avoid.

Quote

This is the same model that Microsoft are intending to apply, and I can completely understand their reasoning.

Then they need to do it across the board like Apple does so consumers aren't confused. Windows RT will only run on ARM. If you buy an Intel-based tablet, you will be able to run Firefox and Chrome on it, and that confusion is part of the issue. Otherwise the tablets will look and operate the same, and the average consumer won't know or care that there's a difference unless and until they hear that they can run Firefox just like on their PC, and try to do so on a tablet that runs Windows RT.

Quote

I do not know why Mozilla are singling Microsoft out, though—perhaps, like someone suggested above, because Windows RT is intended to run on a wide variety of hardware and they believe this will lead to a larger long-term market than Apple's integrated hardware/OS model.

Mozilla is "singling" Microsoft out because unlike Apple, Microsoft has never taken the stance that it has final say in what software can be produced for its platform. Even though they got slapped for making it impossible/extremely difficult to remove IE, it was always possible to install Netscape and other browsers.

Also, Microsoft is legally required to allow other browsers

[EShy]

The Google angle is true, but the point of the article is not MS vs Apple, it's that Mozilla is going after Microsoft and not touching Apple. Even if Apple didn't have such a big market share, if you're fine with them not letting you on the device you can't complain about Microsoft.

The second point is that until Win8 RT tablets have a decent market share you can't really make this claim. If there's no monopoly, how can a company use that position to force people to use it's product?

Win8 RT may never have that market share. Win8 as a whole probably will, maybe even tablets, but the ARM version of those tablets will be just as limited as ipads and will probably end up with a similar market share (with PCs and the Intel based tablets win8 will probably sell a lot more than ipads, but the only number that should matter is devices that limit firefox/chrome)

karthiq, on 12 May 2012 - 10:34 PM, said:

Many are forgetting...mozilla is financed by google. So this is more of a google vs MS issue than apple vs MS.

[EShy]

MikePorter, on 13 May 2012 - 01:48 PM, said:

karthiq, on 12 May 2012 - 10:34 PM, said:

Many are forgetting...mozilla is financed by google. So this is more of a google vs MS issue than apple vs MS.

not true, mozilla is in competition with google, google pays mozilla to use google as their exclusive default homepage.

this makes sense. microsoft has been told before, owning so much market share comes with the responsibility of allowing fair competition...if their products are up to snuff, they should have no problems retaining users, but deliberately prohibiting competition on the OS that 90% of computers use is monopolistic and illegal.

What are you talking about? what market share does the affected tablet have? 90%? really? the number I see are 0%. These tablets weren't even released yet. And the Win RT tablets, the ones running ARM, will never ever have 90% market share.

That statement about prohibiting competition fits more on what Apple is doing right now. which is the point of the article.

[AdrianJSClark]

ndmushroom, on 14 May 2012 - 06:01 AM, said:

Is this an actual article or a fanpage comment? I'd forgive it if it was the latter, but it doesn't seem to be so.
Apple is a producer. It manufactures hardware. It also manufactures the OS that said hardware runs. If I buy Apple, I know exactly what I'm buying, and that's the entire set. I can't run Windows on my iPad, and I can't run OS X on a computer not manufactured by Apple.

When you buy a Windows RT tablet the manufacturer will pre-install the operating system so you'll know exactly what you're buying. It will come as an entire set (ARM hardware plus Windows RT). You won't be able to run Windows 8, you won't be able to run iOS, you won't be able to run Android.

How is this different simply because Microsoft is creating the software rather than Apple?

The answer, of course, is it isn't different at all.

ndmushroom, on 14 May 2012 - 06:01 AM, said:

Microsoft is an intermediary. Others create the hardware, others create the software and MS creates the OS that enables the (third party) hardware to effectively communicate with the (third party) software. What Microsoft is doing right now is disabling certain features of the (I repeat, third party) hardware from being accessed by the (third party) software.
If it was ARM (or Intel, or Nvidia, or Dell, or Apple, or any other hardware manufacturer) saying "I don't want firefox to access my features" it's their right (in a "the management reserves the right to refuse admission " kind of way). Microsoft has no right to block other programs' access to (again, THIRD PARTY) hardware features.
Biased much, Mr. Gralla?

If a hardware manufacturer can "refuse admission" then why does Microsoft not have that same right in their operating system? They produce it, they market and sell it so they should have the right to make whatever product, with whatever restrictions, they like. You have the right to not buy it.

Of course in the x86 PC market Windows has such a dominant position I'll happily say that Microsoft should be open for competition there. However, it is not fair on them to be held to different standards from the market leader when entering a market segment where they enjoy single digit or below marketshare.