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2013 Version: Browser Wars

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f0dder:
A guy at Softpedia thinks that Apple's refusal to allow browsers in the App Store is behind this.-TaoPhoenix (February 14, 2013, 12:05 PM)
--- End quote ---
Apple does allow browsers (unless something has changed), but (as you mention later) they don't allow access to the JavaScript JIT'er. While they probably don't mind the added monopoly value, the prime reason cited is security - it's very likely that their JS JIT'er could be used to generate pretty much whatever native code you want, thus making it much easier to jailbreak the iOS devices.

Gotta love walled gardens, aye?

TaoPhoenix:
A guy at Softpedia thinks that Apple's refusal to allow browsers in the App Store is behind this.-TaoPhoenix (February 14, 2013, 12:05 PM)
--- End quote ---
Apple does allow browsers (unless something has changed), but (as you mention later) they don't allow access to the JavaScript JIT'er. While they probably don't mind the added monopoly value, the prime reason cited is security - it's very likely that their JS JIT'er could be used to generate pretty much whatever native code you want, thus making it much easier to jailbreak the iOS devices.

Gotta love walled gardens, aye?

-f0dder (February 14, 2013, 05:45 PM)
--- End quote ---

Hmm, I read those articles as saying that the only browsers they allow are things that use the deep Safari core, and not just any old browser like for example if MS wanted to stick IE on there, or Firefox.

But yes, I hate the new push to the walled gardens, and I only treat my phone as *gasp* a phone, with a few amusing widgets that do save a little time, but nothing for serious work.

f0dder:
Hmm, I read those articles as saying that the only browsers they allow are things that use the deep Safari core, and not just any old browser like for example if MS wanted to stick IE on there, or Firefox.-TaoPhoenix (February 14, 2013, 05:57 PM)
--- End quote ---
Dunno if they only allow safari core, but disallowing access to JS JIT (even for alternate browsers that use the safari core, as far as I understand) make the point pretty moot.

Lashiec:
Well, this explains why they stopped releasing new test builds.

I'm going to adopt a wait and see approach until they unveil the final product. From the press release, it isn't much clear what Opera is actually going to do with the desktop product. It does suggest that all they're really going to do is to integrate WebKit into Opera, something that potentially has few drawbacks.

But the mention of Chromium got me thinking that maybe the higher ups are redirecting the company focus on other, more profitable interests, moving manpower from the Desktop Team to other projects and transforming the desktop browser into little more than an Opera-branded Chrome, effectively pulling a Nokia, which does sound like a colossal bad idea... unless brand pull and user inertia is strong enough to only lose the most dedicated users, all two of us :P

The browser market is getting more and more hostile to the likes of Opera, with some opportunity windows closing fast, so you gotta do whatever you can to stay relevant. Even though one of them windows can't be jailbreaked ;)

Speculation aside, this change is akin to Opera Software throwing the towel. Years and years of effort, laid to waste. Precisely now, when things were so much better than in the old, much difficult days. Business is business, I guess. I hope the future brings along open source versions of Presto and the various incarnations of their JavaScript engine, preferably BSD-licensed, if only for preservation and research purposes.

The competition angle is interesting too. The browser wars have gone cold. Everyone is on WebKit now. Apple, Adobe, Google and now Opera. It's quickly becoming the de facto rendering engine, specially for embedded development. People bemoaned the lack of a reference HTML engine for years and now they pretty much have one, and as open and portable as it can be. Does it make sense for Microsoft and, above all, Mozilla to keep developing Trident and Gecko?

KynloStephen66515:
Polite Request

So we can get this thread back on topic, could further posts related to tne Opera/Webkit move, to https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=34016.msg318078;topicseen#msg318078

Thanks!

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