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> My understanding is that WebKit is the only rendering engine permitted on iOS as a security precaution, ostensibly taking Apple at face value and in good faith.

Look at mac. Do we have a problem with firefox on mac? Both mac and iOS share the same OS kernel. Using security as an excuse is laughable.

I once read on twitter from a mozilla dev saying they were even willing to build a browser engine without JIT just to satisfy the security requirement. But eventually they went with webkit to build Firefox for iOS.




> Do we have a problem with firefox on mac?

Uh, yes? There's 18 here (just for January 2022, mind) of which only 4 don't affect the Mac version.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2022-0...

December 2021 has 13, only 1 doesn't affect the Mac.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2021-5...

etc. etc.


A similar look at Safari vs Chrome on Mac would reveal that Safari is much less secure than Chrome; given that many iOS exploits rely on WebKit, the average iPhone user is strictly less secure because of Apple's ban on fair browser engine competition.


Safari: https://www.cvedetails.com/product/2935/Apple-Safari.html?ve... Chrome: https://www.cvedetails.com/product/15031/Google-Chrome.html?...

2019: Safari: 166, Chrome: 312 2020: Safari: 76, Chrome: 228 2021: Safari: 33, Chrome: 309

> Safari is much less secure than Chrome

Not by CVE metrics? Which metric are we talking about here?


By your standard, then every non trivial app should be banned on mac, including safari.




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