Companies like Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft publish versions of their web browsers in Apple’s iOS and iPadOS App Stores, but these versions come with a big caveat. App Store conventions require that you use Safari’s WebKit rendering engine, not the engine that these browsers use. on other operating systems.
But that could change. According to The Register, Google and Mozilla have recently been found to be working on versions of Chromium and Firefox that use the regular Blink and Gecko rendering engines respectively.
Apple has not announced any rule changes. Related activity by Google and Mozilla may suggest that Apple hopes to remove restrictions on third-party browser engines in the near future. Regulatory pressure from multiple governments has prompted Apple (albeit reluctantly) to move toward relaxing many of the App Store restrictions, such as accepting third-party payment services, sideloading apps and third-party app stores. is.
iOS versions such as Chrome, Firefox, and Edge can now sync with their desktop counterparts to display the desired user interface, but due to WebKit requirements, their features and drawbacks are almost identical to Safari. macOS has no such limitation. On macOS, third-party browsers can use whatever rendering engine they prefer.
Apple may impose restrictions on how these browsers behave. How much storage can be used to cache content, how much memory and CPU can be used while running in the background, how aggressively tabs should be used, etc. It can be unloaded from RAM to make room for other apps, extensions that apps can use, and many other possibilities. But especially for the iPad, opening up the platform to third-party browser engines means more third-party browsers that look and behave similar to their macOS and Windows counterparts.
