Google Open-Sources Chrome For iOS (venturebeat.com)

Google has uploaded its Chrome for iOS code into the open-source Chromium repository. In other words, Chrome for iOS has now been open-sourced like Chrome for other platforms, letting anyone examine, modify, and compile the project. From a report: Chromium is the open-source Web browser project that shares much of the same code as Google Chrome, and new features are often added there first. Google intended for Chromium to be the name of the open-source project, while the final product name would be Chrome, but developers have taken the code and released versions under the Chromium name. Eventually, many browser makers started using it as a starting point; Opera, for example, switched its browser base to Chromium in 2013. Since its inception, Chromium was a desktop-only affair. That changed in May 2015 with the open-sourcing of Chrome for Android.

Comments

Now if only

[wbr1]

Someone will port Android to Apple phones.......

Re:Now if only

[Neuroelectronic]

How about sovereignty to any phone? Killer feature of the millennium.

Re:Now if only

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent idea. That way iPhones can benefit from all that Android malware that is floating around (in the play store even).

Re:Now if only

[Anonymous Coward]

Very little, if any, malware on F-Droid

Re:Now if only

[saloomy]

malware follows marketshare. Keep F-Droid quiet if you want it to stay that way.

Re:Now if only

[SeaFox]

Someone will port Android to Apple phones.......

You mean now if someone would only port iOS to other handsets?
Why would I want to buy an overpriced iPhone to run a mobile OS already available on so many other options, like phones with better screens, longer lasting batteries, user replaceable batteries, and headphone jacks?

Re: Now if only

[cyber-vandal]

How do you know?

Re: Now if only

[Anonymous Coward]

By looking at the source code of the apps there.

You can do that at F-Droid, you know.

Fake News Headline.

[Anonymous Coward]

They released Chromium for iOS. They didn't open-source Chrome.

Re:Fake News Headline.

[Anonymous Coward]

Question for the pros: Is this Objective-C code considered readable?

Re:Fake News Headline.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome IS Chromium, dumbass. Changes are made to the Chromium source and Chrome is compiled directly from that source.

Also, if Google has just now released the source, then they have been in violation of the GPL since they released Chrome for iOS.

Re:Fake News Headline.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are the same then why do they both exist? Not sure if they still do this but historically Chrome implemented more tracking and some extra features like PDF rendering.

Re:Fake News Headline.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chromium has all of the anti-features of Chrome if you use the wrong version. That includes tracking, PDF rendering and DRM. Chromium exists primarily as a development platform, whereas Chrome exists as a compiled end product.

Does it really matter?

[DontBeAMoran]

As far as I know, all browsers on iOS must render using iOS' built-in Webkit.

Re:Does it really matter?

[93 Escort Wagon]

You can do whatever you want if you build it yourself and install it on your own iPhone / iPad.

Of course, if you've only got the free developer certificate - I believe you'll need to recompile and reinstall it every seven days.

Re:Does it really matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the perfect phone for Gentoo ricers. And Android is more for the kind of people who prefer Ubuntu, Mac OS X, etc.

Re: Does it really matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only free if you already have the Mac. If you don't, that's an extra $499 at least.

Just a skin

[thegarbz]

So Google posted a few bitmaps and a menu scheme as a front end to Safari? Why bother. A browser is nothing without it's rendering engine.

Re:Just a skin

[Anonymous Coward]

Bookmark sync.
History sync.
Tab sync.
Form fill sync.
Password sync.

UI differences that some may find they like better.

Etc.

Re:Just a skin

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Bookmarks, incognito mode, a bunch of UI things.

The base browser on BlackBerry used webkit. But it was so painful for many reasons - how you zoomed, how you got pages, how you dealt with tabs. It was very painful

Re:Just a skin

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention spying on the user and sending data to Google. They love it when you sync your history, forms, and passwords. Safari alone doesn't do that for them.

It's still just Safari

[Anonymous Coward]

...like all browsers on iOS it's just reusing the Safari engine because Apple doesn't let people reimplement native functionality, and Safari on iOS is falling behind on web standards.

I hope that when Servo/Quantum is released (late this year), and it wipes the floor with other browsers, then Apple will give up the Webkit era and move to this faster browser that performs better for battery life. Google have gone all-in on Blink (a fork of webkit), so in a few years Apple will want to differentiate themselves.

Re:It's still just Safari

[Anonymous Coward]

Servo/Quantum will "wipe the floor," as you put it, with other browsers, at about the same time Kate Upton decides to come over to my house looking for a good time.

Re:It's still just Safari

[Anonymous Coward]

thing is bad because sex analogy.

good talking to you.

Re:It's still just Safari

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Comparing one zero probability event to another one.

Bad talking to you due to your 60's IQ. But that's on the upper end of anyone still employed at Mozilla.

So there's that.

What does this mean for Widevine?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/17/01/30/2058216/google-quietly-makes-optional-web-drm-mandatory-in-chrome

Re:What does this mean for Widevine?

[omnichad]

It means that Chromium and Chrome are not 100% identical - same as any and all proprietary code in Chrome (such as patent-restricted codecs). Bad headline, as I'm sure they released "Chromium" source.

Actual repo link

[SuperKendall]

Since it's not in the summary here is the repo link.

It's bitztream

[Anonymous Coward]

the autism-hating, custom EpiPen-hating, Musk-hating, Slashdot editor-hating troll!

See for yourself

[SuperKendall]

I would say yes, but I have been working in Objective C for a long time now - if you can read C, Obj-C should be even more readable. I feel like ObjC makes things much clearer with named labels and naming conventions. An example from the Google source:

[self.browsingDataRemovalController
    removeIOSSpecific-IncognitoBrowsingData-FromBrowserState:otrBrowserState
    mask:removeAllMask
    completionHandler:completion];

The dashes (-) in there you can ignore, that particular named parameter was freaking out the Slashdot lameness filter.

The code is just passing three params to the self.browsingDataRemovalController method call.

Re:See for yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for replying!

Re: See for yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

Wtf, that isn't readable at all. I think you've been working in ObjC so long you just take it for granted that everything is clear. To a person coming from C, they would look at that and be like wtf.

Reading is one on chrome for iOS

[Anonymous Coward]

This is great!
I'm reading this on chrome for iOS, so now I can see exactly what I'm browsing with!

Nope

[SuperKendall]

malware follows marketshare.

That hasn't been true for iOS since inception. It's not just marketshare but weakness of the system.

So,

[BitztreamNotARealNam]

How's life in the hypocrite lane?