Apple forces you to use the rendering engine, not the browser. You can download Chrome to your iPhone.
Anyway, that's not the point. IE wasn't bad because it was a shitty browser. It was bad because it had features that other browsers did not have and it was very popular because it was very innovative and it was heavily marketed. This resulted in websites being made for IE only, which resulted in a lockdown of huge userbase that even Microsoft couldn't get rid of once decided to get rid of IE.
Safari is nothing like that and there's no Safari lockdown. On the other hand, Chrome does have non standard features and huge market share, forcing web developers to make everything for Chrome. That's exactly like IE.
If anything, Apple's refusal to allow the Chrome engine into iOS is the only thing that keeps us from complete lockdown into Chrome.
I don't agree with you and as a developer I find way more issues with Safari than with Chrome/Firefox/Edge.
Also, what matters in a browser it's the engine. If it's always WebKit and you find a issue or something else in iOS you can switch the browser but the result will always be the same since Chrome and Firefox are forced to use WebKit.
Chrome's engine it's Chromium which is open-source and used by other browsers like Microsoft Edge for example, so I don't see as much of an issue with Google Chrome, since you're not actually forced to use it.
> Chrome does have non standard features and huge market share
Even Firefox has it's own non-standard features and I don't see people complaining about it.
Okay, check out Microsoft's Embrace, Extend, Exterminate strategy and I hope you understand what's the problem of having a dominant platform that does it's own thing instead of abiding by the standards. Now Chrome is in the "Extend" stage and obviously you don't feel any pain but if Google chooses to take another step, then you will feel it.
Maybe they never will do it but I simply don't want Google has the option to go to the next step.
Google obviously has to gain by doing that, but not as much as Microsoft had. I mean, IE could run basically on one platform, which was Windows, so it makes sense Microsoft forced people to create dependency on IE.
I'm more concerned about Apple nowadays, they're doing everything to keep people locked down on their own ecosystem.
It's not obvious to me, Google has everything to gain by going evil. Google has power to choose how privacy will be managed, they can choose to kill Facebook(not that I'm fan of FB, but still).
Apple makes a lot of money but Apple is an underdog with it's tiny market share. Apple can and does evil stuff but it's nothing compared to the potential of Google.
What you fear from Google it's what Apple's already doing. With their new iOS 15 privacy settings they are hurting Facebook (and other companies that rely on your data pretty bad). I mean, I don't feel sorry for Facebook or whatever company profits from your private data, but you can see how damage Apple can already do.
Anyway, that's not the point. IE wasn't bad because it was a shitty browser. It was bad because it had features that other browsers did not have and it was very popular because it was very innovative and it was heavily marketed. This resulted in websites being made for IE only, which resulted in a lockdown of huge userbase that even Microsoft couldn't get rid of once decided to get rid of IE.
Safari is nothing like that and there's no Safari lockdown. On the other hand, Chrome does have non standard features and huge market share, forcing web developers to make everything for Chrome. That's exactly like IE.
If anything, Apple's refusal to allow the Chrome engine into iOS is the only thing that keeps us from complete lockdown into Chrome.