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Apple’s new rules for the European Union mean that starting with iOS 17.4, browsers will no longer be required to use Apple's WebKit, the engine that powers Safari. While that might seem like a welcome change, Mozilla says it's “very disappointed” with how the plan has worked out.
Speaking with The Verge, a Mozilla spokesperson says “the effect of this would be to force an independent browser like Firefox to build and maintain two separate browser implementations — a burden Apple themselves will not have to bear.”
Apple is only making changes in the EU to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which means Mozilla and other browser makers will still need to have a WebKit version of their iOS browsers in other countries, including the United States.
Firefox’s official app for iOS, which was released in 2015, is not a full version of Firefox. Instead, the browser is essentially a shell on top of Safari’s web page-rendering code.
Leaders at Epic Games and Spotify have also been critical of Apple's DMA compliance plans, which are still pending approval by the EU Commission.