Mozilla and Google are working on non-WebKit browsers for iOS

Google and Mozilla made announcements that they’re working on experimental browsers for Apple’s mobile platform. As of now both companies stated that this work does not mean that they plan to release these browsers to general audience any time soon.

However, it seems that both companies are getting ready for a possible policy change allowing third-party browser engines to be used on iOS and iPadOS.

We abide by Apple’s iOS app store policies, and are simply doing some exploratory work to understand the technical challenges for Gecko-based browsers on iOS if those policies were to change. We hope the day will come when people can freely decide to use the browser of their choice, including the opportunity to select the engine that underpins it.

Mozilla to The Register

This is an experimental prototype that we are developing as part of an open source project with the goal to understand certain aspects of performance on iOS. It will not be available to users and we’ll continue to abide by Apple’s policies.

Google to The Register

References:

• Google begins effort to run Chrome’s Blink engine on iOS in place of Apple’s WebKit
• Mozilla Developing Non-WebKit Version of Firefox for iOS, Possibly Anticipating Shift in Apple’s App Store Policy [Updated]
• Google and Mozilla Are Working on Versions of Chrome and Firefox for iOS That Don’t Use WebKit