As part of the sweeping changes coming to the iOS ecosystem in the wake of the Digital Markets Act, iOS will be opened up to run third-party browser engines, and regardless of their underpinnings, third-party browsers will be presented as options to users. John Voorhees has the details:
One element of the changes coming to iOS in the European Union is that beginning with iOS 17.4, EU users will see a choice of browsers when they first launch Safari that can be set as the systemwide default browser. For each country, that list will contain the 12 most popular browsers from its App Store storefront displayed to the user in a random order.
As you can imagine, there is overlap among EU member countries, but there are plenty of differences, too. If you’re curious which browsers will be listed in your country, check out the lists for each of the 27 EU member countries after the break that Apple has told us will appear the first time Safari is launched in iOS 17.4.
If this sounds a bit familiar, it’s because the EU has been down this road before.