It took only a few hours: Apple has banned ForChan from iTunes, a perfectly innocent, web-based, dedicated image browser for the iPhone. Its only sin: It could display porn. Well done, Apple. Let's delete Safari now.


ForChan could connect to any image board web page and show pictures. Photos of dogs, cats, birds, food, cars, planes, flowers, scenes of summer, winter, and fall, or anything in between. Anything including boobs and buttocks:

It didn't promote porn in any way. It didn't have any ads for porn. Its icon was plain. Its explanatory text was perfectly innocent. And yes, while the developer mentions that it could be used to browse pictures of fully naked girls—and has some boards with that kind of pictures—the app itself is not a "porn app." Actually, you had to click a few times in the web before getting to the smut. There was no magic "Show me the tits" button.


In fact, ForChan only has two options: Browse page after page of images, or enter a new URL to access a new web server containing different images.

Sounds familiar?

Yes, exactly the same as Safari. Enter any porn web site address in your Safari URL field, and you will instantly get connected to porn. Hardcore picture after hardcore picture, wet video after wet video, all the perversions imaginable, no niche left untouched.

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So why is Safari in the iPhone? Is it because web-browser porn browsing is socially accepted, leaving the ultimate responsibility in the individual using the web browser—often with a convenient privacy mode?

If that's the case, why delete ForChan from the iTunes Store? It's a web browser too, no matter how image oriented it is. Apple is not selling porn in the Store when somebody purchases ForChan. They are selling a generic browser, just like the built-in Safari is. One that can only display images, any kind of images, just like the built-in Safari does.


Apple includes Safari with no restrictions because, at the end of the day, it is your responsibility to use your web browser according to your own set of moral and social rules. You can write a new web address and access Fleshbot instead of Gawker. Your action, your choice. Nobody is going to go to Apple and accuse them of selling a porn app because I can access porn online. And nobody can accuse Apple of selling porn by making ForChan available in their app store.

So why retire it? Just because we highlighted that it can be used to browse porn. So here's a hint, Apple:

Time to delete Safari.