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by kwijibob 2036 days ago
I hate the smartphone app trend of having embedded browsers.

Just launch me to my preferred real browser.

Stop trying to trap us in your ecosystem.

4 comments

Never mind carrying around 6 copies of Chrome on your phone
What are you talking about? Embedded browsers use the system webview, provided by Chrome, Firefox, or whatever is configured.
Recent version of Android reverts the default webview to Android System WebView again.
Sure, Chrome on iOS is ‘only’ a 118 mb application! And much of that is also in Google Maps, the Google Docs apps etc.
Chrome on iOS isn't even a real thing, it's just an app embedding Safari like every other app with a webview (because Apple's draconian policies forbid alternate browser engines). All the other Google apps also have to use Safari for any web stuff.
I'm surprised such draconian policies still haven't been challenged in court like Microsoft or Google have.
Are embedded browsers not usually just the system webview?
They might hide the URL, so I can't see where the link led me. Or they might disable the usual browser menu, preventing me from bookmarking a page. Or they might have the "close tab" interaction be in a completely different location, breaking any muscle memory.

If I'm following an HTTP(S) link, it means that I want to view it in a browser. I don't want to have some in-app view that can only return me to gmail, or to discord, or to google handouts, just because that happened to be where I clicked the link from. I don't care in the slightest whether the rendering engine is the same as the default browser. I care whether the user interactions are the same.

Yes but how would you even know as a user. Or how would you know that you are on the real google page.
On iOS, yes, since Apple's rules forbid alternate browser engines. On Android, it's not unknown for apps to embed an alternate browser engine in it's entirely.
It's extremely uncommon though, pretty sure nothing I've installed does it.
Even worse when the embedded web view is not properly detecting the user-agent and puts up a banner... prompting you to download the app (looking at you, NHL).
yeah and in the case of Fairemail on Android, the embedded browser is dumbed-down and lacking most features... and the option to disable this "feature" is kind of hard to find