Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Fnoord 1477 days ago
> It's actually pretty insane: there is a setting on Android to always use the main browser (Chrome) to open links

That is quite insane indeed.

And on top of that, Android keeps using Chrome as embedded browser. Even if you installed another one. MSHTML all over again.
2 comments
jakub_g 1476 days ago
Before that (Android <5.0 times), you'd have a WebView strictly tied to the OS version and not upgradable if OS goes EOL. Even if device had Chrome 60, webview was based on Chromium 28-30 (depending on manufacturer). With no flexbox etc. As a dev, it was a MASSIVE pain to develop webview integrations with this. On par with IE8. Being able to have the webview upgraded without upgrading OS is a major win.

[Note there are two things: 1) stupid apps putting a generic in-app browser inside the app - that's annoying; and 2) apps using a webview with a bridge between native app and a website, injecting some stuff and properly integrating the embedded website; something impossible to do by opening a website in regular browser]

link
jsmith99 1476 days ago
Many browsers such as Firefox and Kiwi let you enable them for 'custom tabs' which is the term for popup browser windows that you may be thinking of as embedded browsers. I think the setting is usually within the app's settings rather than the general android settings.
link