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>On mobile devices you can rarely switch browsers without losing access to major parts of the OS You mean "on iOS", not on mobile devices in general. On Androi
by SomeCallMeTim 11y ago
>On mobile devices you can rarely switch browsers without losing access to major parts of the OS
You mean "on iOS", not on mobile devices in general. On Android at least all such integration is done with Intents, a broadcast message from the OS or one app to another, and those Intents can be remapped to target whatever app a user wants, meaning a third-party browser can be as integrated into the OS as Chrome. You can even replace the launcher (the home screen) by having your app accept the "Home" Intent.
Whether a particular browser respects the Intent linkage correctly is another story. But it's absolutely possible. Chrome is doing nothing secret and magic on Android.
The exception is WebViews embedded in apps, which are rendered using the Chrome engine (on recent Android versions). But as an app developer, let me tell you that having random third-parties replace the WebView in my app is a profoundly bad idea. It's hard enough to target all the Android versions without having to also target every random browser rendering engine.
- anon1385 11y ago>You mean "on iOS", not on mobile devices in general. Also on FirefoxOS and ChromeOS where third party browsers aren't possible at all.
- lorenzhs 11y agoThe first of which is discontinued and the second not an OS for mobile devices (phone/tablet)
- anon1385 11y agoFirefoxOS still exists. Anyway if we are criticising organisations for creating platforms that prevents switching browsers then I don't think FirefoxOS's failure to achieve any kind of market penetration should exonerate Mozilla. FirefoxOS is/was objectively worse than what iOS does in that regard.
- kuschku 11y ago> Chrome is doing nothing secret and magic on Android. > having random third-parties replace the WebView in my app is a profoundly bad idea You haven’t heard of Chrome Custom Tabs, have you?
- SomeCallMeTim 11y agoNo, actually. Thanks for letting me know about that. Regardless, my point stands: If I'm writing an app and I use a WebView or a Chrome Custom Tab, I'm going to want to know, for certain, that someone isn't switching out the underlying rendering engine.
- kuschku 11y agoWell, but that’s the entire point of Chrome Custom Tabs. There are even Presto and Gecko based implementations of it.
- SomeCallMeTim 11y agoThe "point" of Chrome Custom Tabs seems to be performance and better integration with the system browser. I see that it's done via Intent, so it could potentially be swapped out, so you're right. So then WebView is more of what I'm talking about, for when you want tight integration, or creating something like a Cordova app (though you can bundle a Cordova app with Crosswalk to sidestep WebView differences entirely); looks like Chrome Custom Tabs is more for when you want a good web experience, not a good embedded app experience.