Re: Definition of browser vs. WebView

On 5/6/25 8:54 AM, Ashley Gullen wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> At our last WebView CG meeting I volunteered to help work on the 
> definition of a browser vs. webview, which quickly led to my promotion 
> to lead on the topic, so... here we go!
>
> I've had a think and I want to come up with a simple definition that 
> can easily be used to determine whether something is a webview, 
> without referencing specific technologies (e.g. the Android Webview). 
> I think this might be a good definition:
>
>   * If the user can enter their own URL to navigate to, then it is a
>     web browser.
>   * If the user cannot enter their own URL to navigate to, then it is
>     a webview.
>
> So based on this definition:
>
>   * Naturally the major browsers like Chrome, Safari and Firefox are
>     web browsers, as you can enter your own URL to navigate to.
>   * Web content embedded in apps, such as Cordova apps, count as a
>     webview as there is no user interface to enter your own URL to
>     navigate to. These use cases involve showing a fixed selection of
>     web content determined by the app developer, and may well block
>     navigating to the open web for security reasons.
>   * If an app embeds a webview, but adds a user interface to allow
>     users to enter their own URL to navigate to, then it qualifies as
>     a web browser. I think someone mentioned the DuckDuckGo browser
>     does this, and assuming it has a URL bar, then it is a browser
>     under this definition
>   * In-app browsers like Android Custom Tabs
>     and SFSafariViewController qualify as webviews, since (as far as I
>     can tell) the user cannot edit the URL in this mode to browse to a
>     different website. Despite having many of the features of a web
>     browser, it works like showing the same content in a dismissable
>     webview (which AFAIK is in fact often what apps did prior to the
>     introduction of in-app browsers), so I feel like this is still an
>     appropriate categorisation. Where the in-app browser provides an
>     option to open the viewed page in the actual browser app (e.g.
>     'Open in Chrome browser' on Android), under this definition it
>     will switch the user from a webview to a browser, as in the
>     browser they can then edit the URL.
>
> It should be easy to tell with this definition: basically if you can 
> type in a URL, it's a browser, otherwise it's a webview.
>
> This should then be a basis on which to categorise things like usage 
> stats for browsers vs. webviews. The user agent string does not 
> reliably tell you if there is an editable URL bar, but it gives us a 
> basis from which to categorise the different user agent strings that 
> are observed in the wild, such as DuckDuckGo Browser (browser) and 
> Facebook in-app browser (webview).

Categorizing "webview or not" via UA string seems like it falls apart in 
a scenario like "Chrome opened in kiosk mode", or any app using 
`setUserAgentString()` (or similar).

Another thought: if the goal here to for traffic usage, do you consider 
traffic coming from iframes to be browser traffic, or webview traffic 
(given that users can't enter a URL into iframes).

>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Ashley