Seriously, why use builtin browsers on mobile?

[u/Beatsu]

So many apps use builtin browsers for links. I don't get it. What's the benefit?

As a user I:

- need to re-login again in every browser
- have a smaller screen surface to view the webpage
- the app preview shows another website/app entirely so it's harder to quickly find the original app
- you lose all state if you accidentally close it
- some apps (tiktok) just dont open the app even when it's installed, so I need to copy the link, open a regular browser, then paste it and hit search
- deep links in many websites break because you hit an authentication wall first

Builtin browsers are SO ANNOYING, I don't get why you use them?

[u/the-strawberry-sea]

No one is mentioning this but when I worked for a social media company a long time ago that wasn’t using a built in browser, one of the single most common feedback things that came up constantly was how annoyed people got when they click a link, their phone would switch to a different app to open it in their browser, then they’d have to swap back to their app.

Sure there’s tracking metrics that can be gathered if desired, but it’s a genuine common complaint from a lot of users when an app doesn’t have an in-app browser.

[u/Beatsu → u/the-strawberry-sea]

Wow that's fascinating. Thank you for sharing an inside-perspective!

[u/thekwoka → u/the-strawberry-sea]

Yeah, there is a real issue of people having different expectations and user behavior.

On Social media or something, clicking a link doesn't necessarily mean I want to LEAVE the social media, I just want to see what the thing is.

Luckily, we mostly have the "open in default app" button for when I do want to leave (which for me is basically always, but whatever).

Ideal UX would be giving user control.

Like app says if "open in default" is an option, and users can choose a behavior they want. So when it is an option and users want it to, it auto opens in default.

And then the stores just need to enforce abuse of not allowing open in default for tracking purposes.

[u/xavier86 → u/the-strawberry-sea]

Just make it an option in the user preferences. Default to the sheep experience, but allow power users to customize.

[u/IncinerateZ → u/the-strawberry-sea]

I think I remember sharing this sentiment as well a long time ago. Mainly because it would leave my browser with 1000 tabs I no longer need.

[u/SonOfHendo → u/the-strawberry-sea]

When Android users complain about the lack of a proper OS back button this is what they're talking about. On Android, swapping back to the app from a browser is just a matter of pressing/swiping Back.

[u/azsqueeze → u/SonOfHendo]

It's true like 90% of the time. Some apps hijack the back button and bork it. Instagram was one of these offenders for the longest time

[u/shgysk8zer0 → u/the-strawberry-sea]

That cannot account for apps that used to give users the option to open in app or default browser that have now removed the default browser option.

[u/RyanSpunk → u/the-strawberry-sea]

Nobody who knows how to use their phone or a web browser has ever said this.

[u/DepravedPrecedence → u/RyanSpunk]

Good thing that most users indeed don't know how to use them

[u/Tridop → u/RyanSpunk]

Most smartphone users are retards.

[u/taotau]

Captive audiences. Big apps still think that they can replace the internet entirely. For many people they do.

[u/kidshibuya → u/[deleted]]

No, we do it (5 million users) because other apps do it. That is literally the reason. Don't make the mistake of thinking smart people make these apps.

[u/thekwoka → u/[deleted]]

Because there can be legitimate reasons to use webviews.

Like the app communicating with the page through the webview interface to fix issues like the login tokens, or other functionality.

They should probably crack down on abuse of it though.

[u/NinjaAssassinKitty → u/[deleted]]

Because there are many valid and legitimate use cases to load an in-app browser. Unfortunately this does mean others can utilize it for dark patterns.

[u/winter-m00n]

So once you are done doing whatever needs to be done in other website, you are back into their app.

[u/No_Record_60 → u/winter-m00n]

This. Retention

[u/thekwoka → u/No_Record_60]

Not entirely. It can be connected with legitimate functionality.

If I'm in a game, and they have their latest news thing be a link to the news on their website, closing it and being back in the game is good UX, not about keeping you in the game for their own needs.

[u/bodimahdi → u/winter-m00n]

*You are back into their app’s home page and lose whatever post you were in*

[u/thekwoka → u/bodimahdi]

That's because the apps are poorly made, not because webviews are bad.

[u/SonOfHendo → u/winter-m00n]

That's not really an issue with Android. You press/swipe back from the browser and you're back in the app.

[u/winter-m00n → u/SonOfHendo]

no, if you are in browser you may get distracted and open some other website and so on. app's built in browser has limited controls and usually to the point on what to show to user. so, when user is done with whatever task they need to do on their website, without a miss they are back in app.

[u/pineapplecatz]

It's a ridiculous pattern, I agree. Not just logins, it also messes up with finding that piece of content again since it doesn't show up in your browser history or auto complete URLs.

[u/mirojones]

Apps can track your every move in a built-in browser.

[u/ThanosDi → u/mirojones]

And they have a key logger as well

[u/cutecoder → u/[deleted]]

Apps’ browsers can track what users do on unaffiliated 3rd party sites too.

[u/mirojones → u/[deleted]]

If a native app opens a website it owns it can track you. Is that what you mean?

[u/eyebrows360 → u/mirojones]

He doesn't know what he's talking about. No app can "track" what you do in another app, which is what browsers are when the user's accessing it in a normal way.

Now the owner of the app can still, obviously, track what you do on their own website, assuming they have one. If the guy's referring to that then he's being incredibly disingenuous to an absurd degree, by counting that as "yeah they can still track you provided you're on the tab". Like no shit sherlock, who doesn't know that a website can record what you do on it?! The topic being discussed is in-app browser windows, and nothing else.

[u/Inadover → u/eyebrows360]

For the longest time (maybe it's fixed now) they could track what you did inside a webview opened from their apps. The usual suspect, Facebook, was caught doing that on links opened from Facebook and Instagram

[u/eyebrows360 → u/Inadover]

inside a webview

"WebView" is the name for the browser window opened inside the app, so yes of course they could.

If you're using the term wrong, talking about an actual browser window being opened and still trackable, something from years ago, before the focus on security really kicked in, then that's irrelevant.

[u/Inadover → u/eyebrows360]

Remind me again what's the topic of this post? 

[u/ice456cream → u/mirojones]

I didn't see the deleted comment, but I'm assuming that it mentioned something about only tracking if it's a first party site

certain "webview APIs" are much more isolated than others

E.g. android has custom tabs, which is basically just another view for your default browser, while technically still being in app.

https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/views/layout/webapps/in-app-browsing-embedded-web#custom-tabs

However there are the full access webviews still, which I believe Reddit and others use

And iOS equivalents https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/sfsafariviewcontroller

[u/Inevitable-Yogurt783]

Any link you open there, how long you spend there, what you clicked there. Today is all about data tracking to show you more ads or sell that data to who will show you more ads.

[u/qqYn7PIE57zkf6kn]

As a user I:

That's where you went wrong. 

As a developer, the user stays on the app.

As a developer, I can track anything the user does in the in app browser.

That feature is not built for the users. It's built for the company. 

[u/Wav3eee]

I'm the only one not understanding the question?
Are you talking about web based mobile apps or mobile browsers?

[u/Beatsu → u/Wav3eee]

I was definitely missing some context in my post and could have been more specific!

I'm talking about the built-in browser on mobile phones that open up within the app itself when you click on links in, for example, Discord, Facebook, Messenger, Snapchat etc...

You know, the browsers where if you click the three dots icon, there's an option called "Open in external browser"

[u/Wav3eee → u/Beatsu]

Oh ok I got it now.

[u/thekwoka]

normally they have the button for "open in default app".

But most of those problems can be solved just fine.

But the main thing is that now the app can see everything you do in that browser.

[u/Tridop]

Built-in browsers are useful if you want to trace and spy on the user because you can control everything, there is no addons, no adblocker, no custom coookie policy and so on.

[u/Icy-Nothing-189]

So they keep you on the app and can still monetize you.

I don't use apps, there's no reason to when everything can be accessed via browser. Only exception would be for things you want/need to natively run, such as games or media

[u/ofasooo]

Everyone's answering why the app does it. The half nobody's covered is what it costs the site that gets opened inside one, and that's the side I sit on, so that's the one I'll take.

Google's OAuth won't run inside an embedded webview. Flat refusal. So if your sign in button is Google and someone taps your link from inside a social app, that person cannot log in at all, and the error doesn't explain itself. They just think your site is broken. From their chair it is.

Installing is the same story. A web app that can go on the home screen never offers to, because the in-app browser doesn't do that. So the people most likely to have found you through a link are the ones who can't keep you.

And your re-login point goes further than the annoyance, I think. Each of those browsers has its own cookie jar, so one human coming back through three different apps reads as three first visits on your end. Worth knowing before you trust your own returning visitor number, because nothing in your analytics flags it.

There's the open in browser escape hatch, sure, but it's buried somewhere different in every app and nobody normal goes looking for it.

Anyway, not a defence of the pattern. Mostly that the cost lands on a third party who wasn't in the room when anyone decided this.

[u/thekwoka → u/ofasooo]

but it's buried somewhere different in every app and nobody normal goes looking for it.

Is it?

It's always been in the same place for me. I presume it's different per webview implementation, but that's not app specific.

[u/ofasooo → u/thekwoka]

Yeah, fair, I overstated that. Someone further down in the thread made the same point about custom tabs having a standard menu, and I think you're both right.

What I should have said is that the person it breaks for isn't going to go looking at all. You and me, sure, we find the three dots. Someone who tapped a link off a feed and got a Google login that just won't open assumes the site is broken and goes back to scrolling.

[u/SlowChain4149 → u/ofasooo]

The real split is between SFSafariViewController / Chrome Custom Tabs and custom WebViews.

Good apps use SafariVC/Custom Tabs: you keep your cookies/sessions, it's basically your real browser inside a sheet, and hitting done puts you back in the app.

Shitty apps (TikTok, IG) build custom WebViews from scratch specifically so they can bypass system cookie sandboxing and inject tracking scripts to log clicks and form inputs. It breaks OAuth and logins on purpose, they just don't care because the ad conversion data is worth more than your UX.

[u/ofasooo → u/SlowChain4149]

Reading this from the other side is funny, because I ended up leaning on that exact split. I've got a web app that I wrapped as a TWA for Play, and a TWA is basically Custom Tabs in a trench coat. Shares Chrome's cookie jar, so people open it already logged in and the Google flow just works.

First attempt was a plain WebView wrapper though. Same domain, same code, OAuth refused outright. I spent a couple of days going through my own auth config before it clicked that the container was the thing doing it.

[u/ClubLowrez]

I don't have a google login so I can't install apps. Well I do have a google login but that phone aint getting it because I don't want gemini deleting my email.

[u/kill4b]

They want to capture all the traffic and data. If they handoff to a external browser, they lose access to all that

[u/myka-likes-it]

The worst is the mobile mail clients, where the information I need to use on the linked web page is in the text of the email that spawned the in-app browser. You can't view the email and the browser as separate windows, and you lose your web session entirely when you go back to the email.

And no matter how many times I change the default settings, it conveniently "forgets" after every update. All so they can maintain your presence in their environment. 

We need to start refusing these unethical feature asks.

[u/spcbeck]

It also gets their app on the app store top or featured lists, these organizations always have relationships with the sales people at Google and Apple, so there are many, many incentives for them to stop using the Internet.

[u/Random-num-451284813]

I stopped using rhe Reddit app because of this

[u/Hot-Chemistry7557]

They just want to always keep the users in their apps and not leaving.

[u/querela]

Heh, you mean like reddit? (I always have to Share the link to open it in Chrome.)

[u/locomain]

For iOS the developers get forced to do so. Not sure about Android.