I also have always the problem, that "in app browsers" don't recognize the native Apps I have installed and so links to youtube or Instagram e.g. do not open the native app but the browser version instead. Copy pasting links is my everyday browsing experience on twitter and linkedIn e.g.
Let websites framebust out of native apps
101–110 of 158 posts
Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps
#102In app browsers are a real problem for online stores and e-commerce, the issue being they (mostly) don’t maintain session cookies when a user clicks the “open in Safari/browser” button. This is disastrous for shopping carts.
Say your are an advertiser with an ad click or have a visitor come organically from social. They like your products and place them in their cart and go to checkout, at checkout they want to use Apple Pay or their saved card details. These aren’t available in most IABs, so they click the “open in browser” button, but now they have lost their cookie and have an empty cart! This causes a massive drop out rate at checkout.
I run a store that sells personalised items, it takes time for a customer to prepare their item before going to checkout. We experienced something like a 30% drop out rate from Facebook ads due to this.
The “work around” was to detect users in an IAB and display a message on first navigation attempt to prompt them to click the “open in browser” button early.
The fact that Facebook let this happen shows that have very little interest I’m making the advertising experience better for advertisers. They just want to keep users in Facebook.
Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps
#103It looks like Twitter is using SFSafariViewController for their in-app browser. This is the system-recommended way of creating an in-app browser. It prevents the embedding app (Twitter in this case) from reading website data and injecting JavaScript into the view. You can also break out of the session into Safari pretty trivially by hitting the Safari button in the lower right corner. Apps that implement a custom web…
Came here to say this. Custom webviews like Facebook likes to use are another matter but SFSafariViewController is for all intents and purposes real Safari with per-app cookies, storage, etc to bust tracking. And I have to say, I would be pretty irritated if every site demanded to open in my main browser. Many if not most links I tap are quick one and dones I’d prefer to not clutter up my tabs.
Why should this clutter up your tabs, though? Hitting the back button/making the back gesture should (given a sane implementation) close the tab and return you to the native app where you clicked the link, no?
Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps it can be an option to check: "Always open websites in your default browser".
Many apps have this setting but some don't. When they do it is invariably buried in the most inconvenient and hard to find place, different in every app, named something non-obvious, moved every year or so when some PM decides that the settings screen needs rearranging, and it is never synced or saved so you have to set it separately on every device and again whenever you get a new device, in every app. I wish there…
Hell, I remember that both Facebook and Instagram used to have this setting! I uninstalled both of them quite some time ago, but I assume from the gripes in the article that this option has been removed.
Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps
#105I see almost no reason to use mobile apps for Facebook, Instagram or Twitter today. Just use mobile web browser instead. The only thing is a dark mode for Facebook, but I believe it is achievable via DarkReader plugin for Firefox. Also, ad blockers are more or less working in browser, although Facebook is actively counteracts.
Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why shouldn't clicking a link open your browser application? It's done that the entire history of the web and computing. Embedding a browser in apps to try to keep users "engaged with your brand" after they have already clicked a link to leave for the web is a new thing and is erroneous. Why would you be irritated that clicking a web link opens the link in the browser? That's what's supposed to happen.
Because I don't necessarily want the link I'm visiting cluttering my history and tabs, and I probably don't want the site in question to have access to my cookies and whatnot. It's much more likely that I'll check out random links in apps (HN client, reddit, twitter, etc) if I know SFSafariViewController will be there to act as a wall between the visited site and my primary browsing setup. The only thing I can see ac…
> * probably don't want the site in question to have access to my cookies and whatnot*
Er, why not? Sites don't get access to any random old cookie, they get access to cookies they themselves have set before (more or less). Why should a tap from a native app be any different wrt cookie access than if you navigated to the site yourself in the web browser?
Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps
#107It looks like Twitter is using SFSafariViewController for their in-app browser. This is the system-recommended way of creating an in-app browser. It prevents the embedding app (Twitter in this case) from reading website data and injecting JavaScript into the view. You can also break out of the session into Safari pretty trivially by hitting the Safari button in the lower right corner. Apps that implement a custom web…
So it sounds like the solution here is to not cater to Open Web Advocacy's particular flavor of advocacy as the article prescribes, but in fact, prohibit apps from using any webview except the official one provided by the OS.
iOS already does this, and that hasn't solved the problem. The issue is that the system-provided webview (well, on iOS, one of the two of them) allows the native app full control over it.
And on Android, that would mean Firefox couldn't use Gecko. Screw that.
Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps
#108Stop installing apps and demand PWAs.
On iOS this means you can't get notifications. Notifications are really important. Apple won't do web notifications because it means then people wouldn't have to pay their 10x-over-the-industry-standard premium (30% instead of 3%) for bundled credit card processing if they buy stuff on the web and not via the App Store.
This seems to have changed. Web push is coming to mobile Safari next year. https://webkit.org/blog/12945/meet-web-push/ (Edit: better link - „Keep an eye out for Web Push on iOS and iPadOS in 2023.“)
Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps
#109> Popular apps such as Instagram and Facebook don’t just use vanilla webviews. They use customized ones, with their own quirks.
This might be understandable, but also feels a bit odd. Why couldn't they just use what the system already providers, without bloating everything with their own implementation?
Then again, one could probably ask the same about desktop software that is commonly based on Electron, but in theory might as well be run through Firefox with some additional capabilities that locally running Electron apps would otherwise get. Then again, we kind of had PWAs on the desktop, which have been retired now as well: https://9to5google.com/2021/01/27/firefox-discontinues-work-...
Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Came here to say this. Custom webviews like Facebook likes to use are another matter but SFSafariViewController is for all intents and purposes real Safari with per-app cookies, storage, etc to bust tracking. And I have to say, I would be pretty irritated if every site demanded to open in my main browser. Many if not most links I tap are quick one and dones I’d prefer to not clutter up my tabs.
Why should this clutter up your tabs, though? Hitting the back button/making the back gesture should (given a sane implementation) close the tab and return you to the native app where you clicked the link, no?
This already happens when apps open links in safari. There’s a little back button in the top left of the screen to go back to the app which opened that webpage.