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Let websites framebust out of native apps

holovaty.com

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Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps

#141

Post by the_gipsy »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #133
the_gipsy wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you come to that conclusion? The users want to open links in their browser - no matter if the link is in an email, chat message, or in an app.

That's a very large assumption, one I think is outright false considering the discussion I've read about this post. The issue is that apps are allowed to embed webviews to do malicious things.

No, it's a large assumption that users want to open a link in an in-app browser. Why would they? On the other hand, there are clear motives for the app to keep users in the app as much as possible. Because the in-app browser in general is a degraded experience, for example being logged out of habitual websites, the user won't navigate the web as usual, and will soon return to the app. It's nothing but a dark pattern.

Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps

#142

Post by btown »

samwillis wrote: post #102

In 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 A…

How did you detect that an IAB was being used? Do they typically have unique user-agents or something?

Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps

#143

Post by Dracophoenix »

SergeAx wrote: post #119
ramblerman wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of them detect it and try to force you. It's malicious as hell, but somehow allowed. For example reddit won't open a link it deems +18 through the web browser, and redirects you to use the app.

I saw that on Reddit couple of times. I just close the tab in that case: there's nothing 18+ on Reddit that worth installing their app.

A solution to this is use HyperApp or Userscript to automatically redirect to old.reddit.com. It works like a charm.

Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps

#144

Post by ocdtrekkie »

the_gipsy wrote: post #141
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very large assumption, one I think is outright false considering the discussion I've read about this post. The issue is that apps are allowed to embed webviews to do malicious things.

No, it's a large assumption that users want to open a link in an in-app browser. Why would they? On the other hand, there are clear motives for the app to keep users in the app as much as possible. Because the in-app browser in general is a degraded experience, for example being logged out of habitual websites, the user won't navigate the web as usual, and will soon return to the app. It's nothing but a dark pattern.

Your opinion is in the minority, even among the very technical folks I've seen discussing this issue. It's entirely false to reclassify a feature many users want as a dark pattern.

Let me give you an example personally: I want my RSS feed reader to use an in-app browser. Because unless I am going to get significantly more in depth, I just want to see the page content, and then swipe or back out to where I was in my feed very quickly.

Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps

#145

Post by kitsunesoba »

derefr wrote: post #111
kitsunesoba wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree that SFSafariViewController should use the newer style of sheet that can be pulled down on to be be dismissed. It makes more sense than the current navigation stack style presentation, and the extra context of the spawning app being visible around the top edges under the sheet would be helpful in app switcher. The reason SFSafariViewController switched to per-app containers is because the older behavior in…

> the older behavior in iOS 9/10 where it used the same environment as the browser proper was being rampantly abused for advertising/tracking purposes How did this work, exactly? Was the app able to observe/interact with the SFSafariViewController in any way? In my mind, the SFSafariViewController should literally "be" a Safari tab, in the sense that once it's open, the spawning app has no more connection to it than…

No, apps didn’t have any more ability to observe/interact with the view controller than they do now. SFSafariViewController has always been a separate process spawned by the OS, not the app. It was for all intents and purposes a “real” Safari tab the app couldn’t touch.

The way tracking was happening is by apps putting an identifier in the URL, which JavaScript put into the linked page by the authors (social media widgets, Google Analytics, etc) would pick up on the cookies and other identifiers in the SFSafariViewController session carried over from “real” Safari and then tie those with the URL identifier. Boom, Twitter, etc have a nicely fleshed out tracking/advertising profile to attribute to that clicked link, even though they didn’t use a custom webview.

This is exactly how tracking works with regular browser tabs, too. The only way to mitigate it is to give each app its own separate Safari container for SFSafariViewController to run in and encourage devs to use SFSafariViewController instead of the full browser.

Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps

#146

Post by SergeAx »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #143
SergeAx wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw that on Reddit couple of times. I just close the tab in that case: there's nothing 18+ on Reddit that worth installing their app.

A solution to this is use HyperApp or Userscript to automatically redirect to old.reddit.com. It works like a charm.

Not for mobile Firefox, unfortunately.

Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps

#147

Post by postalrat »

sneak wrote: post #124
mitjam wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.“)

The notifications all go through Apple still, which allows them to monitor and censor them. This is not much of an improvement. :(

Whatever the web push standard lacks for encryption or hiding data can be done by your app.

Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps

#148

Post by hackmiester »

monkpit wrote: post #77
danboarder wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it can be an option to check: "Always open websites in your default browser".

Funny thing - the Gmail app has this prompt on the iPhone buy it never remembers my preference. It asks me every time even when I tell it not to.

I bet if you selected Chrome it would remember it.

Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps

#149

Post by Dracophoenix »

SergeAx wrote: post #146
Dracophoenix wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A solution to this is use HyperApp or Userscript to automatically redirect to old.reddit.com. It works like a charm.

Not for mobile Firefox, unfortunately.

Well, that's on Apple.

Re: Let websites framebust out of native apps

#150

Post by hackmiester »

pantojax45 wrote: post #49
dannyphantom wrote: post #17

As someone pointed out already, Twitter does a good job with this. Reddit does a fine enough job, too. However, tiktok doesn't allow users to break out of their in-app browser. This is especially frustrating when you wish to follow an artist on Spotify WITHOUT signing into Spotify in the tiktok app.

Ironically people handle this with: link to instagram (because you can break out of browser): link to insta => link tree in insta => get to link you like => user can click safari button…

Yeah, and that frustrates the hell out of me, too, because I don't have Instagram and it varies (based on Zuck's mood, I guess) whether they will even allow me to view someone's profile without an account.
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