When you open a link in another application, it will usually launch in your browser (such as Chrome) or Custom Tabs. Facebook chose to open a webpage in its own in-app browser, which is provided by the Android system WebView. Next, Facebook's main apps will soon change the conten

2025/04/1601:36:34 technology 1799

When you open a link in another application, it will usually start in your browser (such as Chrome) or Custom Tabs. Facebook chooses to open a web page in its own in-app browser, provided by the Android system WebView. Next, Facebook's main apps will soon change the content that supports its in-app browser.

Android Facebook will soon use its own browser engine, which is still based on Chromium, but is no longer a component used by most other Android applications.

When you open a link in another application, it will usually launch in your browser (such as Chrome) or Custom Tabs. Facebook chose to open a webpage in its own in-app browser, which is provided by the Android system WebView. Next, Facebook's main apps will soon change the conten - DayDayNews

Meta says security is the primary consideration for this conversion, as its WebView alternative will be updated at the same time as the Facebook app.

... In the past few years, we have observed that many Android users are updating their Facebook apps but not updating their Chrome and WebView apps, which can lead to security risks and negative user experiences. To ensure the security of this new approach, Meta will "regularly relocate our WebView to the latest version of Chromium" to get the latest security patches.

When you open a link in another application, it will usually launch in your browser (such as Chrome) or Custom Tabs. Facebook chose to open a webpage in its own in-app browser, which is provided by the Android system WebView. Next, Facebook's main apps will soon change the conten - DayDayNews

stability is considered another reason for the conversion. Facebook wants to solve the problem that every time the Android system WebView is updated through the Play Store, the application that uses it crashes as part of the natural upgrade process. In the future, there will be only one update to Facebook app that will affect program stability in this case. Meta also expects to improve rendering performance and plans to "continue to submit any significant changes to upstream Chromium".

For Facebook app users, the company gains more end-to-end control in this way and does not expect to make any other changes to the user interface/experience. Officially stated:

We have been conducting early testing of this Chromium-based WebView, and we will start promoting this version to more Facebook app users with compatible devices.

Unfortunately, Facebook has not chosen to use Custom Tabs, it shares cookies with the main browser, which can reduce the hassle of logging into the website again. Custom Tabs also allows calling existing password and payment method managers, and also transfer open tags to the main browser without reloading the page.

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