Re:Downfall Attacks
by eternityforest on Wednesday August 09, 2023 @12:18AM
(#37058636)
We really need to standardize "just wrapping a browser view". Why are we shipping a whole browser when we could be shipping a zip file of HTML with some metadata, and maybe a few tiny native helper utilities?
Re:Downfall Attacks
by asaddhamani on Wednesday August 09, 2023 @12:56AM
(#37058851)
This is how PWAs work on smartphones. I recall coming across some electron alternatives that use the system webview and those are able to generate binaries hundreds of kilobytes in size. But you lose out on access to many of the modern APIs due to Safari there.
This is standardized for many years and called PWA. There are ways to interact with native helper utilities as well (simplest is just run http server on localhost), but not for mobile apps.
For mobile apps you can use webview component which will use system browser. You don't need to ship the entire browser (actually you can't even do that on iOS).
Re:Downfall Attacks
by andrewaylett on Wednesday August 09, 2023 @05:17AM
(#37060323)
You can ship web apps via the Play Store for Android: https://developers.google.com/codelabs/pwa-in-play
But you're not allowed to for iOS: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#min...
There’s also user behavior. Many users are conditioned to get software through the App Store. I’ve seen this be a driving factor for quite a few web native applications spinning up native dev teams and shipping native clients.
Many folks are surprised to see just how far you can push a browser app and how small the gap between web and browser has become for well built applications, including native-like things like Bluetooth, NFC, USB, etc. (see: https://youmightnotneedelectron.com/)
Have hacked with quite a few devs/companies that had a fully functioning offline capable web native application. The most requested feature they’d get? “I want to download it from the App Store.” (Usually in the form of “I can’t find your app in the App Store”)
I suspect this is why the PWA experience on mobile devices hasn’t been well paved and why some App Store policies call out “don’t just wrap a browser view in a native app” - they want to keep users coming in the front door of a marketplace where they collect a cut off the top of all transactions.