wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/GeckoVi
> Self-Contained: Because GeckoView is a standalone library that you bundle with your application, you can be confident that the code you test is the code that will actually run.
Targeting a specific release of a browser engine is a serious anti-feature.
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The status quo is targeting a stable API without being able to depend on a specific version, since it receives automatic updates. Encouraging applications to bundle their own web rendering engine specifically so they can delay updating it is serious step backwards for security.
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Not to mention to severe loss of security going from a well sandboxed rendering engine like the standard WebView to a browser engine with no sandbox implementation for the platform. The 3rd point on that list is simply dishonest, which is typical of how Mozilla presents Firefox.
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Their initial claim that "many advanced Web APIs are disabled" in the WebView is misleading. A few features requiring a user interface outside of the content like Web Payments are unavailable. It still has more standards coverage than Firefox and is successfully used by browsers.
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The WebView API is a stable API provided by the platform. In order to support a feature like Web Payments, integration for it would need to be added at a new API level. For a list of what's missing, see chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+ and judge for yourself if it matches their claims.
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GeckoView definitely shouldn't be adopted as a library by applications, but unfortunately writing everything against a specific frozen browser engine bundled into the app is appealing to many developers. I'm not talking about Mozilla using it themselves in their own browser.
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They don't have a sandbox in their current generation browser either and I'm not saying that their new approach is a regression for their own usage. I already cover their current generation Android browser app in grapheneos.org/usage#web-brow and it applies entirely to the new one.
