If we were able to ignore Apple's unconscionably low level of investment in WebKit, I think we'd all be upset that com.facebook.* is the new IE 6-11 Yes, Android's WebView can be used to make a browser. No, it is not functional without a *lot* of work: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/webkit/WebView …
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Is FB doing that work? Like fuck it is. "But why does this matter?" you might ask, looking at your GA logs. What fraction of your mobile traffic comes from "Android Webview"? For most publishers, most of the time, that is largely FB's "In-App Browser".
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We have to use scare-quotes here because _it is not a browser_. On Android, Browsers are things that put intent filters in their manifest for all `http://` and `https://` view actions: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Intent.html#ACTION_VIEW …
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For many publishers, this is 20-30% of traffic (which is down for previous years thanks to ranking changes). That's 20-30% of traffic that doesn't handle Push Notifications or PWA install or WebAuthN or pretty much anything in the Fugu roadmap:https://developers.google.com/web/updates/capabilities …
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What you, as a web developer, should understand about this situation is that Facebook is breaking the web for 20-30% of your traffic *because you aren't demanding they do better*.
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Facebook gets away with this because you aren't making noise about it. Could they staff a real browser team? Chose to use CCT or delegate to the user's default (real) browser? Sure. All of that is meeting or 5 away for the folks who go to work every day in Menlo Park.
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Instead, they're hiding out in the shadiest, dankest corner of browser fuckery: subtly and pervasively undermining user choice about privacy and security while at the same time failing to compete *as a browser* when, in reality, they are the second most popular browser on Android
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Facebook broke the web because it helped them. You didn't push back. Now the web is broken for most users, and, in particular, first-time-internet users. What should we do about it? What will *you* do about it?
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Replying to @slightlylate
I love this thread, agree with you 100% on Facebook's move being not cool at all. But what do you expect small developers or users to do? What's their leverage? Isn't Google in a more powerful place? Can't Google say "that shit stops, or we stop approving your app?"
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There’s a long history of muckracking posts by developers changing vendor behavior. One might argue that FB is so utterly shameless that they are immune to this sort of hectoring, but not even I am that cynical (yet). Good folks work there; want to do right. Need the opening.
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Replying to @slightlylate @benadida
“Good folks work there;”... I have serious doubts about the good part. Just look at the response from some of their best developers perhaps: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20711598 … I would not trust a single line coming out of that company!
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...this problem of meritocratic evil isn’t limited to the F company alone. there are quite a few in Google and Apple too! I sense that it will get worse before getting any better because these aren’t founder driven companies anymore.
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