06:47:20 RRSAgent has joined #webviews 06:47:20 logging to https://www.w3.org/2021/10/18-webviews-irc 06:47:22 RRSAgent, stay 06:47:25 RRSAgent, make log public 06:04:31 dom has joined #webviews 06:04:43 Meeting: Making WebViews work for the Web - TPAC 2021 breakout 06:04:45 Chair: Dom 06:08:42 Slideset: https://www.w3.org/2021/Talks/dhm-tpac-webviews/ 06:25:37 Kim_wooglae has joined #webviews 06:53:38 Present+ 06:53:57 Present+ Xueyuan 06:54:00 Present+ Zhenjie 06:54:09 Present+ Jiaying 06:57:39 Present+ Alan_Davalos 06:57:44 Present+ Andre_Bandarra 06:58:03 Present+ Iwanczak 06:59:02 Present+ Hidde 06:59:07 Present+ Atsushi 07:00:07 Present+ ChrisNeedham 07:01:16 Present+ Limin 07:01:25 Present+ Lisa_Seeman 07:01:44 cpn has joined #webviews 07:04:58 Meeting: Making WebViews work for the Web 07:05:15 scribenick: cpn 07:06:16 Dom: Goal is to identify what role W3C should play in making WebViews work better for the web 07:06:57 hdv has joined #webviews 07:07:11 ... WebViews are used in native apps to render web content 07:08:05 xueyuan has joined #webviews 07:08:07 ... W3C develops browser technology that is also used in WebViews. I think they do matter. More than 10% of web content is rendered in web views 07:09:03 ... Looking at the MiniApp ecosystem, webviews are a critical part 07:09:30 ... WebViews not only matter, but are critical to the future of the web 07:09:57 ... WebViews enable web technologies to have a bigger impact, and more reach 07:10:07 ... Story may be less positive in practice 07:10:39 Zakim has joined #webviews 07:10:46 ... Security, e.g, spectre attack, browsers have been rearchitected, but this protection isn't available in WebViews 07:11:22 ... End user privacy protection 07:11:44 ... Also they don't work with browser-specific UI such as permission prompts 07:12:43 ... I was surprised at how much content is rendered through WebViews. There may be little awareness among web developers that their content would be rendered in a WebView 07:13:07 ... Automated tooling, testing, documentation 07:13:41 .., Why are WebViews popular in native apps? One use case is rendering ads 07:14:11 ... Simpler to reuse existing web infrastructure, so many ad networks recommend using WebViews 07:14:50 ... If you already have web content and you want to have a native app 07:15:25 ... Federated login is simpler to enable in a WebView, but this brings questions about security and privacy and data storage 07:15:41 kazho has joined #webviews 07:15:51 andreban has joined #webviews 07:16:01 ... In-app browsers integrated into apps such as Facebook and Pinterest 07:16:20 ... Embedded systems such as TV sets 07:18:15 ... WebViews on Android doesn't have shared storage, for example. The CustomTab and Trusted Web Activity approach delegates rendering to the actual browser on the platform 07:19:17 ... It's similar on iOS. WebViews not recommended for general web content. There's a dedicated WebView for web-based authentication 07:19:39 ... It's a complex space for developers to navigate 07:20:02 ... There's also WebView usage on Desktop, e.g., the Electron framework 07:20:39 pchampin has joined #webviews 07:21:10 ... In conclusion, intersection with W3C work: W3C launched the MiniApps WG this year. Active W3C work on improving web advertising 07:21:24 zhenjie_ has joined #webviews 07:21:58 ... May need a discussion with groups that use native UI such as permission prompts 07:22:38 ... Web developers may not be aware of webviews. Would a Content Security Policy approach help? 07:23:20 ... WebViews creates a new stakeholder, security and privacy that are assumed in browsers 07:23:42 ... What are potential next steps? Is further discussion needed? 07:24:03 ... We could launch a Community Group, liaise with existing Working Groups 07:24:28 ... We could organise a workshop. It's a rich and complex space with lots of use cases and intersection with W3C work 07:24:39 ... So longer discussion in a workshop could help 07:24:59 ... I welcome any other suggestions you might have 07:26:14 Present+ Leonardo_Balter 07:26:17 Andre: I'm a devrel engineer at Google, working on web on Android 07:26:23 Present+ Marcos_Caceres 07:26:30 Present+ Michael_Smith 07:26:39 Present+ pierre-antoine_Champin 07:26:44 ... With Chrome Custom Tabs the goal was to get apps using the system browser. It was successful to some extent 07:26:51 Present+ Kim_Wooglae 07:27:03 Present+ Kazuho_Hoya 07:27:15 ... But a small number of big apps still prefer to use WebView. They know the user intent when linking to web content 07:28:41 ... The WebView is a system component. It's used in different use cases: advertising, in-app browser. A hidden WebView just so the app can use V8 JavaScript 07:28:57 Present+ Dominique Hazael-Massieux, Xueyuan Jia, Alan Dávalos, Andre Cipriani Bandarra, Atsushi Shimono, Chris Needham, Hidde de Vries, Jiaying Liang, Limin Zhu, Lisa Seeman, Przemyslaw lwanczak, Zhenjie Li 07:29:02 ... Should we have different use-case specific groups? 07:29:35 ... TV-specific apps. Some use WebView. YouTube has Cobalt, which is based on v8 and Blink, a different technology 07:30:03 Dom: I agree, splitting by use case could be valuable 07:31:14 MikeSmith has joined #webviews 07:31:21 Alan: We're one of the bigger organisations using WebViews. We have two big use cases. A semi super-app, an app that opens services in a webview. Most of our web services use that approach 07:32:23 ... The other use cases is stand-alone apps that use WebViews. They're updated on a different period than the application, so the WebView content can be updated more regularly 07:32:43 ... Also login integration 07:33:08 Dom: In the first category, super-apps. Are you hosting third party content? 07:33:48 Alan: It's both, e.g., our news app is an integrated WebView. But we also integrate a maps services as a MiniApp, branded differently to the in-house content 07:34:18 Andre: In the super-app use case, is the content hosted by you or the third party? Is there a verification or validation step for the miniapp? 07:35:18 Alan: For the most part, the things we host the content we develop in-house, and third parties host their content 07:36:07 Michael: A suggestion for how to focus this work: need to keep in mind solving user problems, so need to identify what the problems are and document them 07:36:46 ... There's a lot of usage of WebViews for different purposes. How can we best solve some of the problems? 07:37:24 ... Messaging clients, such as **? It's for messaging, playing games, reading news, e-commerce, entertainment 07:37:33 s/**/LINE 07:37:38 ... Similar to Facebook Messenger and WeChat 07:38:19 ... Problem areas: identity in the super-app. The user of the super-app doesn't have access to the identity information in the system browser 07:38:45 ... So when the user follows a link to the news site, the WebView isn't aware of their identity 07:39:01 ... Can we figure out a way to securely share identity information? 07:39:22 ... Also payment credentials, expose from system browser to the super app 07:40:17 ... In-app purchases, e.g., in games. Its difficult to discover games, then users can't get push notifications or access their social graph 07:40:54 ... The user has information in the system browser, need to expose it into the super-app hosted WebView 07:41:11 ... Suggest focusing on those big user problems 07:42:39 Dom: The web has gained operating system level integration with WebViews, how to rearchitect? 07:43:12 s/rearchitect/rearchitect browsers to expose other aspects beyond rendering (data storage, identity management)/ 07:43:22 Michael: Security or privacy issues with making platform data available to WebViews? 07:43:49 ... Can't only solve through technical solutions. Needs changes from platform providers such as Android and iOS 07:44:12 -> https://infrequently.org/2021/07/hobsons-browser/ Hobson's Browser - How Apple, Facebook, and Google Broke the Mobile Browser Market by Silently Undermining User Choice 07:44:22 ... Read Alex Russell on this 07:44:48 ... It's going to require engagement with Apple and Google on what's best for users 07:45:00 present+ fiona_cheng 07:45:13 ... They way you can contribute, if you're not technical, is in this area 07:45:14 present+ fiona cheng 07:45:36 Andre: Agree with that. At Google we've been thinking about identity and payments 07:46:21 ... When users navigate a link in an in-app browser, are they aware and do they trust the super-app? 07:46:47 ... User's aren't given choice of whether the in-app browser or the system browser is used 07:47:14 ... Some users prefer to keep their browsing history separate, some prefer to keep it all together, but users aren't given a choice 07:47:38 ... We should include those who build those experiences, such as Facebook and Pinterest 07:48:06 Dom: So it's not just a technical question, also policy and business considerations 07:48:54 ... We can focus on user pain points. Is this something W3C should work on, e.g., in a workshop or Community Group? 07:49:24 present+ Qing_An 07:49:36 +1 to have W3C work on this 07:50:02 Michael: I think a CG is a good idea. Not sure we need a workshop, as they take a lot of time to prepare 07:50:52 ... Community Groups are quick to create, doesn't require anybody's permission as it's community-driven 07:51:14 ... W3C dedicates staff time to Working Groups, but not for all Community Groups 07:51:43 ... If the CG is aligned organisationally with W3C we dedicate staff time, so we may get management support for that 07:51:58 ... We'd need someone willing to chair the group 07:52:31 ... If people are interested, we can help explain what's involved 07:52:38 present+ Roy_Ran 07:53:35 Dom: There's some interest from participants. Any comment on the MiniApp ecosystem? 07:54:22 ...(no comment) 07:54:40 scribe+ 07:54:57 Chris: in the media & entertainment IG, there is some interest in miniapps 07:55:07 ... or the kind of super-apps/Webviews approach for TV apps 07:55:14 ... this might be an area we would like to explore 07:55:29 ... incl things like cobalt 07:55:37 ... our industry would be interested in that certainly 07:57:31 Qing An: We have interest in WebView. There are lots of things we need to enhance, I'm curious about the direction in W3C. Is the direction to enhance WebView capability to bring better performance? 07:58:25 Dom: We seem to have converged on launching a W3C Community Group that focuses on reviewing where webviews are used, and pain points 07:58:29 present+ Xiaoqian_Wu 07:58:48 ... In terms of better performance or native integration, the CG could also look at that 08:00:56 Qing An: We've identified several issues from our implementation experience. Native app functionality provided by the webview, we're doing that now on the native app side 08:01:51 Dom: After TPAC I can look at setting up a CG. Get in touch if you're interested. We'll also run this session later in the week 08:02:09 ... Thank you all 08:02:32 RRSAgent, draft minutes 08:02:32 I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2021/10/18-webviews-minutes.html dom 08:29:42 RRSAgent, bye 08:29:42 I see no action items