Open Web AdvocacyMar 26, 2024

In-App Browsers subvert user choice, stifle innovation, trap users into apps, break websites and enable applications to severely undermine user privacy🪲🕵️

In-App Browsers hurt consumers, developers and damage the entire web ecosystem👎

👇Read our regulatory submission
https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/in-app-browsers-the-worst-erosion-of-user-choice-you-havent-heard-of/

In-App Browsers: The worst erosion of user choice you haven't heard of - Open Web Advocacy

Open Web Advocacy
Show threadAbazigalMar 26, 2024
@owa so let me get this straight - being booted out of an app like say, a mastodon client, every time I wish to read an article in app, is supposed to make for a better user experience?
Show threadOpen Web AdvocacyMar 26, 2024
@Abazigal not quite. If you read an article, it should be loaded using your default browser within the app. Have a read of the submission, remote-tab in-app browsers are good.
Show threadDrew 🐘Mar 26, 2024

@owa @Abazigal The linked article would be much more convincing if it explicitly called out this ability as an enabling factor:

"Mandating that non-browser apps utilise a users' default browser for third-party websites, will unlock a more vibrant and equitable digital landscape. [The essential character of existing in-app experiences can be replicated with remote-tab functionality of all major browsers. Therefore the barrier to compliance would be low.]"

Show threadOpen Web Advocacy
@dvogel @Abazigal Thanks for the feedback, we have updated the article with text to explain this more clearly.
Mar 27, 2024 at 12:08amWeb
Show threadAbazigalMar 27, 2024
@owa Thank you getting back to me as well. I was genuinely perplexed by this as well. Perhaps I have been so conditioned to apps opening in either safari view or their own browser that for that moment, I just couldn’t fathom it supporting a web view of another browser.