THE ANDROID BROWSER

IF YOU THINK BROWSER TESTING

ON DESKTOP IS diFFICULT

YOU'RE GOING TO

HAVE A BAD TIME

ON ANDROID





EVERY BROWSER

RENDERS AND

ACTS DIFFERENTLY

THERE ARE MANY

DIFFERENT BROWSERS

ON ANDROID

AND MANY VARIATIONS

OF THE SAME BROWSER

ANDROID USED TO SHIP

WITH A WEBVIEW BASED ON WEBKIT

MOST BROWSERS

INCLUDING THE DEFAULT BROWSER

USE THE WEBVIEW

THE WEBVIEW IS UPDATED WITH

MAJOR ANDROID UPDATES

2 → 3 → 4

BUT THEY WILL ALSO

GET BUGFIXES WITH

MINOR UPDATES OF ANDROID

ANDROID 4 DEVICES

ALSO COMMONLY SHIP WITH

GOOGLE CHROME

DEPENDING ON YOUR DEVICE

GOOGLE CHROME COULD BE an EXTRA BROWser THE DEFAULT BROWSER THE ONLY BROWSER OR NOT THERE AT ALL

ANDROID 4.4 SHIPS

WITH A NEW WEBVIEW

BASED ON CHROMIUM 30

but not the same as

GOOGLE chrome

the chromIUM based webview

will be updated regularly

ANDROID 4.4.3 → CHROMIUM 33

ANDROID 5 → CHROM IUM 37

IN FACT ON ANDROID 5

THE WEBVIEW CAN BE UPDATED

INDEPENTENTLY OF THE OS

CAN IT GET ANY MORE COMPLICATED?

YES

THE OLD WEBVIEW

WAS NOT VERY GOOD

DEVICE MAKERS

IMPROVED

THEIR webview

"IMPROVED"

SO WE NO LONGER HAVE

ONE WEBVIEW FOR

EACH ANDROID VERSION

BUT ONE FOR SAMSUNG, AND ONE FOR HTC, AND ONE FOR ...

DID YOU KNOW

SONY ERICSSON SHIPPED A WEBGL ENABLED bROWSER RUNNING ON ANDROID 2.3? WebGL on AN

Xperia Arc S

RUNNING ANdroid 2.3





THESE WEBVIEWS HAve

BETTER STANDARDS SUPPORT

BUT ALSO EXTRA BUGS WHAT KIND OF BUGS

CAN YOU EXPECT?

Hardware accelerated transitions flicker

Video and audio codecs are not

detectable using canPlayType

Gradients are not rendered smooth,

but use very large steps WHAT KIND OF BUGS

CAN YOU EXPECT?

The onscreen keyboard sometimes

pops up on top of the field you are

editing

Inconsistent events generated for

input fields WHAT KIND OF BUGS

CAN YOU EXPECT?

Some modifications use a

different default viewport



And many other

rendering differences WHAT KIND OF BUGS

CAN YOU EXPECT?

☹

Unfortunately, the process

com.android.browser has stopped

SOMETIMES THEY ENABLED

FEATURES IN WEBKIT

THAT WERE StilL

UNDER DEVELOPMENT

JUST TO SAY THEY HAD

BETTER HTML5 SUPPORT

THAN OTHERS

IT GETS WORSE...

SAMSUNG sHIPPED AN

IMPROVED WEBVIEW

ON THE GALAXY S3

WHICH WAS UPDATED

SEVERAL TIMES

THE GALAXY S4 USES

THE SAME WEBKIT BASED

WEBVIEW

BUT THE SAMSUNG BROWSER

NO LONGER USES THE WEBVIEW

THE BROWSER OF THE

SAMSUNG GALAXY S4

IS BASED ON CHROMIUM 18

AND LATER UPDATED TO CHROMIUM 28



BUT NOT THE SAME AS GOOGLE CHROME



THE GALAXY TREND 3 WAS

RELEASED SIX MONTHS LATER

STILL USES THE

WEBKIT BASED BROWSER



THE BROWSER OF THE

GALAXY NOTE 3

IS ALSO BASED ON CHROMIUM 28

ALMOST IDENTICAL TO THE GALAXY S4

ALMOST WEbAUDIO API

samsung GALAXY S4 YES

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 3 NO

SAMSUNG DEVICES

RUNNING THE SAME

VERSION OF ANDROID

DIFFERENT BROWSERS





and even worse...

HTC ALSO SHIPS

A MODIFIED WEBVIEW



BUT OBVIOUSLY NOT THE SAME MODIFICATIONS AS SAMSUNG

THEY HAVE BEEN IMPROVING

IT WITH EACH NEW

VERSION OF ANDROID

UP UNTIL VERSION 4.3

HTC DEVICES WITH

ANDROID 4.4 HAVE THE NEW CHROMIUM WEBVIEW

ON ANDROID 4.4

the HTC SENSE BROWSER

STILL USES THE same MODIFIED

WEBKIT WEBVIEW FROM ANDROID 4.3





THERE ARE

OTHER ANDROID BASED

SYSTEMS TOO

FIRE OS AMAZON KINDLE FIRE AND

AMAZON FIRE PHONE

THE KINDLE FIRE

SHIPPED WITH

THE DEFAULT

ANDROID WEBVIEW

1 ST GENERATION → ANDROID 2.3 2 ND GENERATION → ANDROID 4.0 3 Rd GENERATION → ANDROID 4.2

the default browser

FOR FIRE OS IS CALLED SILK SILK WAS BASED ON WEBKIT

SILK IS CURRENTLY

BASED ON CHROMIUM 31



BUT NOT THE SAME AS GOOGLE CHROME

THE 2nd and 3rd generation

kindle fire SHIP WITH

AN optional SECOND WEBVIEW

AMAZON WEBVIEW

BASED ON CHROMIUM 25

BUT NOT THE SAME AS GOOGLE CHROME ALSO NOT THE SAME AS SILK ALSO NOT THE ANDROID 4.4 CHROMIUM WEBVIEW

The UPCOMING FIRE PHONE WILL USE THE

AMAZON WEBVIEW

BY DEFAULT

AND WHAT ABOUT THE NOKIA X?

THE NOKIA X PLATFORM

IS BASED ON ANDROID IT SHIPS WITH THE DEFAULT

WEBKIT BASED WEBVIEW

NOKIA X

ALSO THE NOKIA X+ AND XL ANDROID 4.1

NOKIA X2 ANDROID 4.3

NOKIA BROWSER

IS BASED ON CHROMIUM 27

AND WAS QUICKLY

UPDATED TO CHROMIUM 30

BUT NOT THE SAME AS GOOGLE CHROME

AND WITH THE RELEASE OF

THE NOKIA X2 IT WAS REPLACED WITH OPERA ANOTHER CHROMIUM BASED BROWSER

MICROSOFT HAS CANCELLED

ANY FURTHER PLANS

FOR THE NOKIA X PLATFORM

TL;DR

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "THE" ANDROID BROWSER

AND JUST LIKE THERE IS

NOT "ONE" WEBKIT

THERE ALSO IS

NOT "ONE" CHROMIUM





