I don't think "web apps are the future of mobile". But I do think there is a better separation of native apps and mobile/responsive web apps.
I don't think "web apps are the future of mobile". But I do think there is a better separation of native apps and mobile/responsive web apps.
We were looking for instances of insecure WebView usage, so from a security perspective small piece vs. entire app doesn't matter too much (and is difficult to measure, especially when looking at 1.1M apps).
However, some of the other numbers from our analysis can be useful to draw a picture of WebView usage.
We statically looked for uses of WebView, and 85% of the 1.1M apps used a WebView.
Of those 998,286 apps:
- 97% enable JavaScript (which is off by default)
- 36% use the JavaScript Bridge Interface (which is a fairly good indicator of heavy WebView usage)
- 94% implement a shouldOverrideUrlLoading method of the WebView (another good indicator that the developer is using the WebView for something non-trivial)
- 27% implement an onReceivedSslError method of the WebView (indication that the developer is using the WebView for something non-trivial). (Sadly, 29% of the apps that implement onReceivedSslError intentionally IGNORE all SSL errors.)
So I guess the takeaway is that 85% is an upper bound, the real number of WebView-only apps is absolutely lower, however it's clear that WebViews are significantly used in mobile apps.
How do you account for apps that only use the WebView for showing ads with the various ad toolkits out there?
It would be interesting data, although determining WebView for ads statically might be tricky.
That is probably true but most would require 10x the development effort at least and be obsoleted much sooner.
And then users don't want generic lowest common denominator applications; users want software to make the best use of the platform.
This might as well be Java.
Chromium specific certainly isn't as good as open standards, but it isn't as bad as Java. Once chromium is ported to something it doesn't face legal uncertainty.
Only the two companies that tried to screw Sun had any issues with it.
Whether or not someone owed damages is immaterial to the problem of trying to get everyone an appropriate license who might want to run your software in contexts you haven't imagined yet.