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Comment by sheepscreek | Hacker News Reader

BEWARE! On iOS, the app will have access to a five-page-long list of data, including your browsing history, purchase history, phone number, physical address, precise location, photos, videos, and more. I almost wish they’d stop f’ing around with advertising and make it a paid subscription app. I might even subscribe to it then (like I have with SuperGrok and ChatGPT Plus).

Maybe their audience is people who can’t be bothered or can’t afford it.

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iOS apps cannot access your Safari browsing history. I'm not even sure what "purchase history" actually means? They can't access photos and videos without explicitly granting permission.

This surely would just refer to the massive trove of data Facebook has already gathered about you.

Most likely it does what their other apps do: opens URLs in an in-app "browser" WebView, which is then injected with a ton of trackers that have unlimited access to everything you browse in their app.

iOS apps are allowed to add arbitrary JavaScript to any page on any domain, even HTTPS, as long as it's a WebView and not the standalone Safari app.

This is generally worse UX vs. just opening Safari. There have been exactly zero times where I was happy that a link opened in an app's WebView, instead of in Safari or the appropriate external app.

Why does a seemingly privacy-focused Apple create the compromisable WebView system for apps? Is there some weird edge case for apps that they need this, for a non-evil reason?

They don’t allow third party browser engines. If they didn’t allow web view they are effectively banning third party browsers completely. I can’t imagine that would make their anti trust problems any better.

That makes sense. Thanks.

Although, it does seem like they could get more granular in app approval, which I am sure iOS devs would not like, but users would. For example, "If your app's primary use case is navigation of the open web, you may use WebView to handle 3rd party links. However, if that is not the primary purpose of your app, web links must open in iOS."

Either that, or give me a setting for each app, which the dev can set the default on. "Open links in Safari."

There’s a permission for Location at least, “In App Web Browsing” can have that permission disabled. Web Views don’t seem to have similar treatment otherwise, afaict. I’d sandbox them aggressively if I could .

I use Adguard which has a Safari integration that appears to apply to Web Views (based on the absence of ads), though I don’t have proof of that.

> I use Adguard which has a Safari integration that appears to apply to Web Views (based on the absence of ads), though I don’t have proof of that.

I have been wondering about this for a couple years now. Do Safari content filters apply to app WebViews? I assumed not.

Can any iOS dev chime in? I don't have have a modern Mac and dev account to test this at this time.

Well, just off the top of my head, an epub is basically HTML and is simple to implement with a web view. Nice when the OS has a framework that provides one.

There is SCSafariController, and even Android has CustomTabs API for private in-app browsers. It's just very inconvenient for Meta/Facebook.

WebView is very useful for UIs. You're probably using it more than you know in the "native" apps.

I’ve never worked on iOS apps before, but after writing my comment I looked into it. Yes, I absolutely use WebView all the time without knowing it.

Still, would be cool if I had a setting for each app that allows forcing opening 3rd party URLs in Safari, and not WebView, if that is feasible.

Beware? Why? The app is marketed as providing personalized experience. How is it supposed to do that if it doesn't know anything about you?

Because Meta have repeatedly shown themselves to not be good stewards of this type of data in the past.

If you already have Facebook/Messenger in your phone, and haven't bothered to change default permissions, I guess Meta AI will only add your voice, image, and textual interactions to your already thick dossier. Not much more harm done.

Might as well but the Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses and embrace the exposure already.

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