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webviewinappbrowserembedded-browser

In App browser vs Web View vs Embedded browser What's the difference?

Could anyone share an exact definition of In-App Browser, Web View or Embedded browser?

  • Google uses the term, embedded webview or webview.
  • Facebook uses the term, embedded browser.
  • With my knowledge, I have used the term, in-app browser for tiktok/facebook/instagram's custom browser.

I have looked up and it seems like these 3 terms:

  • In App browser
  • Web View
  • Embedded browser

refer to the same thing.

Is there any difference between the 3 terms? or Is it just 3 different words for the same thing.

Solution

  • WebView is an embeddable browser that a native application can use to display web content.

    Here, the native application can be an IOS mobile app built with swift, a Android app built with Java or Kotlin, a Windows desktop app built with C++ etc. Essentially its an application that is written in the language and framework that is optimized for the particular platform that is being used.

    So, a WebView is sort of like an iframe that you can embed in your native application.

    One could think of In-App Browsers or Embedded browsers as a use case of WebViews -A common place example of this is a feature that you would see in social media apps like facebook, twitter etc where in whenever there is a hyperlink, on click on which you would be redirected to a browser within the native app itself, instead of opening the link on full-fledged browser app.

    In-App browser