alt Hacker NewsI feel the reason the system web-view is eschewed in these frameworks is because you have no choice but to maintain compatibility with 3-4 browsers: Edge/IE on Windows, Safari on Mac, and Firefox on Linux (usually).
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The number 1 request I get from people is to add the ability to optionally bundle chromium.
I personally prefer the system webview because you don’t have to rush update your app for every chromium security update. And on the web making things cross browser is a normal part of the job and instinct imo.
But there are a ton of early startups that only have bandwidth to support chrome/chromium in their complex webapps and want a quick way to port their web app to desktop app. For them taking on the security burden and increasing bundle size is a good tradeoff to getting that consistency.
Luckily electrobun has a custom zig bsdiff implementation that generates update diffs as small as 4KB and self extracting executable that uses zstd so at least the file size is less relevant of a concern compared to electron.
> Firefox on Linux (usually).
No, linux is usually webkit (which is also what safari is based on). Both Gtk and Qt have webkit-based widgets.
I'm not aware of a gecko based webview for desktop. Unfortunately, Firefox's technology is even more poorly suited for embedding than chromium's.