What is in a Web View: An Analysis of Progressive Web App Features When the Means of Web Access is not a Web Browser
What is in a Web View: An Analysis of Progressive Web App Features When the Means of Web Access is not a Web Browser
复制标题
Web 视图中包含什么：Web 访问方式不是 Web 浏览器时渐进式 Web 应用程序功能分析
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
2018
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
T. Steiner
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
T. Steiner
渐进式Web应用程序(PWA)是一类新的Web应用程序，在很大程度上由服务工作者API启用。服务工作者允许应用程序脱机工作，方法是拦截网络请求以提供程序性或缓存的响应，服务工作者可以在应用程序未运行时在后台接收推送通知和同步数据，并与Web应用程序清单一起允许用户在其设备的主屏幕上安装PWAS。作为一种Web标准，服务工作者已经在几个独立的Android Web浏览器中获得了支持，其中包括(但不限于)Chrome及其开源基础Chromium、Firefox、Edge、Opera、UC浏览器、三星互联网和期待已久的ediOS Safari。在本文中，我们研究了Web视图中的PWA功能支持情况，即应用程序内Web体验明确不是独立浏览器的情况。这种应用内浏览器通常出现在微信或WhatsApp等聊天应用程序，Facebook或Twitter等在线社交网络，以及Gmail等电子邮件客户端，或者任何网络内容显示在本地应用程序中的地方。我们开发了一个名为PWA Feature Detect的开源应用程序，它允许轻松测试应用程序内浏览器(以及自然独立的浏览器)，并评估了不同设备和Web视图对PWA功能的支持程度。一方面，我们的结果表明，各种Web View技术和它们所基于的浏览器引擎之间存在很大差异，但另一方面，对于Android来说，结果独立于设备的操作系统，这是一个好消息，因为许多设备制造商的更新政策存在问题。这些发现帮助开发人员在确定PWA是否是正确的方法时做出明智的选择，因为他们的目标用户访问Web的方式。
Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are a new class of Web applications, enabled for the most part by the Service Workers APIs. Service Workers allow apps to work offline by intercepting network requests to deliver programmatic or cached responses, Service Workers can receive push notifications and synchronize data in the background even when the app is not running, andtogether with Web App Manifestsallow users to install PWAs to their devices' home screens. Service Workers being a Web standard, support has landed in several stand-alone Android Web browsersamong them (but not limited to) Chrome and its open-source foundation Chromium, Firefox, Edge, Opera, UC Browser, Samsung Internet, andeagerly awaitediOS Safari. In this paper, we examine the PWA feature support situation in Web Views, that is, in-app Web experiences that are explicitly not stand-alone browsers. Such in-app browsers can commonly be encountered in chat applications like WeChat or WhatsApp, online social networks like Facebook or Twitter, but also email clients like Gmail, or simply anywhere where Web content is displayed inside native apps. We have developed an open-source application called PWA Feature Detector that allows for easily testing in-app browsers (and naturally stand-alone browsers), and have evaluated the level of support for PWA features on different devices and Web Views. On the one hand, our results show that there are big differences between the various Web View technologies and the browser engines they are based upon, but on the other hand, that for Android the results are independent from the devices' operating systems, which is good news given the problematic update policy of many device manufacturers. These findings help developers make educated choices when it comes to determining whether a PWA is the right approach given their target users' means of Web access.