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Issue metadata

Status: WontFix
Owner:
Closed: Jun 2018
Cc:
Components:
EstimatedDays: ----
NextAction: ----
OS: Android
Pri: 3
Type: Task

Blocking:
issue 725019



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Determine whether the WebView Support Library should force users to update their WebView

Project Member Reported by gsennton@chromium.org, Jun 1 2017

Issue description

Making use of WebView functionality from already-released WebView apks seems fairly painful, and with the WebView Support Library we might want to ask users to update their WebView implementation instead.

We should determine which way to go here - i.e. how much support we want to provide for older WebView versions, whether we should force users to update their WebView, or whether we should provide utilities within the WebView Support Library for app developers to nudge their users to update their WebView package.

If we go with any version of nudging users to update WebView we will need app developer feedback, and help from UX.
 

Comment 1 by sgu...@chromium.org, Jun 20 2017

Status: Assigned (was: Available)
bulk editing to assign, rather than available. 
Labels: WebView-Support-Lib
Owner: ----
Status: Available (was: Assigned)

Comment 4 by sgu...@chromium.org, Sep 27 2017

Cc: -sgu...@chromium.org
Owner: ntfschr@chromium.org
Status: WontFix (was: Available)
I vote strongly against forcing/nudging users to update.

Pros (in favor of asking users to update)
 * users have updated and secure webviews
 * most (if not all) Features will be supported, so the support lib has more utility

Cons (reasons we should *not* remind users to update)
 * users may be annoyed with popups/dialogs
 * creating a dialog may affect the application flow (in such a way as to break the app)
 * even if this doesn't break the app, this may not be the experience app devs want to provide (android components should help devs create awesome apps, not get in the way of application flow)
 * users will be confused on N-P when a random app (which happens to use webview) asks them to update chrome (I'm looking at  issue 697382 )
 * I'm under the impression that our update rate is already pretty good

Not only do I see more cons than pros, but I don't see any pros strong enough to merit such a risky change. Therefore, I vote against reminding users to update.

Comment 6 by torne@chromium.org, Jun 14 2018

I don't think the support library should prompt or force users to update WebView - however, I expect it to be a common application desire to prompt/force users to do so anyway, and if we don't provide a method for them to do this, then they will do it themselves badly (as we've seen before).

So.. while I agree that the support library shouldn't do this, I think we might want to consider providing a correctly-implemented update prompter in the support library that applications can call if they wish. :(

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