In app web browsers are literally cancer.

Well, not **literally** cancer, but that's probably the closest thing.

I would like to hear some arguments from the other side of the opinion, because I cannot see any UI or UX benefit from in-app browsers.

@PaulTheSaltyDev it's the mobile age, it's the classic "Data collection is more important than our users freedom or experience" since users these days aren't only using web browsers to access content it makes fragmentation between mobile applications and mobile web browsers more obvious. Sure you can do things like use the devices advertising ID, But I would imagine something like safari on iOS may limit websites from accessing something like that. From my understanding it means that Facebook or Snapchat aren't able to access Safari's browser cookies I'm order to display relevant advertising so using in app web browsers may be better for tracking user interests and marketing despite it fragmenting the experience for the end user. Other than that the only thing I could think of would be to counter security threats like phishing attempts. Sending someone a phishing link on Facebook that opens in an in app browser may protect against phishing because it could detect it. Purely specularion

Aren'tt most in app browsers just calling the system browser inside the app as a nested application? Kind of like an iframe?

In app browsers are also often used to keep users engaged and inside of your app, so when they actually "close" the app they immediately return to your product.
I can just speak of Android, but there you use a stripped down version of the Chrome/Chromium browser.

@seraphimsystems Yes, but they don't share cookies, so if I wanted to send someone a YouTube video on something like Snapchat (iOS), they wouldn't be able to like the video or subscribe because they aren't signed into Snapchat for iOS's browser even if they're signed in using safari.

@YppaH I don't see how it makes much of a difference though, if someone sends me a YouTube video on snap, I'm going to copy the link, paste it into safari, open it up in the YouTube app, and then close the YouTube app and return to snapchat. That's way more annoying and convoluted than it just linking to the YouTube app in the first place. I guess it keeps engagement up, but it's at the expense of user experience, which is immoral imo, especially when you don't give the user the option to disable it.

@seraphimsystems @VXYZ it does call the "system browser" which is a chrome webview thing for android.

But what if I use firefox? Or adblock browser? Or duckduck go browser? Then fuck me and my privacy (summary if what everyone else is saying)

@mundo03 oh, seems reasonable.

Look everyone! It's a front end developer complaining about something they can test against and resolve.

@BakerMcBaker actually you can't resolve it. Android in app browser is tied to Chromium, so you're fucked either way

I browsed Twitter thru Twitch app's in-app browser.