Google’s “Web Integrity” Android API could kill “alternative” media clients

ijeff@lemdro.idmod to Android@lemdro.id – 232 points –
Google’s “Web Integrity” Android API could kill “alternative” media clients
arstechnica.com
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A bit late... Something new might replace it but this experiment got killed a couple days ago already.

Google is killing off its proposal for "Web Environment Integrity API" as a new web standard, though Android phones may still have to deal with it.

That is literally the first sentence of the linked article. I think this is one of the things how it comes back.

Does Vanced really use WebView for playback (the link the article provides suggests it's used for sign-in)?

Aside from forgetting to mention Revanced which is very much alive, I have doubts about the article. It feels like the author realized his headline doesn't work anymore so came up with something plausible sounding...

Vanced and Revanced use(d) a fork of MicroG for sign-in. MicroG is a FOSS implementation of Google Play Services and other Google app APIs but with minimum tracking. It uses the website to sign in, which I imagine is rendered with WebView because the app is so small.

Yeah, I'm running LineageOS with MicroG, so I tried disabling Android System Webview as a test. ReVanced seems perfectly happy to browse/play videos (though I didn't try logging out). The only apps I have that fall over without webview seem to be eBay and Amazon, so no great loss there.

MicroG can run in background without WebView, only logging in requires the website-based GUI.