[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] GalaxyA325G:
What happens when

you

use adb to delete Android System WebView on unrooted Android 10+ devices?

(where it's apparently maintained by Project Mainline)

(aka Google Play system update modules)

What breaks on you?

And...

Because it's part of Mainline...

Does it come back?

Truth be told...

I had never heard of "Android System WebView" until today

when someone told me it's practically the same as Apple's WebKit.

So the first thing I did was run a search to find what it is.

<https://duckduckgo.com/?&q=What+is+Android+System+WebView>

First hit:

*Android System WebView* by Google LLC

3.7star,8.52M reviews.5B+Downloads*

<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.webview>

Android WebView is a pre-installed system component from Google that allows Android apps to display web content.

Hmmmm... let's see what it's doing on my Android 13 Galaxy, shall we?

Android System WebView <com.google.android.webview>

Version 116.0.5845.163 (584516331)

System App, Updated, 2 splits, Play App Signing

Data transmitted 64kB

Data received 5.84MB

Date Installed Wed, Dec 31, 2008 7:00 AM

Date Updated Wed, Sep 6, 2023 7:53 AM

Installer App com.android.vending

(see screenshot at the bottom for details)​

Hmmm... so

I have it, and

it came with the phone, and

it was recently seamlessly updated, and

it received 6GB (since when?)

and it transmitted 64kB (since when?).

Hmm... What is this Android System WebView?​

Of course I can uninstall it (because you can uninstall anything - even when unrooted); but first I need to know what it's doing.

*What is Android System WebView? Is it Safe to Disable it?*

<https://appuals.com/android-system-webview/>

"Android System WebView is a pre-installed app that is responsible for displaying web content without opening the respective web browser."

They cover the history, where it's apparently part of the Project Mainline (aka Google Play System update) seamless update for Android 10+ devices.

That explains why it's updated only a month ago (as all Android 10+ phones are seamlessly updated ~every month over the Internet nowadays).

This article says "there are two ways to open web content on an Android device: You can use a traditional web browser or an Android application that includes WebView in the layout."

<https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/Android-Webview>

That article further explains that "A developer who wants to add browser functionality to an application can include the WebView library and create an instance of a WebView class", but that a more privacy-tuned developer "can use third-party code instead of WebView or alternative Android browsers to perform the same task."

Furthermore "Rather than having every app use its own built-in web browser that can render the same way Google Chrome's blink engine does, Google has provided a built-in system component that just works", so it's the Chrome engine that they're including (as Dorper had indicated).

<https://www.androidcentral.com/what-android-system-webview-and-why-do-so-many-apps-depend-it>

So it's up to the app whether or not it includes WebView inside the app.

That's pretty much enough to know I probably want to delete it, but the

cite above says one Monday afternoon (March 22, 2021 in fact) a WebView update caused a bunch of apps to go haywire (i.e., Gmail, Google Maps, and Instagram).

Let's run an experiment to see how pernicious this Android WebView is...

C:\> adb connect 192.168.1.4:44285

C:\> adb shell pm dump com.google.android.webview

C:\> adb shell am force-stop com.google.android.webview

C:\> adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 com.google.android.webview

C:\> adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.webview

With that, just now, I deleted it so moving forward let's see what happens to my Android device without Android System WebView... shall we?

Time will tell... as I need to see what breaks on my Android 13 Galaxy.

What happens when

you

use adb to delete Android System WebView on unrooted Android 10+ devices?