Android 15 likely to become more durable against WebView crashes

Android 15 developer preview has hit the stage and meanwhile, Google is working on making the new Android version more durable against the app and WebView crashes. The details say that the latest software system could be more stable than ever.

Before we jump into the information, let’s understand about WebView.

The WebView system app is responsible for displaying web content in Android applications. It is mostly paired with Google Chrome web in the Android OS and often acts as a mobile wrapper for a complete website.

However, if the WebView crashes or begins malfunctioning, it affects several applications on the device and even fails to launch an app. Thus, it not only makes various apps unusable for some time but also hinders the user experience.

WebView demands up-to-date capabilities. Hence, the U.S. tech giant updates it via the Google Play Store versions to ensure quick bug fixes and improvements. Yet, there is no way to directly patch the code for the WebView APIs to assure stability.

Therefore, Google reportedly develops a new Project Mainline module in Android 15, making it more durable against WebView crashes. Initially, the module appeared in the Android 10 and now the company plans to upgrade it with significant changes.

The new module is known as WebViewBootstrap and holds effective security benefits. Currently, the code repository of the respective module is empty. Yet, the company plans to shift the following codes from the old API to the new WebViewBootstrap:

• frameworks/base/core/java/android/webkit
• frameworks/base/services/core/java/com/android/server/webkit
• frameworks/base/native/webview

Doing so will help the tech maker to resolve certain emergency issues in no time. This will mainly contain bug fixes and improvements for the WebView. On the other hand, it may have some new features to detect and repair the WebView when it does not start.

(Source)