Is Chrome iOS just a UIWebView?

Question

I'm not sure if this is the right question for you, but is this new Chrome app for iOS - is it just UIWebView?

If so, can it be assumed that there should be no difference between it and mobile Safari?

Answer 1

Starting with version 48, Chrome for iOS uses WKWebView, the same view used by Safari.

Sources:

• Chromium blog
• Ars Technique
• Venturebeat

Answer 2

No, this is not just UiWebView. Mike Pinkerton post in googlegroup chrome command :

Chrome for iOS has some pretty serious technical limitations imposed by the App Store, such as the requirement to use the built-in UIWebView interface for rendering, not V8 and a single-processor model. As a result, it was difficult to reuse critical components of the Chromium infrastructure. However, there is a lot of code that we use, such as the network layer, synchronization and bookmarking infrastructure, omnibox, metrics and crash reports, and a growing portion of the content.

Only the network layer contains many optimizations to improve your browser. Here is a quick overview: http://www.igvita.com/2012/06/04/chrome-networking-dns-prefetch-and-tcp-preconnect/

Answer 3

Yes, you're right ... it uses the webkit rendering engine with the Chrome user interface.

Ref. DaringFireball ...

These are not Chrome or JavaScript rendering engines - App Store rules prohibit this. Its iOS version for WebKit wrapped in the Google Browser User Interface \