After several alphas And betas Webview Switcher is finally here!
Webview Switcher is the successor to Bromite Systemless Webview, bringing with it many important fixes and features!
For those of you unfamiliar with what a Webview is, in android and some other platforms it’s the backend that enables quite a few apps to display web content. A few popular example apps that use this are GoDaddy, the Google app, and banking apps. You can find out more here.
With my module, you can now switch between Ungoogled chromium, Bromite, and vanilla chromium extremely easily!
In addition, the module also supports downloading and installing the associated browser during module install now. This feature can be disabled for those who want the old behavior.
How to configure options
Simple! Use the provided config.txt, which can be found here. The different options are explained in the file, but here they are in brief:
- If you want something, set it to true, otherwise false
- You cannot select more than one at a time, you must only have one of ungoogled, vanilla, or Bromite set to true
- Set BROWSER to false to disable downloading and installing the browser
- Do not add any lines or remove any
- Save it to /sdcard/WebviewSwitcher/config.txt or it won’t be used during install
- If no config is found them the defaults will be used (Bromite browser and Webview)
Other changes
The module also has proper support for checking version updates as necessary and verifying the downloaded files (excluding ungoogled chromium for the moment) meaning you can download the necessary files and install the module later.
To use the offline install feature simply save your desired browser and Webview as $ARCH_ChromeModenPublic.apk and $ARCH_SystemWebView.apk respectively (both Bromite and chromium built by Bromite have that name by default). Then flash offline!
In addition, the module will attempt to verify the authenticity of the downloaded files for online installs. This ensures the download isn’t corrupt or tampered with.
Also, in this release the module properly checks versions for needed upgrades. This means of you previously flasher the module and your chosen Webview hasn’t updated since, it won’t redownload the files unnecessarily saving you bandwidth.
Speaking of downloads, the module also now uses aria2 instead of wget for downloads. This should result in significantly faster and more stable downloads.
The BusyBox used has been switched to Magisk’s internal BusyBox instead of a bundled BusyBox for a more consistent experience across devices.
This release also contains the usual bug fixes, performance improvements, and code refactoring along with removing some legacy code.
Android 11 support
Android 11 should work. However, as I have no device to test on, I cannot verify that it always works and overlay creation may fail on some android 11 systems. I suspect this is due to google changes but I can not confirm this.
Recovery install
This should work, but I do NOT support this installation method.
MIUI support
MIUI has a habit of screwing up android, and is therefore considered should work but not supported.
Magisk version required
The module should be only used on magisk 21+, as previous versions aren’t guaranteed to work. This is due to dependencies on newer magisk functionality.
Migration from Bromite Systemless Webview
The module will automatically take the necessary steps to migrate. The module ID has not changed therefore making upgrades easier. Otherwise all necessary logic is handled by the module. Please note /sdcard/bromite is no longer used and will be removed during install.
Re-licensing
From version 7.0.0 beta 1 onwards the module is licensed under Apache-2.0 whereas previous versions were licensed under GPL-2.