Use Webview 2 in Windows instead of built-in Chromium

[!HotCakeX]

it will greatly reduce Steam install size. Webview 2 in Windows is now based on Chromium. many apps and web apps use Windows built-in Webview 2 to show content, Steam should do the same, at least on Windows 11. it will guarantee access up to date and secure browsing experience since Steam uses old Chromium version (currently Steam uses Chromium 85 while the latest stable version is 104), and that will reduce Steam's install size.

[wonky]

okay

[Jade Lotus]

Originally posted by !HotCakeX:

at least on Windows 11

What about for those of us who won't touch Windows 11 with a 52,800-foot pole?

[!HotCakeX]

Originally posted by Jade Lotus:

Originally posted by !HotCakeX:

at least on Windows 11

What about for those of us who won't touch Windows 11 with a 52,800-foot pole?

i dunno, talk to someone? find a therapist?

[Tharon]

So, ditch an already problematic but at least open source engine with a proprietary closed source one based on the same open source engine but only available on Windows 11 and 10, screwing Mac and Linux users only to save some disk space.

What could go wrong ?

[!HotCakeX]

Originally posted by Tharon:

So, ditch an already problematic but at least open source engine with a proprietary closed source one based on the same open source engine but only available on Windows 11 and 10, screwing Mac and Linux users only to save some disk space.

What could go wrong ?

Steam clearly can't keep the built in Chromium up to date with latest security patches and features. i wouldn't have suggested this if Steam used latest versions of Chromium instead of years old version full of bugs, security vulnerabilities and more.

Linux and Mac can keep the old Chromium. the Steam client installer is an online installer after all, can detect OS and supply the correct files, so for those OSes, will ship the old Chromium, but for Windows users, will let them enjoy the latest security patches and features that Webview 2 offers.

this is a wise decision, otherwise it'd be so silly if every developer included an entire browser with their software. users would have many instances of the same browser on their systems, makes 0 sense.

this is why software developers use the Webview in Windows or Android etc.

[Tharon]

The wise decision will be to NOT use a web engine to render an UI. There are more suitable, secure, reliable and performant alternative, like QT.

Valve already shoot themself in their foot by adopting CEF as a render engine for the entire client, creating a never ending spiral of bugs and issues. Moving to webview2 will not make the client any better but potentially worse. A lot.

CEF is at least open source, so Valve can (and do) custom it by removing or altering part of the code to better suite their need. This is why they don't use the latest CEF version, they rightfully don't want to do the work to customize it for every release each four weeks.
But if the built-in browser is used instead, they can't customize it anymore and must face every change Microsoft decide to do with system updates.

Rely on a third party for something vital without a way to control the outcome is a terrible idea. Also is useless, because they still had to make a version of the client with CEF for users on linux, Steam Deck and Mac.

So no, there is nothing wise in using WebView2.

[!HotCakeX]

Originally posted by Tharon:

The wise decision will be to NOT use a web engine to render an UI. There are more suitable, secure, reliable and performant alternative, like QT.

Valve already shoot themself in their foot by adopting CEF as a render engine for the entire client, creating a never ending spiral of bugs and issues. Moving to webview2 will not make the client any better but potentially worse. A lot.

CEF is at least open source, so Valve can (and do) custom it by removing or altering part of the code to better suite their need. This is why they don't use the latest CEF version, they rightfully don't want to do the work to customize it for every release each four weeks.
But if the built-in browser is used instead, they can't customize it anymore and must face every change Microsoft decide to do with system updates.

Rely on a third party for something vital without a way to control the outcome is a terrible idea. Also is useless, because they still had to make a version of the client with CEF for users on linux, Steam Deck and Mac.

So no, there is nothing wise in using WebView2.

if they use Webview 2, then Microsoft takes care of all the necessary work. like I said many developers refrain from including an entire browser in their software and use the included Webview in OS, whether it's mobile or desktop OS.

the Chromium in Steam is old, full of bugs and security vulnerabilities.
Alt tabbing and switching to Edge browser is way better than using the built in browser in Steam overlay, at least user can access passwords, cookies etc. and make sure to use a safe environment instead of an old vulnerable one.

"By default, WebView2 is evergreen and receives automatic updates to stay on the latest and most secure platform."
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/

[Ivandsi]

Originally posted by !HotCakeX:

Originally posted by Tharon:

The wise decision will be to NOT use a web engine to render an UI. There are more suitable, secure, reliable and performant alternative, like QT.

Valve already shoot themself in their foot by adopting CEF as a render engine for the entire client, creating a never ending spiral of bugs and issues. Moving to webview2 will not make the client any better but potentially worse. A lot.

CEF is at least open source, so Valve can (and do) custom it by removing or altering part of the code to better suite their need. This is why they don't use the latest CEF version, they rightfully don't want to do the work to customize it for every release each four weeks.
But if the built-in browser is used instead, they can't customize it anymore and must face every change Microsoft decide to do with system updates.

Rely on a third party for something vital without a way to control the outcome is a terrible idea. Also is useless, because they still had to make a version of the client with CEF for users on linux, Steam Deck and Mac.

So no, there is nothing wise in using WebView2.

if they use Webview 2, then Microsoft takes care of all the necessary work. like I said many developers refrain from including an entire browser in their software and use the included Webview in OS, whether it's mobile or desktop OS.

the Chromium in Steam is old, full of bugs and security vulnerabilities.
Alt tabbing and switching to Edge browser is way better than using the built in browser in Steam overlay, at least user can access passwords, cookies etc. and make sure to use a safe environment instead of an old vulnerable one.

"By default, WebView2 is evergreen and receives automatic updates to stay on the latest and most secure platform."
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/

I see you ignored the entire point of the person lol

First of all, with the newest version of Chromium would also come the newest vulnerabilities and bugs that come with them. Older version tend to be more stable bc they've been fixed up even if they have their issues. And even if not, people have her their hands on it for longer.

And they are already slow updating to newer versions of Chromium and the client itself, what makes you think they would do that and then do a separate build for Windows using Webview 2 each update? On this topic, I'm also not really sure what Microsoft takes care of (as you said) other than updating the OS, the implementation of Webview 2 would still be up to Valve.

And the fact that they use CEF (which is open source) would likely mean they prefer to have their own modified version to fit their own needs with the client. So I doubt they would rather depend on Microsoft of all companies if it has worked for them till now

[Omega X]

Steam is on Linux and Windows. Its better to use an internal browser than whatever's on the OS.

[TS2]

Originally posted by Tharon:

The wise decision will be to NOT use a web engine to render an UI. There are more suitable, secure, reliable and performant alternative, like QT.

Valve already shoot themself in their foot by adopting CEF as a render engine for the entire client, creating a never ending spiral of bugs and issues. Moving to webview2 will not make the client any better but potentially worse. A lot.

CEF is at least open source, so Valve can (and do) custom it by removing or altering part of the code to better suite their need. This is why they don't use the latest CEF version, they rightfully don't want to do the work to customize it for every release each four weeks.
But if the built-in browser is used instead, they can't customize it anymore and must face every change Microsoft decide to do with system updates.

Rely on a third party for something vital without a way to control the outcome is a terrible idea. Also is useless, because they still had to make a version of the client with CEF for users on linux, Steam Deck and Mac.

So no, there is nothing wise in using WebView2.

A better reason for not using the latest Chromium Embedded Framework release is probably the sheer amount of recoding, retooling, and rebuilding that needs to be done to how the Steam client handles and renders page and app elements to be conformant to a newer, more native CEF-conformant way. Prior to Chromium 85, the taskbar jump list App Icon shortcuts were all entirely custom solutions, whereas now Chromium itself can handle them natively.

While not staying up to date is certainly a problem, this latest release and how quickly it came about compared to the move from Chromium 79 or 81 to version 84 seems to indicate some gradual progress there.
———
Now for the Microsoft WebView2 Runtime. It does not just exist on Windows 11, by the way, but where it does exist according to official documentation is solely on Windows platforms: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/ . In fact, current versions of MS Edge on Windows 10 already have the runtime preinstalled with the browser.

The issue now is that implementing such a runtime removes some amount of product consistency between Steam client platforms, in no longer using just CEF iterations for all of them. Additionally, Valve is notoriously against designing with a Windows-first emphasis, and so would not even consider doing so by implementing an Edge-specific runtime that only just released when CEF exists as a more direct lineage to the browser that is now the leader and framework for most other browsers to derive from. Besides, of course, Mozilla to a vague extent, and the Pale Moon project to a very clear extent.

[tyl0413]

Yeah because no other OSes exist than Win11..

[!HotCakeX]

Originally posted by tyl0413:

Yeah because no other OSes exist than Win11..

Read the above comment, it's on Windows 10 and 11.

[!HotCakeX]

The fact is, no matter what, the Chromium version in Steam is old and has bugs and security vulnerabilities, people here don't seem to fully understand the meaning of having vulnerabilities that aren't fixed, nor do they understand the meaning of fixing vulnerabilities through regular updates.

also Steam using Chromium means it uses Google spyware, but the Webview or Edge are degoogled, so a company (Google) whose business revolves around mining data and selling them, won't access your data.

I stopped using Chrome years ago, was using Firefox until Edge was released and was free of Google tracking spyware, so switched to that instead.

even if Valve wants to continue using Chromium, and they wanna be slow like a turtle, they still could very well manage to be on the latest Chromium version every now and then.
so even if they update the built in Chromium in Steam every 3 months, they can for example jump from version 102 to 105, but what's happening here is that they are still on version 85 and the next update will say "we updated Chromium to version 86 or 87".

I haven't used Steam overlay's browser since forever and won't use it until they fix it.

[!HotCakeX]

Originally posted by Off-Brand:

Steam is on Linux and Windows. Its better to use an internal browser than whatever's on the OS.

Not if the built in browser is vulnerable and doesn't have the latest security updates.

another example to help understand the situation is the Tor browser bundle.
as you may or may not know, it uses old version of Firefox, ESR, they do it for various reasons, mostly related to built in privacy tools included in Tor browser bundle and modifications they made to it, but the Tor developers are focusing more on privacy, Not security.

many security researchers have warned against this problem too, you can find them on the Internet. Tor is a privacy focused browser, not security focused. it has vulnerabilities but that's the price Tor users need to pay if they need extreme privacy.

when it comes to Steam's built in Chromium browser, your privacy AND security is at risk and you as a user is not getting any benefit from it.

[tyl0413]

Originally posted by !HotCakeX:

Originally posted by tyl0413:

Yeah because no other OSes exist than Win11..

Read the above comment, it's on Windows 10 and 11.

Point still applies.