How can I differentiate Android Chrome Browser and In-App WebView user agents?

Question

I am currently working on an Android App that uses WebViews to load some pages (I cannot modify the HTML, because it is being used by the iOS App and the website). First we had the problem, that the user agent was the same for the InApp WebViews and a regular Android Browser (starting with Android 4.4 which started using chromium as the webengine).

InApp Webview Example:

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 5.1.1; Nexus 5 Build/LMY48M; wv) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Chrome/44.0.2403.117 Mobile Safari/537.36

So in Google Analytics we could not differentiate between users using the App and users visiting the HTML page with the normal browser. The solution was to alter the Useragent String with:

webView.getSettings().setUserAgentString("Our custom Mobile Android InApp Browser");

This worked for Google Analytics.

But now we ran into the problem that Youtube is not identifying InApp users as mobile users and is serving the desktop Youtube player.

Now I am looking for one of the following solutions:

1) Somehow make Google Analytics identify the In-App-Browser as different from the normal Android Browser.

or

2) Have some custom String for the webview-user-agent that causes Youtube to serve its mobile version.

Thanks!

Sébastien · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-25 14:38:18Z

1

+50

Setting a custom User-Agent string seems like a good solution.

Just make sure this custom string can be recognized by Youtube as a mobile Android device. For example, you could use the "field" used to store the device model:

Dalvik/1.6.0 (Linux; U; Android 4.0.3; <Your_custom_marker> Build/IML74K)

answered Sep 25, 2015 at 14:38

Sébastien

15k11 gold badges58 silver badges73 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

5 Comments

Björn Kechel Over a year ago

Thanks, it works to receive the Mobile Youtube Player, when it shows up properly on analytics, I will accept your answer. Do you know what the browser name will be in analytics?

Sébastien Over a year ago

This method will not change the browser name, but in Google Analytics, you can add Mobile Device Model as a secondary dimension of your reports. I'm not sure if it will recognize an unknown model name though.

Björn Kechel Over a year ago

Using your provided string causes Google Analytics to see it as Browser Version "Android Runtime", which up to now is unique for the app. Do you know when this string would be provided from any other devices?

Björn Kechel Over a year ago

stackoverflow ist telling me that i have to wait 22 more hours before i can award you the points

Sébastien Over a year ago

It's good news that Google Analytics seem to recognize this UA as a specific type of "browser" (I think the Dalvik part of the string is what matters here). FYI this is the kind of user-agent string that is sent by my own app (I use simple HTTP requests, not webviews). There is no absolute guarantee but I think you are safe in assuming that no real browser will be put in this same category.

Subhadip Hazra · Accepted Answer · 2023-06-04 15:36:21Z

0

Try this in your web frontend code:

Boolean(window?.ReactNativeWebView);

This would help you differentiate between them easily.

edited Jun 4, 2023 at 15:36

answered Jun 4, 2023 at 15:35

Subhadip Hazra

11 bronze badge

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How can I differentiate Android Chrome Browser and In-App WebView user agents?

2 Answers 2

5 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

5 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related