Linux support

[damodaranr]

When can we expect WebView2 to be available on Linux (ubuntu) now that Microsoft Edge Chromium is officially available on Linux.

AB#27465288

[champnic]

Thanks for the inquiry! We are currently planning on adding support for MacOS first, so I wouldn't expect Linux until later 2021. We'll use this GH issue to track support and keep you posted. Thanks!

[gismofx]

@champnic Is there a timeline/schedule issue I can follow for MacOS support?

[kirsan31]

What about Avalonia support?
Or may be I need to open a new issue?

[champnic]

@kirsan31 I don't think we will be specifically contributing to Avalonia. It sounds like something folks who are passionate about WebView2 may want to contribute to that project though!

[Jinjinov]

@champnic when approximately - which month - can we expect WebView2 on macOS / Linux? or at least which quarter?

[champnic]

It is on our roadmap but at this point we believe it will be post 2021 so we don't have a specific quarter - we will share updates when we have more detailed timelines.

[TomMarius]

@champnic is there (going to be) an issue tracking macOS support, or will you use this one?

[champnic]

@TomMarius That's a great point - I'll create a new issue to track Mac: #1314.

[RChrisCoble]

Registering interest in this support.

Specifically we want to deliver a MAUI wrapped Blazor application that also runs on Linux. My understanding is we need a Linux version of WebView2 and some form of MAUI wrapper support.

CC: @danroth27

[captainjono]

Plus 1 to support for a cross platform WebView framework.

@RChrisCoble Ive been building apps in this vain with Xamarin WebView on mobiles, and with Chromely on desktops, sharing code across all projects. Ive got a fork that runs on macos, windows, linux and supposedly works with Blazor but i havnt tried. Alvalonia runs on CEF, pretty much all current electron style frameworks do.

Im keen bring .net outa the dark ages and start a MAUItron to package this style of app up into a simple to consume library and would love it to be powered by AspNetCORE + WebView2.

I came across this thread while tracking down my latest CEF gremlin. Its a massive maintanance overhead that you need to dedicate either full time resources to or deal being on a stale build. My WebView code hardly changes from update to update if at all.

The Java ecosystem has no problem with embedded Browser apps on any platform, C# definitely feels like the poor second cousin in this area.

[yangzhongke]

Because 'AddHostObjectToScript' uses the notorious COM technology, which is Windows-dependent , I don't think it will be supported on the Linux version, right?
Why did your team decide to use COM technology to implement the hostObjects?

[jschroedl]

WebView2 was created as a replacement for WPF WebBrowser and UWP WebView, so it is no surprise that it uses COM. IMO, making this cross-plat is a pipe dream which adds no value to myself as a Windows desktop developer. I personally hope Lx and Mac are very low priorities.

[RChrisCoble]

WebView2 was created as a replacement for WPF WebBrowser and UWP WebView, so it is no surprise that it uses COM. IMO, making this cross-plat is a pipe dream which adds no value to myself as a Windows desktop developer. I personally hope Lx and Mac are very low priorities.

There are some of us that want to "write once, use everywhere" using something like a MAUI wrapped Blazor application. Having this support makes that possible.

[lucasyvas]

WebView2 was created as a replacement for WPF WebBrowser and UWP WebView, so it is no surprise that it uses COM. IMO, making this cross-plat is a pipe dream which adds no value to myself as a Windows desktop developer. I personally hope Lx and Mac are very low priorities.

Edge is cross-platform to support cross-platform developers - I won't speculate the amount of work required to make this happen and if it's worth it or not (because I don't know), but Windows is less and less the sole market that Microsoft aims to serve.

[x4e]

WebView2 was created as a replacement for WPF WebBrowser and UWP WebView, so it is no surprise that it uses COM. IMO, making this cross-plat is a pipe dream which adds no value to myself as a Windows desktop developer. I personally hope Lx and Mac are very low priorities.

I fail to understand how what a single developer values should direct the goal of such a major library

[csdvrx]

adds no value to myself as a Windows desktop developer.
I personally hope Lx and Mac are very low priorities.

As a Windows developer and user, I personally hope Linux support is high priority, since having more potential users adds value to my software, and by extension myself.

[sing-ideas]

Thanks for the inquiry! We are currently planning on adding support for MacOS first, so I wouldn't expect Linux until later 2021. We'll use this GH issue to track support and keep you posted. Thanks!

Hi,

Is there a roadmap ID for Linux release of MS Edge Chromium WebView2?

regards,
Sing

[ericoporto]

A WebView with Linux support would allow me to use more C# in my developments.

[lucasyvas]

Is the goal for WebView2 for Linux/Mac GA to provide a singular language binding, or will it expose a C API that can be bound to anything supporting FFI?

[mt16in]

What is the timeline look like? would be interested in the beta program if there is any for Mac or Linux.

[captainjono]

I heard through the grapevine that the first beta will be Released this time next year for macOS.

…

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[kejml]

I heard through the grapevine that the first beta will be Released this time next year for macOS.

And I bet never for Linux...

[lukurde]

"New Teams" just dropped with the new shiny architecture:

We've been promised WebView2 for Linux for years. Any updates on the roadmap?

[grilo88]

The world immediately needs WebView2 running on Linux. Agility please!

[leaanthony]

The webview story for Linux is somewhat of a dog's breakfast. This would dominate.

[DoubleDBE]

bot added the priority-low label 3 weeks ago

Great 🙄

We need this ASAP!

[jaruba]

@DoubleDBE while i don't work at MS, I do not expect it to come to Linux prior to coming to MacOS (because Linux is, unfortunately, the least used of the 3 major OS options)

and MacOS support is also stuck with no official answer: #1314

i am following both threads as we were hoping to move our cross-platform app to WebView2

[dbidwell94]

It'd be super nice to have this on Linux. Webkit2gtk is lacking so many features which are stated as "not planned". So many dependencies require it, it'd be nice to have a framework which has industry standard features like FIDO2 / Webauth.

[novac42]

Hi everyone,
After careful consideration and review of our long-term product strategy, we have decided to discontinue plans for a public release of WebView2 on Linux to focus on providing the most value to our customers on currently supported platforms. Thank you for being a valued member of this community and sharing your feedback.
In the meantime, if you have any other questions or suggestions, feel free to share them with us. Your input is valuable as we continue to improve WebView2. Thank you for your understanding!

[leaanthony]

This space is ripe for the picking. And that project will get ported to windows. And that means trouble for webview2. Dealing with multiple webviews per platform is a PITA. Someone will dominate this space and it looks unlikely to be Microsoft.

[dbidwell94]

All eyes on Firefox..

[SergioRibera]

It's sad what they are announcing, but honestly it was to be expected

All eyes on Firefox..

My recommendation is that all the support that there was in this issue is transferred in efforts to improve servo, they have many open source libraries regarding web rendering that can be great and I also recommend taking a look at Tauri as in their plans is to make a rendering system itself, additionally I leave other interesting projects that may be better than what we were expecting or at least are Open Source.

• Servo: Servo, the embeddable, independent, memory-safe, modular, parallel web rendering engine. Nothing more to add, it speaks for itself.
• Servo WebRender: A GPU-based renderer for the web. As far as I have been reviewing it, it has a lot of potential as a library and has many fields of use, even as a replacement for end2end libraries.
• Gosub browser: Immature for now but very promising in terms of webview library

If you know of any other, please comment so that together we can help these projects grow, for now I only know of these and for me they are the best so far.

[vid]

No surprise to know that Microsoft can't be trusted, not only in not releasing fully open software, but also preventing and short circuiting it. People, get on your governments to stop the total capture of critical systems by one company.

[sing-ideas]

Not good. We were waiting of the Linux release, if not for public release, then are you going to release internally?

[gamelaster]

Well, to be honest, not surprised. Microsoft Edge for Linux is not maintained at all, they still did not enabled VA-API support (so no hw video decode acceleration, very good for low-end devices!) and it feels like whole Linux support of the Edge is based only on Chromium team work. It's shame...

[sing-ideas]

Hi everyone,
After careful consideration and review of our long-term product strategy, we have decided to discontinue plans for a public release of WebView2 on Linux to focus on providing the most value to our customers on currently supported platforms. Thank you for being a valued member of this community and sharing your feedback.
In the meantime, if you have any other questions or suggestions, feel free to share them with us. Your input is valuable as we continue to improve WebView2. Thank you for your understanding!

What are going to do with internal release?

[gza]

What's next ? VScode will move to WebView2 and stop to be available on Linux ?

[leaanthony]

I get the difficulty porting to Linux. It's the most difficult and time consuming target platform where the support burden is enormous. I don't necessarily blame Microsoft for this, but the warring factions of the Linux ecosystem who keep doing their own thing under the guise of choice and ideology, leaving developers with only one choice: having to deal with all the different distros, library versions and lack of standard APIs. If that problem was sorted, I'd bet that this issue would not be closed.

I'm just saying, don't take this at face value. It can be unfathomably hard to properly support Linux, especially if your motivation is making a profit.

[ERmilburn02]

If that problem was sorted, I'd bet that this issue would not be closed.

@leaanthony Counter argument: they also closed the Mac issue, #1314

[leaanthony]

@leaanthony Counter argument: they also closed the Mac issue, #1314

Well.. there may be more than one reason 😅 Perhaps it would have diminished @champnic 's ability to provide god-tier support for Windows webview2

[gamelaster]

@leaanthony I can be wrong, tbh, I don't know the exact architecture of WebView2 technology, but since it's based on Chromium, where I guess they use it's window and rendering code, many painful porting stuff are done by Chromium team. I would totally agree if WebView2 uses legacy Edge's custom rendering engine, that would be full port. But Chromium engine, which have so-so Linux support... (please correct me if I am wrong)

[leaanthony]

Even just picking a windowing system is a PITA. GTK? QT? Gnome gods in their own little world making decisions like windows can't be centred. Some features working on some distros and not others because they're running Wayland.

I'll leave it there.

Edit: ironically this would be less of an issue if Microsoft released a distro... Past me would kill me for saying that 😅😅😅

[gamelaster]

@leaanthony yes, of course, I am aware of those pains of windowing systems and display servers. What I meant is, that all this is already solved by Chromium engine, with it's Ozone (windowing) and Skia (rendering).

[leaanthony]

Presumably there's more to it then 🤔

[lhanson]

the warring factions of the Linux ecosystem who keep doing their own thing under the guise of choice and ideology, leaving developers with only one choice: having to deal with all the different distros, library versions and lack of standard APIs. If that problem was sorted, I'd bet that this issue would not be closed.

"Warring ideologies" is a pretty disingenuous way to look at it. Multiple options are available without a single monopoly dictating the direction of libraries and frameworks. This means one team can't unilaterally decide that a certain technology won't be supported on Linux. That also allows the MS team the ability to choose the best option. Yes, there are challenges involved in an open ecosystem vs. a walled garden, but I think those are vastly outweighed by the opportunities.

I'm just saying, don't take this at face value. It can be unfathomably hard to properly support Linux, especially if your motivation is making a profit.

It's not "unfathomably hard", it's just unprofitable. And that's fine, we expect that from Microsoft, but many of us have not forgotten the "Microsoft ❤️ Linux" propaganda and can't help but to view their promises of Linux support with a healthy degree of skepticism. And things like this absolutely influence what technologies we'll recommend our organizations depend on and which we avoid.

[symbiogenesis]

Such a silly decision for Microsoft. You are building so many web apps for linux like Teams, VS Code, Azure Data Studio, etc. And you already offer Edge for Linux. I guess you just don't want these products to work well. Such a Gates-era decision. A reminder of the bad Microsoft from before.

As a .NET developer and Linux user, perhaps I should reconsider using Microsoft technologies.

There's a plethora of other IDEs and developer frameworks to choose from that aren't intentionally hobbled.

[bukowa]

Please summon the right person, in the right place, at the right time, with great passion and vision, to make it happen.

[vlad-lubenskyi]

It's sad to hear that Microsoft decided to reject this idea. Frankly speaking, .NET could have become just the best for cross-platform apps. Mature tech, millions of developers, everything you need (sigh).

Anyway, for those of you in need, there are two options available for Linux atm: DotNetBrowser and CefGlue. The former is a commercial component, and the latter is based on CEF and open-source. Both work with Avalonia.