Webkit is totally unstable, so we need to use chromium or firefox instead

[maurerdietmar]

I am unable to run any serious wasm application with webkit on Linux:

#7154

It also seems that the webkit project does not fix those bugs in reasonable time:

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=259441

So how can I use tauri to make a cross platform app? Any plans to support firefox or chromium?

[FabianLars]

We can't support firefox since there's no firefox based webview library.

Chromium via CEF is still not off the table but there's no ETA for that. So if you need good linux support now/soon i can't 100% recommend tauri (for Linux) as of now. (I used to be more "forgiving" but with webkitgtk getting worse/more unstable each release i changed my mind)

Side note, we're also working on a servo webview together with igalia. But servo of course won't be able to compete with the normal browsers feature wise anytime soon, if ever.

[Ramblurr]

So if you need good linux support now/soon i can't 100% recommend tauri (for Linux) as of now.

Checking in a bit over a year later now, has the story changed at all? Can we use Tauri if we need excellent Linux support?

[FabianLars]

No

Edit: work on gtk4 (to slightly improve the webkitgtk situation) and cef has begun recently.

[FeldrinH]

Some relevant issues to track: tauri-apps/wry#1064, chromiumembedded/cef#3836.

[maurerdietmar]

Chromium via CEF is still not off the table but there's no ETA for that. So if you need good linux support now/soon i can't 100% recommend tauri (for Linux) as of now.

I do not need it now, but I need to know if Tauri will be cross plattform in the future. We really need Linux, Windows and Mobile.

Is that CEF project already started?

[FabianLars]

Started, yes. But halted for the second time. This time mainly because of the servo cooparation i think.

Also as of right now it looks like it likely won't be part of tauri (the open source org) directly but a closed source or company offering (no decisions were made yet). I hope we can at least make it available on Linux for everyone though because i agree, webkitgtk is unusable. No promises of course.

[maurerdietmar]

but a closed source or company offering

Good to know, thanks.

[maurerdietmar]

Just found alcro and lorca:

https://github.com/Srinivasa314/alcro/tree/master?tab=readme-ov-file

This approach would work without all that cef crap, which is several hundred megabytes. Or is this to unflexible to use for tauri?

[FabianLars]

Hmm, I don't think projects like these or webui are really suitable for tauri.
As you said, it's unflexible and having no control over the window is a pretty big factor looking at our userbase.
The browser requirement is also not that nice.
The security department will probably also not be happy that it would require communication protocols that are open to the whole system (websockets, pipes, whatever). The current implementation is really limited to the webview and the host.
Also, idk how big of a factor that'd be, but we get somewhat regularly complains about the different webview versions (as-in different supported css/js stuff) and that would potentially make it worse because it'd be even less predictable.

About cef, i'm pretty sure the idea would be to turn it into something similar to a webview library so multiple tauri apps can use the same installation.
On the other hand, having the option to bundle a known engine with a tauri app (similar to electron) is not rarely requested so we could solve 2 problems at once here.
Of course that doesn't matter for appimages, the current main distribution format, where it's included in the appimage by design anyway (no matter if webkitgtk or cef)

Edit: As always though, nothing is off the table. It's just not something we currently investigate.

[bukowa]

Hey any changes / decisions for v2?

[FeldrinH]

AFAIK no. The most active relevant issue that I have found is tauri-apps/wry#1064, but all the decisions there seem to be postponed to at least Tauri v3 and possibly even later.

[anuradhawick]

I was also frustrated with certain aspects of webview and found this issue. Especially scrolling performance, transparency and certain electron features.

Tauri would be even more awesome, at some cost, if we had option to bundle with chromium. :)

[ReiLoko4]

I know this is an old issue, but I would like to let this link here to let anyone know that CEF is pretty advanced and it shouldn't be late to get this released with Tauri.

https://github.com/tauri-apps/cef-rs

[oatmealproblem]

By the looks of this tracking issue, it'll be a while tauri-apps/cef-rs#192
They haven't started integrating cef-rs with tauri and it doesn't seem like there's a clear plan for it yet

[ReiLoko4]

By the looks of this tracking issue, it'll be a while tauri-apps/cef-rs#192

They haven't started integrating cef-rs with tauri and it doesn't seem like there's a clear plan for it yet

They are currently working on it yes. Its also an old issue.

source: official Discord server

[zizdlp]

Many people (actually, most, since computer upgrades are not frequent) use relatively old computers (before 2023). Users can easily upgrade their browsers to support the latest features, but the WebView bound to the computer system is difficult to upgrade, which leads to many compatibility issues. As the project progresses, the severity of this problem has turned out to be far greater than I initially anticipated when evaluating Tauri and Electron, to the point where I have been consistently hesitating whether to switch back to Electron (but there is already a lot of Rust code). I hope the Tauri team can prioritize compatibility with CEF (or other alternatives) as a high-priority task.

[ReiLoko4]

hell yeah, webkit is hell, specially outside of Mac's

But I know its one of the top priorities. I would love to help it but its far harder than my current capabilities:)