How do mobile applications (Facebook for example) access web pages with out using a browser?

Question

How does mobile applications( like fb, linkedin,…) access a web page with out a web browser? Do these apps have an inbuilt web browser or do all apps share a common web browser in the phone? Do these apps also use javascript to display web pages like browser? My question is who does the job of web browser in android app? Who displays html pages and works on javascript if no browser is present?

Answer 1

Some apps have webviews embedded in them that display a web page straight from the source. But some (like Facebook) fetch data and dynamically display data on the screen.

Answer 2

Please read this article about webview, which will answer your query. This is a technique by which an application can show a web page within the application.

For example consider the payment of bill through an app, the app opens the banks webpage into it where user provide the OTP/Password.

Apps like facebook/twitter just fetch the data from their server and show it using their app. For details please check android developers site .