Develop Reference

What is the engine of Android native browser?

What is the engine of Android native browser? Wiki says that Android used WebKit before 4.4 and Blink for 4.4 and further versions. Is it right statement? Thanks in advance.

The default browser on Android is Google Chrome. This uses the Blink layout engine. For AOSP installations without the Google Apps, the default browser is the old "Browser" app that uses Webkit.
other third party browsers like Firefox uses Gecko, Opera uses Blink, Dolphin uses Webkit, and there are probably others. Additionally, also Samsung and HTC install different (non-Chrome) browsers on their phones. I do not know what they are, or what engine they use.
similar question answered you can see here

I had a similar question. Below is what I found.
1. Wikipedia article
List of features in Android:
Web browser
The web browser available in Android is based on the open-source Blink (previously WebKit) layout engine, coupled with Chromium's V8 JavaScript engine. Then the WebKit-using Android Browser scored 100/100 on the Acid3 test on Android 4.0 ICS; the Blink-based browser currently has better standards support. The old web browser is variably known as 'Android Browser', 'AOSP browser', 'stock browser', 'native browser', and 'default browser' (from the time it was always the default). Starting with Android 4.4 KitKat, Google has begun licensing Google Chrome (a proprietary software) separately from Android, but usually bundled with (what most device vendors did). Since Android 5.0 Lollipop, the WebView browser that apps can use to display web content without leaving the app has been separated from the rest of the Android firmware in order to facilitate separate security updates by Google.
2. HTML5test's slides
The Android Browser
ANDROID 4 DEVICES
ALSO COMMONLY SHIP WITH
GOOGLE CHROME
DEPENDING ON YOUR DEVICE
GOOGLE CHROME COULD BE
AN EXTRA BROWSER
THE DEFAULT BROWSER
THE ONLY BROWSER
OR NOT THERE AT ALL
ANDROID 4.4 SHIPS
WITH A NEW WEBVIEW
BASED ON
CHROMIUM 30
BUT NOT THE SAME AS
GOOGLE CHROME
THE CHROMIUM BASED WEBVIEW
WILL BE UPDATED REGULARLY
ANDROID 4.4.3 → CHROMIUM 33
ANDROID 5 → CHROMIUM 37
IN FACT ON ANDROID 5
THE WEBVIEW CAN BE UPDATED
INDEPENTENTLY OF THE OS
3. Release Notes on WebView
Android 4.4 KitKat
Chromium WebView
Android 4.4 includes a completely new implementation of WebView that's based on Chromium. The new Chromium WebView gives you the latest in standards support, performance, and compatibility to build and display your web-based content.
Chromium WebView provides broad support for HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. It supports most of the HTML5 features available in Chrome for Android 30. It also brings an updated version of the JavaScript Engine (V8) that delivers dramatically improved JavaScript performance.
In addition, the new Chromium WebView supports remote debugging using Chrome DevTools. For example, you can use Chrome DevTools on your development machine to inspect, debug, and analyze your WebView content live on a mobile device.
The new Chromium WebView is included on all compatible devices running Android 4.4 and higher. You can take advantage of the new WebView right away, and with minimum modifications to existing apps and content. In most cases, your content will migrate to the new implementation seamlessly.
Android 5.0 Lollipop
Chromium WebView
The initial release for Android 5.0 includes a version of Chromium for WebView based on the Chromium M37 release, adding support for WebRTC, WebAudio, and WebGL.
Chromium M37 also includes native support for all of the Web Components specifications: Custom Elements, Shadow DOM, HTML Imports, and Templates. This means you can use Polymer and its material design elements in a WebView without needing polyfills.
Although WebView has been based on Chromium since Android 4.4, the Chromium layer is now updatable from Google Play.
As new versions of Chromium become available, users can update from Google Play to ensure they get the latest enhancements and bug fixes for WebView, providing the latest web APIs and bug fixes for apps using WebView on Android 5.0 and higher.
Android 7.0 Nougat
WebView
Chrome + WebView, Together
Starting with Chrome version 51 on Android 7.0 and above, the Chrome APK on your device is used to provide and render Android System WebViews. This approach improves memory usage on the device itself and also reduces the bandwidth required to keep WebView up to date (as the standalone WebView APK will no longer be updated as long as Chrome remains enabled).
You can choose your WebView provider by enabling Developer Options and selecting WebView implementation. You can use any compatible Chrome version (Dev, Beta or Stable) that is installed on your device or the standalone Webview APK to act as the WebView implementation.
Multiprocess
Starting with Chrome version 51 in Android 7.0, WebView will run web content in a separate sandboxed process when the developer option "Multiprocess WebView" is enabled.
...

Which rendering engine does Chrome Apps on Mobile use?

Apache Cordova apps use the default WebView control in Android.
Change default webkit on Apache Cordova - Android
So for Android 4.4, the WebView is using Chromium 30, and will never be updated (on 4.4).
http://www.mobilexweb.com/blog/android-4-4-kitkat-browser-chrome-webview
Does the "Chrome Apps on Mobile" version of Apache Cordova, package a Chrome Runtime with it to use for rendering? (please say yes)
https://github.com/MobileChromeApps/mobile-chrome-apps

The answer is no. The "Chrome Apps for Mobile" use the default WebView just like the normal Apache Cordova.
Do mobile chrome apps run in chrome?
The default system WebView’s are as follows:
OS: Mobile Safari WebKit based. Lots of web-platform overlap with Chrome, but not exact and diverging slowly.
Android 4.3 or older: Legacy Android WebView. Dated and occasionally buggy, but still fairly performant on certain tasks.
Android 4.4: Chrome based WebView. This initial release brought a slew of modern web apis, and enabled remote web
inspector. However, it also introduced some regressions, is stuck
at Chrome 30, and didn't bring all features, such as WebGL and
WebRTC.
Android Future: Since the first launch of Chrome based WebView, it was announced that work is ongoing to make the WebView
auto-update just like the Chrome Browser does.
Here's the good news quote from May 13th, 2014 from the same answer quoted above:
Excitingly, a significant portion of our recent work on
cordova-android has been on bundling a tip-of-tree chromium based
“webview” alongside your app, thanks to the Intel Crosswalk project (https://crosswalk-project.org/).
This would mean you ship your app to the Play Store together with your
very own modern build of Chromium webview. Best yet, it will work all
the way back to Android 4.0. Expect announcements on how to try it
yourself in the next month or so!

Using WebGL in native Android App

I need to make a 3D animation across the web, android and iOS platforms. My question is, is it possible to use WebGL to make the animations in native android and iOS apps? As I would write the animation once and it would in theory port to the android and iOS with out any problems or am I going to have to simply use the OpenGL ES to make the animations for the mobile devices and webGL for the web.

Disclaimer: I work for ludei
So, that's exactly what a company called ludei is preparing to launch ;)
We have it working on Android 2.3 (even on a Nexus One!) through 4.2, and iOS 4 (I think?) and up. We don't rely on the system browsers or webviews, so there are no "private libraries" problems, and we support versions of Android that can't have WebGL otherwise.
We're giving it the final touches now, but we should be able to release it in a few weeks :)

Check out http://impactjs.com/ for iOS they are allowing you to use threeJS //asmallgame.com/labsopen/webgl_impact/ right now for Android it is only supported on Chrome Beta and you have to enable the flag http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/01/25/google-finally-makes-it-easy-to-enable-webgl-support-in-latest-chrome-for-android-beta/ I would expect webGL to be fully supported with key lime pie version of android coming out soon. Also you can hack the iAd platform to support it on iOS but you will not get it through the app store due to using private libraries. github.com/benvanik/WebGLBrowser also be aware of github.com/kripken/emscripten because firefox recently came out with asmJS on odin monkey techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/firefox-nightly-now-includes-odinmonkey-brings-javascript-performance-closer-to-running-at-native-speeds/ this enabled firefox to port over unreal engine to webgl in only a few days at the last GDC so hopefully chrome and other browser start supporting asmJS for the obvious speed boost. techcrunch.com/2013/03/27/mozilla-and-epic-games-bring-unreal-engine-3-to-the-web-no-plugin-needed/

WebGL is not fully supported on all browsers, however both Android and iOS have native OpenGL views that can be used (and will provide a much faster experience than WebGL). Once your environments are set up for each platform, using the same code will be mostly trivial.
Although cocos2d-x does not support 3D animations, its documentation may help you get started for cross-platform apps using openGL.

Will Android support WebSockets in an upcoming version?

If so, does anybody know which version it's scheduled to be supported in (in built-in Chrome Lite browser)? Also, is it currently supported on any of the alternative browsers for Android like FireFox or Opera Mini?

Will Android support WebSockets in an upcoming version?
Probably, given Google's HTML5 emphasis.
If so, does anybody know which version it's scheduled to be supported in (in built-in Chrome Lite browser)?
Google does not publish that sort of detail in advance of releases. Hence, you'll know about it when it ships, not sooner.
Also, is it currently supported on any of the alternative browsers for Android like FireFox or Opera Mini?
Firefox Mobile's FAQ does not list it among the HTML5 features it presently supports. I have no idea about other browsers.

The iOS 4.2 beta currently has WebSockets support: http://twitpic.com/2yiygv
Come November when iOS 4.2 actually ships, if it still has WebSockets turned on (it has been in a previous beta and been turned off before shipping), then you can be sure that google won't be far behind.
Regardless, I predict that it will arrive with Gingerbread (the next one) since they are making such as big for other HTML5 features in that version: http://www.shoutpedia.com/what-is-next-to-froyo-android-2-3-might-be-released-by-fall-of-2010-3457/

Opera Mobile, Opera Mini and Firefox Mobile do not currently (Feb 2010) support WebSockets and won't do so until a change to the specification has been made. This is because a security issue was found in November 2010 in the underlying protocol: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/hybi/current/msg04744.html
I imagine WebKit support is also on hold until it's safe again, but it's not clear when that will be.

It's 2012, and the Android Browser still doesn't support Websockets (at Android v4.0). Also, there does not seem to be any indication into have websocket in the Android Browser. some speculation seems to revolve around Google switching the Android Browser with Chrome for Android (why they didn't do this before, is beyond me).
iOS (safari, chrome and opera*) has been supporting Websockets for some time now, however, you loose iPhone 3 (and below) clients. Not that they're much nowadays (from statistics).
Flash....well, flash isn't a browser platform, but it's a good fallback. Thanks to Flash, you can get websocket goodness on older browsers like IE, even on Windows Mobile.
Still, it doesn't fix the issue on Android (the default flash player is a slim vendor-specific mutilation) nor does it work for older iPhone/iPad versions (they tend to get sick whenever they hear anything about flash).
*Opera Mini DOES NOT support websockets, as opposed to Opera Mobile.

Even BlackBerry 6.1+ supports Websockets, but not Android. Google was first in HTML5 among desktop browsers and seemingly last one among mobile platforms.

The iOS WebKit does only support old, outdated WS spec. Not RFC6455.
On Android: built-in browser up to and incl. Android 4: no WS support whatsoever.
Firefox Mobile .. current WS spec support. Same with Chrome for Android (only avail. for Ice Cream).
===
Btw: For Android native apps, there is Autobahn WebSockets for Android
https://github.com/oberstet/AutobahnAndroid
It supports the final RFC6455, integrates well with UI and service apps, provides RPC and PubSub over WebSockets, and more. Check out the project README on GitHub.
Disclaimer: I am the author of Autobahn.

Firefox Mobile 7(Aurora) support WebSocket(renamed to MozWebSocket):
console.log(window.MozWebSocket.prototype)

what audio formats are supported by the android browser?

What audio formats can be played using the html5 'audio' tag in the android browser? Does anyone know where to find official specs on what the android browser supports and not?
For the record, the android media formats page does not seem to cover this - I have soundfiles (3gp) playing fine in a native app, but they won't play in my webapp.
The webkit docs also do not seem to help. My soundfiles play fine in my webapp on iphone, so that version of webkit handles them fine. Shouldn't the android browser have some official documentation somewhere?

Probably there should be official documentation. If you want to test it, why not make a web page on some domain you have access to, with links to all of the different sound files you can think of, and point your browser at it.

After some testing, I've concluded that support for the HTML5 audio element is broken in Android 2.1. Details of my testing can be found on my blog. I tested on an HTC Desire running Android 2.1 and HTC Sense, whereas Amos confirmed the same error on his HTC Heor running a custom 2.1 ROM (thanks, Amos!). If anyone will try the testpage in different configurations and report back either here or on my blog, I will update with any new information.