Contents

SFSafariViewController

An object that provides a visible standard interface for browsing the web.

Declaration

class SFSafariViewController

Overview

An SFSafariViewController object presents a self-contained web interface inside your app. Present this view controller to let people view websites from anywhere on the internet without leaving your app. The web interface supports Safari features such as Reader, AutoFill, Fraudulent Website Warning, and content blocking. Interactions with the web interface aren’t visible to your app, and you can’t access AutoFill data, browsing history, or website data. You don’t need to secure data between your app and Safari. To share data between your app and Safari, use ASWebAuthenticationSession instead.

Present an SFSafariViewController when you don’t need to customize or interact with the web content. After you present the content, interactions with the web content occur solely within the view controller. When the person dismisses the view controller, control returns to your app’s interface. If you need to customize the controls of the web interface, or you want to interact with content in that interface, display the content using a WKWebView object instead.

UI features include the following:

  • A read-only address field with a security indicator and a Reader button

  • An Action button that invokes an activity view controller offering custom services from your app and activities, such as messaging, from the system and other extensions

  • A Done button, back and forward navigation buttons, and a button to open the page directly in Safari

  • Peek and Pop for links and detected data using 3D Touch

When a person peeks and pops a link in SFSafariViewController, the view controller loads and displays the link destination. When a person peeks and pops a link in a WKWebView class, the web view opens the link in Safari by default.

Presenting the view controller in your interface

Present a SFSafariViewController modally using the present(_:animated:completion:) method and the default presentation style. The view controller animates into position and provides an optimized full-screen experience for web browsing. It also supports intuitive and expected gestures for returning to your app’s content. For example, the view controller’s leading-edge swipe gesture automatically switches between navigating to the previous page in the browsing history and dismissing the view controller.

To create a more lightweight browsing experience, change the presentation style to UIModalPresentationStyle.formSheet or UIModalPresentationStyle.pageSheet. You might use this approach to display terms of service or support documentation. Don’t use these presentation styles to display content from websites.

SFSafariViewController supplies a custom transitioning delegate to manage its presentation and transition animations. The custom delegate is recommended, but you can remove it if you prefer the default modal transition behavior. To remove the delegate, assign a new value to the view controller’s transitioningDelegate property. The object you assign to this property must adopt the UIViewControllerTransitioningDelegate protocol but doesn’t need to implement any methods of that protocol.

When building apps to support multiple platforms, be aware of behavior differences when presenting an SFSafariViewController from your UI. In Mac apps built with Mac Catalyst, and in compatible iPad and iPhone apps running in visionOS, showing an SFSafariViewController opens the web content in the default web browser instead. In visionOS, you can use SFSafariViewController to support context menu previews for links, but don’t use it to open a URL. The view controller displays a preview of the link content but redirects the URL to the default web browser if someone opens it. Instead of showing the view controller in visionOS, modify your experience to open the URL using an OpenURLAction in SwiftUI or the open(_:options:completionHandler:) method of UIApplication instead.

Measuring ad taps with Private Click Measurement (PCM)

When you navigate to a webpage in SFSafariViewController after a person taps an ad in your app, measure conversions on the website in a privacy-preserving way with Private Click Measurement (PCM).

Add a UIEventAttributionView subview to the ad view or control in order to measure taps. When a person taps the ad, follow these steps to configure an SFSafariViewController instance to use Private Click Measurement for the tap:

  1. Create and configure a UIEventAttribution object with attribution data.

  2. Assign the object to the eventAttribution property of an SFSafariViewController.Configuration object.

  3. Initialize an SFSafariViewController object with the configuration object, and present it. SFSafariViewController validates that a tap on a UIEventAttributionView initiated the navigation to the webpage. If not, it discards the attribution data.

If the external website reports a conversion, SFSafariViewController forwards the attribution report to the specified remote server.

For more information on the proposed PCM web standard, see Introducing Private Click Measurement and Private Click Measurement Draft Community Group Report.

Topics

Creating a View Controller

Responding to View Controller Interaction

Configuring the View Controller

Type Methods

Classes

Initializers

See Also

Safari content in your app