Building Chromium system webview apk

[Kyle]

I know Google has moved Android System WebView updates to the Play Store, but it looks like updates are not being pushed to android.googlesource.com.  For example, vanilla AOSP Lollipop (5.1.1) looks like it builds version 39 of Chromium, while my Nexus 5 (6.0.1) runs 47.0.2526.100.  (There is no AOSP marshmallow branch in external/chromium_org.)  For non-Play Store builds, is it possible to pull in a newer Chromium version directly from chromium.org (particularly in the interest of security updates)?  It looks like there are directions on building system_webview_apk from chromium.org (https://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/build-instructions-android-webview), but how can I tell which Chromium release versions are compatible with my AOSP version?

Can anyone provide any insight on whether or not this is feasible?  Or do the Android System WebView updates from the Play Store contain additional changes that aren't available from chromium.org?

[Michael Robbeloth]

I hate to bump an old thread like this, but I would like to know if there are any guides, blog posts, or whitepapers on doing this especially in the context of Android devices that do not have Google Play Services on them. Google is really is stubborn about granting the licensing rights to Google Play Services on hardware anything older than the current release. Unfortunately, it is very difficult for small embedded shops to turn out new Android firmware with the same speed that large-scale OEMs are able to do -- it feels as though we'll always be behind the major players. It also limits the use of Android on novel devices in niche markets where it would be helpful to have Google Play Service (not necessarily for the Store) where components like webview can get update on a more regular basis and apps that have Google services dependencies can run more reliability (it's amazing how few Android developers test for use on devices w/o Google Services).

Michael

[Glenn Kasten]

This discussion group android-porting is focused on technical issues related to porting

the AOSP upstream distribution to non-AOSP-supported build targets.

Other distributions, proprietary services, and non-technical discussions, are all off-topic.

Please limit any follow-ups to the technical issues raised here.

Thank you

(I'm one of the volunteer moderators of this discussion group,

but I am not an expert in the technical area of this thread)