Is the FoxNews App installing itself?

[qtrim]

I like to read a variety of news to get all sides. So for news on my iPhone running iOS9.0.2, I have an 'add to home screen' shortcuts to CNN.com home page. CNN works as normal, touching the home screen shortcut opens Safari and takes me to the mobile version of CNN, without the ads, since I use Blockr.

However, when I browse to FoxNews.com home page and create a shortcut by choosing 'add to home screen' the next time I launch that, it doesn't launch safari, it launches what appears to be its own app, with no Safari interface at all, plus with all the ads. It does this even though I do not have the FoxNews app installed. You can see from the app switcher screen shot that it is running in addition to Safari.

How is that possible? And how can I stop that from happening.

 

[Apple_Robert]

The app is not installing itself. What is happening, is the mobile view of the site is being shown.

 

[APlotdevice]

This is actually a long forgotten feature of iOS: The Web App.

You see, despite being famous for it, iOS didn't originally have an app store with "native apps" (that was officially introduced in 2.0). Instead the idea was to have web-based applets, which you could launch from your home screen. Kinda like what ChromeOS would do later on.

 

[Eau Rouge]

Yup. FT.com does this in order to skirt the cut that would otherwise go to Apple for in app subscription purchases.

 

[qtrim]

i wonder why Safari content blockers don't work on web apps?

 

[APlotdevice]

i wonder why Safari content blockers don't work on web apps?

They technically don't run in Safari, just webkit.