Apologies, indeed, the canOpenURL returns false when the user has removed Safari. When the opening of the URL failed, the completion handler indeed returns false too. In your example, apple.com is opened in an alternative browser as long as Safari is installed. As soon as Safari is removed, the canOpenURL returns false. There are other alternative browsers installed that can handle the web URL, but they don't seem to receive it. How do you advice a developer should handle this?

Hi Albert, So can canOpenURL reports true, but indeed nothing happens. If you use the variant with the completion handler, open(_:options:completionHandler:), the result in the completionHandler will be false. With Safari installed & custom browser set to an alt. browser, the alt. browser opens the web URL. When Safari is removed, the web URL is not opened anywhere. You can find a screen recording of the behaviour in the feedback ticket.

Hi Albert, We were also intrigued by this incident and went ahead and called up the customers affected by it. All the clients had installed iOS 26.2.x. With their feedback, we could reproduce the issue: (EU region, iPhone running 26.2.1) Install an alternative browser, such as Chrome Long press on the Safari icon and choose "Remove app" Make Chrome default Open an app that does a redirect to an external url -> redirect no longer works Reinstalling Safari fixes the issue again.