WebGL: Declining support for OES_texture_float on Android

Question

Does anybody know what the deal is with declining support for the WebGL extension OES_texture_float on Android over the years?

https://webglstats.com/webgl/extension/OES_texture_float?platforms=000000000010000400

Is this a data collection error of some sort, or is the support really declining?

If you take Android out of the filter then `OES_texture_float is supported on basically 100% of the other mainstream mobile and desktop platforms:

https://webglstats.com/webgl/extension/OES_texture_float?platforms=000036048004003200

Answer 1

declining support for the WebGL extension OES_texture_float on Android over the years?

There are a large numbers of OpenGL ES 2.0 parts shipping which simply don't support floating point texturing (all of the Mali-4xx series, for example).

It's a core feature in OpenGL ES 3.x, so I suspect a lot of mobile vendors don't expose the extensions and just expect people to switch to a newer API which has all of the new features as part of the core spec rather than supporting them piece-meal. Given WebGL 2 is now published, this seems a sensible approach to me as it guarantees some level of cross-platform portability ...