Via is indeed a wrapper for WebView, and i used it on an old device for its small memory footprint. Then kept using it for some features which the non-Chromium alternatives (Firefox but also Mull) have dumbed away.
That's mainly navigation buttons in the address bar, drop-down tab switcher, the ability to export settings and bookmarks (never liked to have yet another "cloud" account that tracks my usage...), and saving webpages for offline use. Among other features such as code and resource-file viewer, network log. -- It's just a a lean and convenient UI.
Lately, i started to run it together with DuckDuckGo-browser's tracking protection. That does take care of Via's own built-in trackers.
Was this some glitch in the matrix, then? (For reference: attack happened on 2024-04-14)