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Web apps are better than no apps

molodtsov.me

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Re: Web apps are better than no apps

#181

Post by nsonha »

pjc50 wrote: post #43
nsonha wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the website mechanism has so many flaws, an abitrary code size restriction for once, constant access to the internet for another. And you can't really tell if the code you run today is the same as that yesterday.

Websites have a code size restriction? What is it?

You seen a 100MB web apps? That's pretty common in mobile apps. A practical restriction rather than a principle one. A web app can be as large as it wants, it will just take forever to load or some obscene over-engineering to stream the modules.

Re: Web apps are better than no apps

#182

Post by fouric »

DarkNova6 wrote: post #168
paulddraper wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is that IntelliJ takes way longer to start and freezes more frequently.

How often do you start up your IDE a day?

This is classic goal-post moving - you started out by saying that Intellij was faster than VSCode, then after a commentator said that their experience was the opposite, you moved the goal-post to "well it doesn't matter". You should be willing to admit when you're wrong.

Re: Web apps are better than no apps

#183

Post by webworker »

wackget wrote: post #123
epolanski wrote: post #109

One thing that makes me use a web-app rather than a native one on PC is that I know for a fact that the browser app will be very limited in tampering with my computer, something I'm not so sure about when installing native applications. Often I see Nvidia's or Microsoft's or Discord's own services snooping in my installed applications, but it can go much further with, e.g., applications like grammarly that have acces…

Absolutely. For anything internet-based (social media, chat, meetings etc.) web apps are vastly superior for this reason. In fact, anything which doesn't explicitly need the richness of a true desktop GUI (e.g. Photoshop or games) should probably be a web app. In addition to the massive benefit of running browser-sandboxed, web apps are also: 1. Easier to start and stop (open/close a tab) 2. Less permanent (clear you…

> In fact, anything which doesn't explicitly need the richness of a true desktop GUI (e.g. Photoshop or games) should probably be a web app.

I'm going to throw a bit of shade at Photoshop... remember how up through CS3 they actually did have a native interface? From CS4 and beyond it turned into cross-platform web gunk.

Always disappointing to see. CS2 and CS3 felt so fluid on Mac OS X.

Re: Web apps are better than no apps

#184

Post by Capricorn2481 »

amelius wrote: post #165
Capricorn2481 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about windows and iPhones though, iPhone users are buying iPads, why would they buy an android tablet? If anything, it's tech world that has less brand loyalty. I have an apple, windows, and android. The average tech user though? They're probably going all in on one

Do you want to advocate that everybody buys a single brand? Or do you want competition in the smartphone space? You know, where people can freely move from one brand to another if they don't like certain aspects of their current brand? Like how the free market is supposed to work?

I'm literally not advocating for anything, I'm telling you what it's like right now

Re: Web apps are better than no apps

#185

Post by mozey »

J_Shelby_J wrote: post #76
mozey wrote: post #42

Instead of wrapping the application with something like Electron, why not install as a service and connect to a localhost port using your default browser? I know this is not the same UX as installing an app. But why isn't this technique more standard? Besides more efficient resource usage, another benefit is that it keeps the client/server architecture.

Hrmmm I wonder if you could do this on mobile.

Last time I checked it's not possible on iOS. On Android it's possible with some effort (e.g. you have to use Termux), not something you could expect a user to setup

Re: Web apps are better than no apps

#186

Post by mozey »

layer8 wrote: post #139
mozey wrote: post #42

Instead of wrapping the application with something like Electron, why not install as a service and connect to a localhost port using your default browser? I know this is not the same UX as installing an app. But why isn't this technique more standard? Besides more efficient resource usage, another benefit is that it keeps the client/server architecture.

It’s more obscure for users if they have to open http://localhost:some_port/ . You also have to decide on a hopefully free port. As an aside, if the application isn’t careful, that approach can potentially open up a security hole, because external javascript on a web page in your browser can perform requests to localhost.

CORS policy usually requires that the port must match. This issue potentially applies to all web apps, not only those hosted on localhost

Re: Web apps are better than no apps

#187

Post by quicksave2k »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #160
wackget wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. For anything internet-based (social media, chat, meetings etc.) web apps are vastly superior for this reason. In fact, anything which doesn't explicitly need the richness of a true desktop GUI (e.g. Photoshop or games) should probably be a web app. In addition to the massive benefit of running browser-sandboxed, web apps are also: 1. Easier to start and stop (open/close a tab) 2. Less permanent (clear you…

Unless you want to touch USB (WebUSB sometimes work, sometimes don't) or Bluetooth - Good luck on iOS where Apple is not supporting BLE interface on purpose, but on Windows and Android situation is not much better. Even ChromeOS can't run Web Bluetooth properly. Supported on paper, does not work anyway.

May I ask you to elaborate on what is not working for you with WebUSB and Web Bluetooth? I'm surprised to hear ChromeOS can't run Web Bluetooth properly.

Re: Web apps are better than no apps

#188

Post by eureka-belief »

epolanski wrote: post #109

One thing that makes me use a web-app rather than a native one on PC is that I know for a fact that the browser app will be very limited in tampering with my computer, something I'm not so sure about when installing native applications. Often I see Nvidia's or Microsoft's or Discord's own services snooping in my installed applications, but it can go much further with, e.g., applications like grammarly that have acces…

WebAssembly with sandboxing might help with this.

Re: Web apps are better than no apps

#189

Post by jeroenhd »

jasode wrote: post #91
jeroenhd wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great, but I don't know any Electron app that needs file system or task bar access. Notifications are a solved problem already and installing web apps from the browser is just a click away in all browsers (except Firefox), after which they run completely offline. Chrome added a file system API for some reason, but every Electron based application I've used just used the standard prompt and it worked absolutely…

>That's great, but I don't know any Electron app that needs file system or task bar access. I first ran Zulip chat client in a Chrome web browser tab. But I often missed replying to new messages because I always forgot to manually cycle over to the Zulip tab to check for them. After a few days of fighting that limitation, I gave up on Zulip in the web browser tab and installed the desktop version of Zulip (Electron r…

Does Zulip not add these red dots to the favicon? Because every chat application I've used does. I've got a bunch of them pinned exactly for this purpose.

Re: Web apps are better than no apps

#190

Post by terpimost »

jeroenhd wrote: post #189
jasode wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's great, but I don't know any Electron app that needs file system or task bar access. I first ran Zulip chat client in a Chrome web browser tab. But I often missed replying to new messages because I always forgot to manually cycle over to the Zulip tab to check for them. After a few days of fighting that limitation, I gave up on Zulip in the web browser tab and installed the desktop version of Zulip (Electron r…

Does Zulip not add these red dots to the favicon? Because every chat application I've used does. I've got a bunch of them pinned exactly for this purpose.

There is unread counter in the favicon
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