Chrome Apps are dead, as Google shuts down the Chrome Web Store section • Hacker News Board

Re: Chrome Apps are dead, as Google shuts down the Chrome Web Store section

#21

Post by coldtea » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 9:11 AM UTC

Hopefully this convinced the last person still gullible enough to believe on Google's interest to maintain long term (let's say, more than a decade) any service that's not Search, Ads, YouTube, Gmail or Android.

I wouldn't build much on GAE either...

Re: Chrome Apps are dead, as Google shuts down the Chrome Web Store section

#22

Post by KozmoNau7 » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 9:11 AM UTC

robert_foss wrote: post #5

jacobkg wrote: post #2

I'm really confused about what this means for Chrome Apps on ChromeOS. We use Electron for Windows/Mac/Linux but as far as I know Chrome Apps are still the only game in town for ChromeOS. Is there another way to release apps for Chrome OS?

Android apps are available on ChromeOS

Only if your device is on a list of recent supported Chromebooks and Chromeboxes.

For instance my old Acer Chromebook 13 never got Android app support, it was too old despite being based on the same Nvidia Tegra K1 ARM CPU that has been used in a number of Android devices.

Re: Chrome Apps are dead, as Google shuts down the Chrome Web Store section

#23

Post by yoodenvranx » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 9:13 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #21

Hopefully this convinced the last person still gullible enough to believe on Google's interest to maintain long term (let's say, more than a decade) any service that's not Search, Ads, YouTube, Gmail or Android. I wouldn't build much on GAE either...

> YouTube

Even Youtube is not safe, have a look at the Adpocalypse a few months ago or all the wrong/incorrect demonetization of innocent videos.

Re: Chrome Apps are dead, as Google shuts down the Chrome Web Store section

#24

Post by finchisko » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 9:15 AM UTC

danirod wrote: post #18

Honestly, I'm all in for PWAs in favour of Chrome Apps. To the final user, a PWA will work the same: an icon and a chrome-less window. However, they are built on top of open standards, so any browser can support PWAs and provide the same experience to their users, unlike Chrome apps, which only were supposed to work in Chrome. I hope that in the transition, we see more and more progressive web applications. PWAs have…

Most Chrome Apps can be rewritten as PWAs. But IMO not all Electron apps can be written as PWA. Specially those, who need access to filesystem and other system APIs that are not allowed in the browser.

Re: Chrome Apps are dead, as Google shuts down the Chrome Web Store section

#25

Post by PuffinBlue » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 9:19 AM UTC

Great.

Anyone have any suggestions for a replacement for Authy?

It's a 2FA Chrome App that syncs your 2FA tokens across devices.

They have a 'desktop app' now available for Mac and Windows, but of course nothing for Linux (surprise surprise).

So any equivalent that will work cross platform and sync too?

Re: Chrome Apps are dead, as Google shuts down the Chrome Web Store section

#26

Post by LeoPanthera » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 9:23 AM UTC

PuffinBlue wrote: post #25

Great. Anyone have any suggestions for a replacement for Authy? It's a 2FA Chrome App that syncs your 2FA tokens across devices. They have a 'desktop app' now available for Mac and Windows, but of course nothing for Linux (surprise surprise). So any equivalent that will work cross platform and sync too?

If your tokens synchronize across multiple devices don't they stop being a legitimate "factor"?

Re: Chrome Apps are dead, as Google shuts down the Chrome Web Store section

#27

Post by shash7 » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 9:28 AM UTC

bwang29 wrote: post #11

This is really going to hurt Windows users who do not want to use .exe or Windows 10 apps, which are both very heavy and less secure when it comes to https or remote content loading compared to Chrome Apps (Windows UWP in this case). Disclaimer: It's interesting to see that our app (Polarr) is in the screenshot (link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/polarr-photo-edito... ) Although ChromeOS is the smallest…

Hey just a side note: Love your app. Been using the app version since ages.

Re: Chrome Apps are dead, as Google shuts down the Chrome Web Store section

#28

Post by nindalf » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 9:39 AM UTC

LeoPanthera wrote: post #26

PuffinBlue wrote: post #25

Great. Anyone have any suggestions for a replacement for Authy? It's a 2FA Chrome App that syncs your 2FA tokens across devices. They have a 'desktop app' now available for Mac and Windows, but of course nothing for Linux (surprise surprise). So any equivalent that will work cross platform and sync too?

If your tokens synchronize across multiple devices don't they stop being a legitimate "factor"?

I completely agree with this, but I would prefer if there was a mechanism to keep offline backups. Currently if I lose my phone I am frozen out of my accounts. 1-time codes do exist but they have issues - either they're very easily accessible in the form of a printed paper or they're very difficult to access like an encrypted backup in the cloud.

I don't have a good solution to this problem - I am mugged while traveling and I lose my phone and wallet. If anyone could share how they tackle this problem I'd be grateful.

Re: Chrome Apps are dead, as Google shuts down the Chrome Web Store section

#29

Post by okonomiyaki3000 » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 9:43 AM UTC

finchisko wrote: post #15

I'm using only Vysor and Postman Chrome Apps. So I can probably switch to their Electron variants. But have mixed feeling about Chrome Apps discontinued. On one hand it's good as Chrome Apps were tied just to Chrome/ChromeOS, while web apps should be platform agnostic. On other hand, Chrome apps were much smaller than Electron apps, as Election runtime has not to be included with every app (Chrome was the shared runt…

Postman is great and they've had a standalone app for a while. It should work well for you unless you make use of a 'hosts' file. That's right, the standalone Postman app will just ignore it. Oh, they know about the bug. There's been a Github issue about it for over year with plenty of "Me too!" responses. They've done a ton of releases since then too, fixing bugs, adding features... all of which is meaningless if you need it to respect your hosts file settings like any normal app.

Re: Chrome Apps are dead, as Google shuts down the Chrome Web Store section

#30

Post by josteink » Thu, Dec 07, 2017, 9:44 AM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #3

jacobkg wrote: post #2

I'm really confused about what this means for Chrome Apps on ChromeOS. We use Electron for Windows/Mac/Linux but as far as I know Chrome Apps are still the only game in town for ChromeOS. Is there another way to release apps for Chrome OS?

"All types of Chrome apps will remain supported and maintained on Chrome OS for the foreseeable future. Additional enhancements to the Chrome apps platform will apply only to Chrome OS devices, including kiosks. Developers can continue to build Chrome apps (or Android apps) for Chrome OS." https://blog.chromium.org/2016/08/from-chrome-apps-to-web.ht...

So basically Google says they'll maintain and further develop this technology, so it can't be bad per se.

They will however now reduce the amount of platforms it can run on to a fraction of what it was... But for what reason? (Since it's clearly an OK technology in the eyes of ChromeOS)

This only shows yet again to never rely on a Google-based platform for your application or service.