Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 144 posts

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

#31

Post by PuffinBlue »

nindalf wrote: post #28
LeoPanthera wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 travel…

What is 2FA? It's 'something you have'. It's not 'one single thing on one device only'. It's just 'something you have'.

'Something you have' relies on physical security, so if you have the same physical security for both your laptop and phone, there's no reduction by having a 2FA token on each device.

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

#32

Post by sohkamyung »

I'm use the Chrome App version of Pocket to download and read my Pocket articles offline on Windows 10. Any suggestions for a replacement?

I'm currently trying Poki [1] but I find it's offline reading features too limited for my tastes.

Pocket hints they may produce a Windows 10 app but that's a vague promise at the moment.

[1] https://pokiapp.com/

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

#34

Post by plett »

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?

I'm also very interested in whether Authy will be usable on Linux after Chrome Apps go away, or what viable replacements exist.

I experimented with migrating from Chrome to Firefox 57 when that launched. It's a very capable browser and I could easily use it as my main browser, but Authy was the main thing which stopped me dropping Chrome for work use. There were other things (like Netflix Chromecast support) which were stumbling blocks for home use, but I can always keep Chrome around for those.

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

#35

Post by cotillion »

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…

The big plus for Chrome Apps for me was that the store made it possible to actually get new users for your apps. For organizations without $ this was useful as a good app would get good visibility once it had a lot of happy users and got good reviews. This was probably a good thing both for users and developers.

Now we instead have to pay Google for ads to get visibility for our PWA. Now we're probably going to turn to Facebook and try to get some traction there.. From one evil walled garden into the next!

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

#36

Post by owebmaster »

cotillion wrote: post #35
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…

The big plus for Chrome Apps for me was that the store made it possible to actually get new users for your apps. For organizations without $ this was useful as a good app would get good visibility once it had a lot of happy users and got good reviews. This was probably a good thing both for users and developers. Now we instead have to pay Google for ads to get visibility for our PWA. Now we're probably going to turn…

> Now we're probably going to turn to Facebook and try to get some traction there..

And that is why the web is dying.

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

#37

Post by seanwilson »

I'm not keen on this decision.

Chrome Apps could do more than progressive web apps could do but less than Electron apps. For some uses, now your only option is to implement an Electron app.

Electron is much heavier, requires more trust because its a native app, makes cross platform support harder and you're missing out on the update, payment and discoverability features of the Chrome Web Store.

I'd prefer progressive web apps over Electron and Chrome Apps but they're not powerful enough to replace all use cases yet. I agree Chrome Apps weren't being widely used but I like the idea behind web apps replacing native apps (including Electron) where suitable.

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

#38

Post by bad_user »

mephitix wrote: post #19
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…

There is virtually no iOS support though. Even though service worker and app manifest are being worked on at the moment in Webkit I think it'll be a while before we see safari/mobile safari updated. I completely agree PWAs are the way forward though.

That's Apple's problem though and they've been lagging behind for quite some time.

On Android it's possible for example to run Facebook as a web app, because Chrome on Android can deliver notifications, keeping that connection persistent, so even after the page has been closed.

And this is pretty cool because the browser is a much better sandbox than the OS. Now I use an iPhone and I'm very uncomfortable giving access to my photos to Facebook just for uploading a file.

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

#39

Post by pjmlp »

seanwilson wrote: post #37

I'm not keen on this decision. Chrome Apps could do more than progressive web apps could do but less than Electron apps. For some uses, now your only option is to implement an Electron app. Electron is much heavier, requires more trust because its a native app, makes cross platform support harder and you're missing out on the update, payment and discoverability features of the Chrome Web Store. I'd prefer progressive…

> For some uses, now your only option is to implement an Electron app.

No, there are plenty of options when doing native development.

Post reply on HN