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

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

#41

Post by baxuz »

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…

Windows 10 redstone will support PWAs as first class desktop citizens. Even going as far to index them in the Windows store.

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

#42

Post by therealmarv »

This PWA Chrome apps is something I see as ultimate goal for all Electron apps: Have a one point JVM like instance, share resources across all Electron apps. So now many major Chrome Apps go Electron and I have 4-5 big Electron Chrome instances running... what a step backward on my 8GB RAM Mac!

Personal side note: I will miss Postmann Interceptor because I can catch cookies from a web login with the pwa app without any copy&pasting data and continue using our REST api with this cookes. <- not possible with Electron Postman.

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

#43

Post by denisw »

bad_user wrote: post #38
mephitix wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 acces…

It's your problem if a third of your potential users gets put off by how sub-standard your PWA is on their platform and chooses a competitor with native mobile app instead.

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

#44

Post by seanwilson »

pjmlp wrote: post #39
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.

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

I was mostly meaning if you have an existing Chrome App or wanted to rely on existing JavaScript libraries.

Electron gets a huge amount of hate on HN but I personally see the native route as very unappealing. With less developer resources (and perhaps a slightly worse UI; I think people really over exaggerate here), you get fairly simple cross platform support, an update system, access to a huge JavaScript ecosystem and your code can be shared between desktop, mobile, web and server-side.

As a developer, I don't see the appeal of e.g. QT, Java or OS specific implementations at all compared to the above. In my opinion, you're trading a small increase in UX and improved system resource usage (which most users won't notice) for a massive increase in developer resources. This is an order of magnitude worse if you're going to do a separate implementation for each platform as well as now you're going to need platform specific libraries, testing frameworks, development workflows etc. for each OS.

Unless you have lots of money, it's not practical to support multiple platforms with a 100% native experience using the minimal amount of CPU and memory possible. If you have an existing web app, moving to Electron isn't a big leap but that isn't the case if you want to have multiple native apps.

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

#45

Post by icebraining »

seanwilson wrote: post #44
pjmlp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For some uses, now your only option is to implement an Electron app. No, there are plenty of options when doing native development.

> No, there are plenty of options when doing native development. I was mostly meaning if you have an existing Chrome App or wanted to rely on existing JavaScript libraries. Electron gets a huge amount of hate on HN but I personally see the native route as very unappealing. With less developer resources (and perhaps a slightly worse UI; I think people really over exaggerate here), you get fairly simple cross platform…

Technically, you can have all those advantages with Qt/QML, since it uses JavaScript and runs on desktop, mobile and even web. That said, I never used it.

Another alternative would be React-Native, now that react-native-web exists...

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

#46

Post by igravious »

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…

Build your first Progressive Web App courtesy of the big G: https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/codelabs/your...

I wonder if Rails support could be added for PWAs? I found a guide here: https://rossta.net/blog/make-your-rails-app-a-progressive-we... but I'm only midway through testing it. Getting Puma (Rails dev web server) to speak SSL without throwing errors is a stumbling block :/

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

#47

Post by seanwilson »

icebraining wrote: post #45
seanwilson wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, there are plenty of options when doing native development. I was mostly meaning if you have an existing Chrome App or wanted to rely on existing JavaScript libraries. Electron gets a huge amount of hate on HN but I personally see the native route as very unappealing. With less developer resources (and perhaps a slightly worse UI; I think people really over exaggerate here), you get fairly simple cross platform…

Technically, you can have all those advantages with Qt/QML, since it uses JavaScript and runs on desktop, mobile and even web. That said, I never used it. Another alternative would be React-Native, now that react-native-web exists...

How popular is it? If it's not popular, is there a reason?

I often see comments mentioning QT and Java as alternatives to Electron for cross platform apps but my impression is an order of magnitude more developers/companies side with and see the advantages of Electron instead.

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

#48

Post by majewsky »

therealmarv wrote: post #42

This PWA Chrome apps is something I see as ultimate goal for all Electron apps: Have a one point JVM like instance, share resources across all Electron apps. So now many major Chrome Apps go Electron and I have 4-5 big Electron Chrome instances running... what a step backward on my 8GB RAM Mac! Personal side note: I will miss Postmann Interceptor because I can catch cookies from a web login with the pwa app without a…

> what a step backward on my 8GB RAM Mac!

And what a step backward on a 2GB RAM notebook that would otherwise be fine for office and browsing tasks.

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

#49

Post by majewsky »

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…

That's the first time I've seen someone use "Disclaimer" for an ad. Usually the ad is everything except for the disclaimer.

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

#50

Post by majewsky »

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...

> any service that's not Search, Ads, YouTube, Gmail or Android

I think you mean "any service that's not Search or Ads". Ads pay the bills, so every service is only useful as long as it increases ad revenue. Search may be special since Google cannot afford the damage to its brand if it shuts down search because it's not bringing in enough ad revenue.

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