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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

#91

Post by rvanmil »

seanwilson wrote: post #81
rvanmil wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how e.g. making Spotify or Slack into native apps would dramatically improve their UX. Well then that is something you might want to do something about if you're an app developer. There's no reason arguing if you are unable to discern the big difference between the UX of a (both properly built) native app and an Electron app. I think this might be one of the reasons Electron is actually successful; a lo…

> Well then that is something you might want to do something about if you're an app developer. There's no reason arguing if you are unable to discern the big difference between the UX of a (both properly built) native app and an Electron app. I'm able to tell the difference thanks. I'm saying that with native apps the UX can be better but for a large cost and a lot of the time that cost is not worth it. I'd also argu…

> I'm able to tell the difference thanks.

I must've interpreted that the wrong way then. We'll have to agree to disagree then because I do think there is a big difference in UX.

I really think the limits of providing a nice UX with web tech is the elephant in the room here and everyone is ignoring it because it is simply cheaper and easier to work with and/or because of idealistic reasons. Which I think is a shame because it's responsible for a trend where we're moving towards good-enough software on all platforms, instead of nice software for specific platforms.

Turning Slack and Spotify into native apps can upgrade them from just being functional, to actually being a pleasure to use, something of which I'm convinced is not possible with web tech no matter how hard you try. There is a huge amount of platform specific UX details (much appreciated by Apple users especially) which you will not be able to emulate.

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

#92

Post by mattwoodnyc »

tootie wrote: post #63
bad_user wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They are not lagging, they are obstructing. Google wants to push users to the web because they control search. Apple wants to push people to their proprietary app store. They have consistently obstructed anything that brings native app features to the browser.

This. I work on the mobile web, and eagerly watch the webkit updates, but it's clear that Apple wants users to download native apps, b/c they control the quality and security of apps coming out of the App Store.

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

#93

Post by thedaemon »

brazzledazzle wrote: post #89
LordKano wrote: post #87

After the frustration I faced when google killed iGoogle, I decided that I would never again become invested in anything from Google other than search and email.

Is the expectation that Google maintain products even when they're not profitable or beneficial for them? I can understand if they don't provide a reasonable sunset date but investing yourself in any company's product is a risk. At least with Google you'll get notice instead of a static html page one day announcing the shuttering of the service.

It's also a problem with a web-centric application developers. With a traditional software application, if the developer stops putting out updates you still have working software. With Google's services, you no longer have working software.

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

#94

Post by coldtea »

MBCook wrote: post #78
yoodenvranx wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You mean that they finally started to pay attention to the ludicrous crap they were giving money to that advertisers wanted nothing to do with? What a surprise. It was deserved and a long time coming. People need to learn that whatever horrible thing you put online doesn’t automatically get you paid. Advertisers don’t want to sponsor “anything” because it reflects poorly on them.

>You mean that they finally started to pay attention to the ludicrous crap they were giving money to that advertisers wanted nothing to do with?

No, it means they've started promoting crap for monetizing and penalizing things that people actually want to see.

>Advertisers don’t want to sponsor “anything” because it reflects poorly on them.

Given the human scum that are advertisers, I doubt anything could reflect poorly on them.

At best it would reflect badly on their clients -- who themselves would be totally fine to advertise on KKK websites and snuff films if it didn't cause a backslash.

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

#95

Post by JepZ »

tonetheman wrote: post #70
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 problem with PWAs is they do not provide the same access as a Chrome App (file system, sockets...) so it is not a replacement for those Apps using that functionality. Just another case of Chrome running in like a bull and doing one thing then breaking it later. :( Anyone who needs the low level functionality will end up with a native app that use native messaging to talk to Chrome. Or just stands alone.

Actually you are so right... And I do not understand why google doesn't seem to solve that problem...

I mean I really like PWAs. But while they are around since a while now (about 2 years?), the pain points have not been addressed so far.

- Privacy: There are multiple issues related to privacy here (transparent updates, Serviceworker running in the background without the user knowing about it), and when I see it how many serviceworkers my browser runs already I am happy that they don't have an even deeper access to my system.

- Ownership: Installing a PWA works like visiting a website twice. After that you have no idea what you have (version? offline capabilities? storage?). And if you decide to use an App for a while you are living in the constant danger of the web service quitting.

- Storage: While many people do not care where their data is stored (proprietary service XYZ, AWS, Google Drive, DropBox). I would like to be able select my storage location myself. Furthermore, I think the storage topic is also one of the main reasons why people build electron apps, as the browser has no robust and user friendly way of accessing the filesystem.

So here are a few suggestions which I think would help to make PWAs more accessible.

- Archive Format: make it possible to easily download, save and install an PWA at any time. That way I should also be able to see a version and the required permissions.

- Storage interface: In my opinion the browsers should offer some storage solution. For my last PWA I wrote a lib which could use different storage locations like a REST API or a WebDAV. It works really well, but it is a pain to enter your credentials every time you want to use a new app. Therefore, your browser should offer something similar to a webdav service to save data locally and let you configure a WebDAV service location if you want to store you data somewhere else (e.g. Nextcloud, DropBox, etc.).

- Improve native integration. Yes that is no easy part. I mean we already have a bunch of native integrations, like e.g. the Notifcation API, but to be honest I think they could be better. One thing many Apps probably would like to have, are systemtray icons. Actually, I never used electron so far (only cordova), but I expect them to have a bunch of plugins which could be a great ressource for the browser devs to find out what we need here.

As permissions are already built into the browsers I haven't mentioned them here, but with the rise of the Serviceworkers they are more important than ever. Users should be aware of the permissions they grant a software from some brief encounter in the web.

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

#96

Post by JepZ »

Klathmon wrote: post #55
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.

There is actually "negative" support in iOS. You can add a website to your homescreen in safari, but when you do it uses a different rendering engine, with different levels of support. Take WebRTC which was recently (partially) added to iOS. It will work great in safari, but if you add the site to your homescreen, it is no longer supported. The job of telling users to remove homescreen shortcuts to use a new feature…

Wow, thats a bummer. Didn't know about that.

Anybody knows why Apple is doing that?

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

#97

Post by dragonwriter »

mZ6uYffk wrote: post #68
InternetOfStuff wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know whether PWAs can access the local file system (which is a basic requirement for a particular Chrome app I use heavily)?

Yes. In chrome only: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/File_and_Di... It gives JavaScript access to its very own, empty, sand-boxed VFS. However, you can give the page access to directories manually with drag-n-drop or a directory selecting input tag. So if the app needs access to just one parent directory then you're good to go. If you need the app to have indiscriminate access to the entire filesyste…

Given Google’s shift to focussing on standard and standards track web platform features in Chrome, and tendency to eliminate everything else, I wouldn't bet on this (which predates that strong focus) being around forever.

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

#98

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

kerbalspacepro wrote: post #88
majewsky wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

To be honest, if ads were more like that comment in the "These are our performance statistics relevant to the topic" vein, then I would be happy to see more ads.

Yes, it is much better than the sociopathic emotional manipulation and brand recognition techniques used on everything else nowadays.

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

#99

Post by berkes »

MBCook wrote: post #77
tootie wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not lagging, they are obstructing. Google wants to push users to the web because they control search. Apple wants to push people to their proprietary app store. They have consistently obstructed anything that brings native app features to the browser.

Good. Every time browsers get new features people (ESPECIALLY ad networks) abuse it for tracking and other nefarious purposes. Battery level, light level, probably even gyroscope stuff. Hell they fingerprint canvas which isn’t even an iOS thing. I don’t want these issues. I LIKE these restrictions so random sites I visit (and even worse random code injected in them) can’t watch me as easy. Apps have issues but I cont…

This is a strange argument.

The website operator/publisher is the one choosing to track you (or not). Not some magic third party.

If you don't trust example.com from tracking you, you certainly cannot trust example.App from tracking you.

For web, the technology is at least transparant and you can detect being tracked. With native apps, there is nothing you can do, other than reverse engineering the binaries, monitoring internet-traffic and hoping that example.App was built with privacy in mind.

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

#100

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

coldtea wrote: post #94
MBCook wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean that they finally started to pay attention to the ludicrous crap they were giving money to that advertisers wanted nothing to do with? What a surprise. It was deserved and a long time coming. People need to learn that whatever horrible thing you put online doesn’t automatically get you paid. Advertisers don’t want to sponsor “anything” because it reflects poorly on them.

> You mean that they finally started to pay attention to the ludicrous crap they were giving money to that advertisers wanted nothing to do with? No, it means they've started promoting crap for monetizing and penalizing things that people actually want to see. > Advertisers don’t want to sponsor “anything” because it reflects poorly on them. Given the human scum that are advertisers, I doubt anything could reflect po…

The real issue is that advertisers still think that the video an ad plays on reflects their viewpoints. Coke playing an ad on a video with vulgar language does not mean that Coke condones vulgar language in our society.

They still think it's TV advertising when it's not.

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