
PWA Coming to Chrome for Desktop - twapi
https://browsernative.com/pwa-chrome-desktop-install-3681/
======
Klathmon
So one problem I recently found with PWAs that are a real issue, is that the
user can't easily control the browser that is used for them on android.

We had a PWA that was having some really strange issues recently, only to find
that some users were on really old versions of what looked like chrome (like
versions 49, 51 and 56 as of last week).

We eventually found out that this was actually the "samsung browser" which is
the default browser on many samsung phones, which is pinned to an older
chromium version, and our PWA when installed was using that rendering engine,
which was causing compatibility issues that the user has no ability to fix
themselves.

I love the web platform, but this is a big problem. We are going the "wrap our
app in a compiled chromium browser" route now, as much as it pains me to do
it, because there just isn't any other option here.

Imagine if lenovo were to randomly decide that any software run on windows on
their PCs will be run in a windows XP vm, and that there wasn't any easy way
to change it... All because the company wants to add their branding and
"optimize for their hardware"...

Yes, we could try to support these older versions, but seeing as these phones
will most likely never get updates from samsung again, it would just prevent
us from using any new features or new performance increases until these users
leave us. So our options are to wrap the app in a fat wrapper that allows us
to continue writing the best app we can for the most number of people, or
intentionally hamstring the app for everyone to support a minority of users
that are using phones abandoned by their manufacturer. (FFS Samsung's latest
release as of late october 2017 was 6 months out of date the day they released
it!)

Edit: Just saw another issue come through, user agent comes from a nvidia
shield tablet, based on chrome 44, released 2015-07-21... That will never get
another update. The oldest chrome version i've seen in our logs looks like 41
which was 2 weeks ago!

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joemccall86
While there may be some important technological differences here, from an end-
user perspective they already achieved this 5 years ago
([https://blog.chromium.org/2013/02/chrome-app-launcher-
develo...](https://blog.chromium.org/2013/02/chrome-app-launcher-developer-
preview.html)), removed it 3 years ago
([https://blog.chromium.org/2016/08/from-chrome-apps-to-
web.ht...](https://blog.chromium.org/2016/08/from-chrome-apps-to-web.html)),
and now they're adding it back in.

I like that we're moving forward, but on the desktop this just feels like,
"Hey, look what you can do again!"

~~~
oldcynic
I completely forget its name but wasn't there was a Mozilla project to do
basically this a dozen or more years back? Obviously without the benefits of
HTML 5 etc.

~~~
predakanga
Yep, Mozilla Prism - there have been plenty of similar efforts both first- and
third-party: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site-
specific_browser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site-specific_browser)

They may even retain some use - on OS X, for example, you used to get issues
with PWAs being considered part of the main browser process for cmd+tab and
cmd+`. I've had to use SSBs to overcome this in the past.

------
butz
Finally, HTML5 apps for desktop, running in separate window without any
additional downloads. A win for developers - no more building installers for
each OS, and a win for users - running web apps on latest (and presumably
safest) version of internet browser.

------
xtf
This is at least since the last 3 versions of chrome around. Firefox added it
on android since v58, desktop pending.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
Where does the name "progressive" come from?

~~~
MzHN
Supposedly the "progressive" in PWA means[1]:

> _Work for every user, regardless of browser choice because they’re built
> with progressive enhancement[2] as a core tenet._

But from my experience I'd say they have little to do with actual progressive
enhancement, i.e. content first development.

One thing that certainly is progressive for PWAs is how deeply the user
decides to integrate the web app into their browser/OS. You can choose to
allow push notifications and "install" the PWA into your home screen for
example.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app#Characteri...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app#Characteristics)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement)

~~~
predakanga
The seeming incompatibility of PWAs with Progressive Enhancement is something
that's been bugging me for a while now.

As an earnest question, is Progressive Enhancement (i.e. graceful degradation,
"unobtrusive javascript", etc) simply dead now? None of the frameworks out
there seem to encourage it, I'm not sure if many even support those paradigms.

