
Google Gives Chrome OS Apps a Shutdown Date - mbreese
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/01/google-gives-chrome-os-apps-a-shutdown-date/
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geofft
I've never quite followed the distinction between "Chrome Packaged Apps" and
"Progressive Web Apps". With a a new-style app, can I

\- run offline (probably yes by caching ServiceWorkers)?

\- use the Chrome App Store to provide additional assurance that I'm
distributing the same code to everyone? (what if I distribute my app as an
extension?)

\- use compiled code through WASM? (I assume of course yes, and so I don't
need PNaCl)

\- access the network? or only protocols like HTTP that you can get to on the
normal web? (again, what if I distribute my app as an extension?)

Unrelatedly, does the 2021 phaseout of PPAPI mean that PPAPI Flash is dead?

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shakna
PWAs won't work for every use case, and can make some more difficult. However,
ChromeOS _tends_ to support Android applications, so they're where the
replacement lies.

But, to answer some of your questions:

> \- run offline (probably yes by caching ServiceWorkers)?

Yes. And that's how. Mostly via storage mechanisms for data, like localStorage
or IndexedDB, or network mechanisms like the Cache API.

> \- use compiled code through WASM? (I assume of course yes, and so I don't
> need PNaCl)

Yes, and you have been able to for a few years. I can't find the day the
switch went over for ChromeOS in particular, but since at least 2017. There
doesn't look like any plans to remove it, and that wouldn't make sense at this
point.

\- access the network? or only protocols like HTTP that you can get to on the
normal web? (again, what if I distribute my app as an extension?)

JS tends to only speak HTTP/S and WebSockets. So far as I know, you don't have
access to a raw socket with extensions. There are some ways to get FTP
working, and other text-based protocols, but they're not guaranteed to always
work, because they are workarounds.

~~~
geofft
So it sounds like (unless Google does something special) the Secure Shell and
Mosh apps for CrOS will stop working, because they won't get useful network
access, and the replacement is either an Android app or Crostini?

~~~
shakna
That's my reading of things.

