Ah, so it sounds like we are on the same page, but just call it different things. (what you call a native runtime I call a browser with some UI differences) Yo

Ah, so it sounds like we are on the same page, but just call it different things. (what you call a native runtime I call a browser with some UI differences) Your last paragraph basically describes a browser with a special "install" flow. Mobile Chrome already has a flow like that for PWAs where it will ask you "do you want to add this to the home screen?" and it will add the icon to your app drawer on android just like any other app, allow you to "uninstall" it just like any other app, and when you launch it it launches fullscreen just like any other app. I'd love to see this expanded to cover desktop as well. And with some additional work (like giving the option to move storage data to different drives or manage apps based on their hostname more easily), it could become a very powerful system. If you want to learn more, take a look at the google developers page for PWAs. It seems to be what you are looking for in some ways! https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps/ https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps/