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What happens to your PWA page weight when you add tracking and ads to it? How do I find your ad-free hobby project in the sea of search results for "speedomete

by wffurr 8y ago

What happens to your PWA page weight when you add tracking and ads to it? How do I find your ad-free hobby project in the sea of search results for "speedometer" PWAs on the open web? What makes sure you will keep paying the, admittedly modest, hosting costs for the app? I think it's great you can make "tiny PWAs" but I think the article is glossing over the incentives and discovery problem that leads to 30MB ad-infested utility apps on the play store.

oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
He describes it as an app essentially for his own use - there IS no business model. He’s not going to need to add tracking or ads.
- RodgerTheGreat 8y ago
  Viewing the source of the reading light and speedometer reveals that both include google analytics tracking code.
  - oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
    Where do you see the google analytics code in the speedometer? It's true that the site his example is running on includes GA, but I can't see anything in the source other than a reference to an analytics build which uses a file that only exists if you choose to create it.
    - mort96 8y ago
      The HTML includes this: <script async="" src="https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js"></script> <script>window.ga = window.ga || ((...args) => (ga.q = ga.q || []).push(args));ga('create', 'UA-130560367-1', 'auto');ga('set', 'transport', 'beacon');ga('set', 'anonymizeIp', true);ga('send', 'pageview');</script> The network pane in my browser, when disabling ublock, looks like this: https://s.mort.coffee/d/img/scr-2019-02-03-74462.png https://s.mort.coffee/d/img/scr-2019-02-03-74462.png
      - oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
        That's on the actual site, isn't it? I acknowledge it's there, but the person I originally replied to claimed it was in the source, which I don't think it is.
rthomas6 8y ago
Hosting static content can be done for free. Looks like he's using Firebase, but I believe you could host it on Netlify/Github Pages for $0, since there's no server side work being done.
- avip 8y ago
  Firebase has a pretty feature complete free tier.
  - rthomas6 8y ago
    Good point. Looks like the Firebasee free tier hosting limit is 10 GB/month, so if his speedometer is 1.7 KB, and PWAs only need to be downloaded once by each user, that's ~5.8 million new users/month for free. So basically free forever.
    - avtar 8y ago
      > forever Google doesn’t have the best track record in the forever department :)
jstanley 8y ago
> What makes sure you will keep paying the, admittedly modest, hosting costs for the app? I thought the point of a PWA is that it is installed on the phone. So it doesn't need any hosting. For the initial distribution, IPFS would be a good fit. It ensures a.) That even if the original developer is compromised you still don't get a malicious app, and b.) That even if the original developer stops hosting it, it's still available as long as anyone in the world is hosting it.
chippy 8y ago
The other, largely unspoken, downside to PWAs are that the user cannot block the tracking and ads in them when launched natively. Even though they might run on your android where you have firefox mobile with all the adblocking extensions enabled, and run that PWA in the browser. I'm sure this might be another reason why PWAs are being supported by the advertising industry platform suppliers.
- oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
  That's not a downside versus native apps, though.
- enz 8y ago
  I've "installed" this PWA via Brave on Android. So it now runs upon the Brave engine when I launch it, I suppose. I hope Brave continues to block trackers when executing "installed" PWAs.
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    I didn't think it worked like that, but I could be super wrong. Last I saw things launched from the home screen or in a webview from another app use the "Android System Webview" as it's rendering engine. IIRC there was some work done to make that runtime swappable, but I'm not sure how far that went.
    - callahad 8y ago
      It's possible. E.g., PWAs installed via Firefox on Android use Gecko, not the system WebView.
      - Klathmon 8y ago
        Oh wow that's awesome I had no idea, thanks!
      - enz 8y ago
        Thanks for confirming. It is indeed great if things works that way!
oskarla 8y ago
> How do I find your ad-free hobby project in the sea of search results for "speedometer" PWAs on the open web? https://appsco.pe https://appsco.pe
- pjmlp 8y ago
  That's cool, thanks for sharing.
etaerc 8y ago
No, he's saying you can build this stuff on your own and don't need to grab it from anywhere.
z3t4 8y ago
If it has offline support you can simply save it to your computer, or use "add to desktop" in iOS and Chrome browser.

by wffurr 8y ago

oneeyedpigeon 8y ago

He describes it as an app essentially for his own use - there IS no business model. He’s not going to need to add tracking or ads.

RodgerTheGreat 8y ago
Viewing the source of the reading light and speedometer reveals that both include google analytics tracking code.
- oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
  Where do you see the google analytics code in the speedometer? It's true that the site his example is running on includes GA, but I can't see anything in the source other than a reference to an analytics build which uses a file that only exists if you choose to create it.
  - mort96 8y ago
    The HTML includes this: <script async="" src="https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js"></script> <script>window.ga = window.ga || ((...args) => (ga.q = ga.q || []).push(args));ga('create', 'UA-130560367-1', 'auto');ga('set', 'transport', 'beacon');ga('set', 'anonymizeIp', true);ga('send', 'pageview');</script> The network pane in my browser, when disabling ublock, looks like this: https://s.mort.coffee/d/img/scr-2019-02-03-74462.png https://s.mort.coffee/d/img/scr-2019-02-03-74462.png
    - oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
      That's on the actual site, isn't it? I acknowledge it's there, but the person I originally replied to claimed it was in the source, which I don't think it is.

rthomas6 8y ago

Hosting static content can be done for free. Looks like he's using Firebase, but I believe you could host it on Netlify/Github Pages for $0, since there's no server side work being done.

avip 8y ago
Firebase has a pretty feature complete free tier.
- rthomas6 8y ago
  Good point. Looks like the Firebasee free tier hosting limit is 10 GB/month, so if his speedometer is 1.7 KB, and PWAs only need to be downloaded once by each user, that's ~5.8 million new users/month for free. So basically free forever.
  - avtar 8y ago
    > forever Google doesn’t have the best track record in the forever department :)

jstanley 8y ago

> What makes sure you will keep paying the, admittedly modest, hosting costs for the app? I thought the point of a PWA is that it is installed on the phone. So it doesn't need any hosting. For the initial distribution, IPFS would be a good fit. It ensures a.) That even if the original developer is compromised you still don't get a malicious app, and b.) That even if the original developer stops hosting it, it's still available as long as anyone in the world is hosting it.

chippy 8y ago

The other, largely unspoken, downside to PWAs are that the user cannot block the tracking and ads in them when launched natively. Even though they might run on your android where you have firefox mobile with all the adblocking extensions enabled, and run that PWA in the browser. I'm sure this might be another reason why PWAs are being supported by the advertising industry platform suppliers.

oneeyedpigeon 8y ago
That's not a downside versus native apps, though.
enz 8y ago
I've "installed" this PWA via Brave on Android. So it now runs upon the Brave engine when I launch it, I suppose. I hope Brave continues to block trackers when executing "installed" PWAs.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  I didn't think it worked like that, but I could be super wrong. Last I saw things launched from the home screen or in a webview from another app use the "Android System Webview" as it's rendering engine. IIRC there was some work done to make that runtime swappable, but I'm not sure how far that went.
  - callahad 8y ago
    It's possible. E.g., PWAs installed via Firefox on Android use Gecko, not the system WebView.
    - Klathmon 8y ago
      Oh wow that's awesome I had no idea, thanks!
    - enz 8y ago
      Thanks for confirming. It is indeed great if things works that way!

oskarla 8y ago

> How do I find your ad-free hobby project in the sea of search results for "speedometer" PWAs on the open web? https://appsco.pe https://appsco.pe

pjmlp 8y ago
That's cool, thanks for sharing.

etaerc 8y ago

No, he's saying you can build this stuff on your own and don't need to grab it from anywhere.

z3t4 8y ago

If it has offline support you can simply save it to your computer, or use "add to desktop" in iOS and Chrome browser.