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Google Gives Chrome OS Apps a Shutdown Date

13 points by mbreese 7y ago

geofft 7y ago
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?
- shakna 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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 7y ago
      That's my reading of things.
- bagacrap 7y ago
  Chrome apps are essentially PWAs with more apis at their disposal since the apis never had to go through a standards process. Some of the apis, e.g. wrt window management, are being ported to PWAs.

13 points by mbreese 7y ago

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?

shakna 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    That's my reading of things.
bagacrap 7y ago
Chrome apps are essentially PWAs with more apis at their disposal since the apis never had to go through a standards process. Some of the apis, e.g. wrt window management, are being ported to PWAs.