4 ms·

> In basically every situation I can think of, the browser is less fickle, more consistent, and more backwards compatible than an app store. There is no guaran

by zepto 5y ago

> In basically every situation I can think of, the browser is less fickle, more consistent, and more backwards compatible than an app store. There is no guarantee of anything from any web app. Your data can be used for anything the provider likes. There are literally no guidelines. > The only benefit to using an app over a website is offline access - which is moot if you don't have the app installed already In almost every single use case you will have the app installed already. Electron solves literally no problems with web apps. Electron apps are not web apps and do not run in the browser. Web apps do not use electron. The fact that some code may be portable between the two is irrelevant to the user.

horsawlarway 5y ago
> There is no guarantee of anything from any web app. Your data can be used for anything the provider likes. There are literally no guidelines. This is a feature, not a problem. To add, it's also not true at all. The browser sandbox is the gating. >Electron apps are not web apps and do not run in the browser. This makes me think you don't actually know what electron is. Have a good one.
- zepto 5y ago
  > The browser sandbox is the gating. You really think the browser sandbox limits what the website can do with the data on their servers? > This makes me think you don't actually know what electron is. Do you think electron is a web browser? I think it’s a toolkit that let’s you use JavaScript, HTML and CSS to build a standalone app. Web apps aren’t defined by the programming language they use. They are defined by the fact that they run on the web - I.e. in a browser talking to web servers.
  - horsawlarway 5y ago
    No disrespect, but I think you're either uninformed or misguided on the topic. The renderer processes in Electron are literally "BrowserWindow" instances... https://www.electronjs.org/docs/api/browser-window https://www.electronjs.org/docs/api/browser-window The whole process model for electron is almost identical to the process model for WebExtensions (a single process manages renderer processes, which are instances of browser window objects.). I don't recommend this, but I've done it and it works - your whole electron app can be a main process that literally caches the resources from your site, and then displays them in a renderer view.
    - zepto 5y ago
      >No disrespect, but I think you're either uninformed or misguided on the topic. No disrespect, but nope. Nothing you have said here contradicts what I said. Electron is not a browser. It is a toolkit that lets you use web technologies to build standalone apps. Any app can embed a JavaScript engine or web renderer and cache code from the web, even on iOS. That isn’t a special feature of electron.
      - jcelerier 5y ago
        > Any app can embed a JavaScript engine or web renderer and cache code from the web, even on iOS and we would call that a browser
        zepto 5y ago
        No, we don’t call any app that embeds a web renderer or uses a JavaScript engine ‘a browser’. Do you have any idea how many apps do this?
        jcelerier 5y ago
        I mean yeah, e.g. a lot of recent games use html/js engines for their UI and everyone I know says that the game's UI is a browser
        zepto 5y ago
        Yeah, but none of them say the game is a browser.
  - horsawlarway 5y ago
    > You really think the browser sandbox limits what the website can do with the data on their servers? And that is different than the mobile app store, how, exactly? Data you provide to a company is theirs to do with as they please - whether it was ingested through a Iphone app or a website makes absolutely zero difference.
    - zepto 5y ago
      The difference between App Store apps and web apps is that many App Store apps work on local files or files stored in iCloud that are never ingested by the company that provided the app. This is not true of web apps.

by zepto 5y ago

horsawlarway 5y ago

> There is no guarantee of anything from any web app. Your data can be used for anything the provider likes. There are literally no guidelines. This is a feature, not a problem. To add, it's also not true at all. The browser sandbox is the gating. >Electron apps are not web apps and do not run in the browser. This makes me think you don't actually know what electron is. Have a good one.

zepto 5y ago
> The browser sandbox is the gating. You really think the browser sandbox limits what the website can do with the data on their servers? > This makes me think you don't actually know what electron is. Do you think electron is a web browser? I think it’s a toolkit that let’s you use JavaScript, HTML and CSS to build a standalone app. Web apps aren’t defined by the programming language they use. They are defined by the fact that they run on the web - I.e. in a browser talking to web servers.
- horsawlarway 5y ago
  No disrespect, but I think you're either uninformed or misguided on the topic. The renderer processes in Electron are literally "BrowserWindow" instances... https://www.electronjs.org/docs/api/browser-window https://www.electronjs.org/docs/api/browser-window The whole process model for electron is almost identical to the process model for WebExtensions (a single process manages renderer processes, which are instances of browser window objects.). I don't recommend this, but I've done it and it works - your whole electron app can be a main process that literally caches the resources from your site, and then displays them in a renderer view.
  - zepto 5y ago
    >No disrespect, but I think you're either uninformed or misguided on the topic. No disrespect, but nope. Nothing you have said here contradicts what I said. Electron is not a browser. It is a toolkit that lets you use web technologies to build standalone apps. Any app can embed a JavaScript engine or web renderer and cache code from the web, even on iOS. That isn’t a special feature of electron.
    - jcelerier 5y ago
      > Any app can embed a JavaScript engine or web renderer and cache code from the web, even on iOS and we would call that a browser
      - zepto 5y ago
        No, we don’t call any app that embeds a web renderer or uses a JavaScript engine ‘a browser’. Do you have any idea how many apps do this?
        jcelerier 5y ago
        I mean yeah, e.g. a lot of recent games use html/js engines for their UI and everyone I know says that the game's UI is a browser
        zepto 5y ago
        Yeah, but none of them say the game is a browser.
- horsawlarway 5y ago
  > You really think the browser sandbox limits what the website can do with the data on their servers? And that is different than the mobile app store, how, exactly? Data you provide to a company is theirs to do with as they please - whether it was ingested through a Iphone app or a website makes absolutely zero difference.
  - zepto 5y ago
    The difference between App Store apps and web apps is that many App Store apps work on local files or files stored in iCloud that are never ingested by the company that provided the app. This is not true of web apps.