15 ms·

Photoshop’s journey to the web

179 points by feross 5y ago

noveltyaccount 5y ago
How does an app like Photoshop protect its IP when algorithms are compiled in webassembly and downloaded to the browser? Or do they hide away the secret sauce behind service calls?
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  It is not different from compiled machine code.
  - matsemann 5y ago
    Biggest difference is probably more people have the means to debug something when it runs in the browser. So technically the same, but it may be more available to look at.
    - recursive 5y ago
      I think that's because most things that run in the browser aren't using web assembly.
Tajnymag 5y ago
Does that mean Photoshop is finally going to be supported on Linux?
- 0x4a42 5y ago
  It looks like it will.
- ISL 5y ago
  Perhaps in a sense, but not in the sense that one can run it without an internet connection many years in the future.
vnglst 5y ago
Really cool to see what's possible in desktop browsers these days. Photoshop coming to our browsers is a huge achievement and milestone. But it also makes me kinda sad that none of the mentioned examples properly work on mobile. If even big web companies can't pull that off, is it impossible? (Mainly thinking about Gmail and Google Docs here). Or have we given up on web applications on mobile?
- djxfade 5y ago
  Its not impossible. I think the biggest issue is that many of these ported web apps don't use the DOM for their UI. This makes it a much more difficult task creating responsive UI.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - bobajeff 5y ago
    Except, according to the post, Photoshop uses Web Components for the UI. I'm guessing the actual reason if that most desktop apps aren't designed with expectations that a mobile app has.
- mhoad 5y ago
  I’m fairly certain the reason that is currently not officially a thing is due to Safari on iOS missing a huge chunk of features that would have made that possible. They spent over a decade by this point intentionally underfunding that team while maintaining a browser monopoly on their platform under the guise of “security”. That seems like it’s very slowly starting to change perhaps.
  - vnglst 5y ago
    Google could have made Gmail to work on Chrome (just on Android) as a show case what would be possible on a good browser. It's true that Safari is lagging behind in features, but I don't believe it's the only reason.
- 5y ago
wgx 5y ago
A polite reminder that the (quite extraordinary) Photopea[0] is available which replicates most of Photoshop's features in the browser, and is free - with a paid ad-free option. 0. https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/
- andai 5y ago
  I wonder if this was what spurred it! A few years ago a free fan operated RuneScape server running an old version became more popular than the actual game. Jagex asked them to shut down, but they also launched their own version in kind: OldSchool RuneScape.
  - throwaway889900 5y ago
    Moparscape was always running even before that, albeit not as polished and the server owners had full control over how ridiculous the game was.
- al3xandre 5y ago
  How have I never heard about his before. This is amazingly useful.
- achow 5y ago
  ...and created by 1 person. My name is Ivan Kutskir and I am the only developer of Photopea. I am 27 years old graduate of the Charles University in Prague. I live in Prague, Czech Republic, but I was born in Ukraine. https://blog.photopea.com/creating-photopea.html https://blog.photopea.com/creating-photopea.html [Edit] Reddit AMA (3yrs ago) and HN discussion on it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18397380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18397380
  - arthur_sav 5y ago
    If i remember correctly, the whole app runs in the browser without a backend which is pretty amazing.
kidfiji 5y ago
Glad to see major industry applications such as Figma and now Photoshop pave the way for Wasm adoption
detritus 5y ago
Well, I certainly don't like where this is going. Mind you, I suspect I'll not be alone and by the time Adobe transition to a fully web-based subscription lock-in, Affinity et al will be better positioned to entirely fill the void. Sod Adobe.
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  Maybe, but AI tooling is becoming relevant and if Adobe plays their cards right that will let them maintain a premium edge for another decade or two. For sure, though, sod Adobe.
- pier25 5y ago
  The lock-in has existed for years, regardless of where the app is running.
  - runako 5y ago
    Reminder that many people still routinely pirate software and can generally use downloadable software without paying for it. Going to a Web-only version would eliminate the ability of people to pirate it and use it free.
  - orangepurple 5y ago
    The lock-in definitely does not exist. You just aren't aware of the jail breaks.
    - detritus 5y ago
      I professionally use a vector editing program all day long, in this case Illustrator, and absolutely will not consider mis-affording pirated software.
- andai 5y ago
  What do you not like?
  - 5y ago
astlouis44 5y ago
WebAssembly is coming for games next. Near native performance, players can join with just a link, and no 30% cut that developers have to deal with.
- anonymousab 5y ago
  You only deal with the Steam or EGS or Gog cut if you're utilizing their storefront; if you are just hosting the game on your own site, then whether that game is a webassembly package or a desktop application, you don't have to pay some gatekeeper (other than your file host). Same thing with Android, though there is a bit more friction there.
  - flohofwoe 5y ago
    The "gatekeeper" in this case is Windows SmartScreen. SmartScreen will pop up a scare dialog unless the installer has enough "reputation points" by being popular or signed with an EV code signing certificate (which is a lot more expensive, and hassle to obtain and use than a regular code signing certificate). In any case, for ease of distribution nothing beats an URL which when clicked immediately starts the game.
  - yesco 5y ago
    This doesn't really solve the issues with advertising though. I believe the main reason so many developers want their games on Steam is because of the greater attention they get rather than the distribution side of things. That said, I think the niche of casual remote party games would probably work very well here. During the height of the pandemic my friends and I started doing a lot of "remote game nights" with various different kinds of games. However since most of them rarely played games, owned macs and weren't very technically inclined, the games that had the least friction were generally the browser based ones. Since party games by nature tend to be great at organic advertising and benefit the most from quick easy installs, I think there is a big opportunity here that not many have taken notice to yet.
    - softfalcon 5y ago
CincinnatiMan 5y ago
Really interesting how the browser is becoming the universal OS. It sort of gives more power/control to Google and reduces it from Apple and Microsoft. Would love to be in the executive meetings where they discuss the implications of this.
- randomluck040 5y ago
  Is this something to be worried about? I also see more and more things in the field of geography , especially data visualisation, to start living in browsers and most people default to Chrome.
  - JohnWhigham 5y ago
    Yes, it is something to worry about. It's wresting control away from users via their no longer able to run native applications. And it's only going to continue with the continuing new generation of programmers who know nothing but JavaScript continue to implement everything in JavaScript because they've never known a world that doesn't have JavaScript.
    - cromwellian 5y ago
      Native applications already have subscription models so I don’t get this. And are mobile apps running in locked down OSes truly “native” either? Whether they’re written in WASM or Swift, if they are locked behind an App Store subscription, whether they’re downloaded and stored on the device filesystem permanently or downloaded on the fly and cached as needed is irrelevant as the end user still lacks control and you still end up with an uncrackable walled garden. There some bizarre notions associated with “native” here which I don’t think have anything to do with control over how people run stuff. Likewise, why is a world where most people learn JavaScript any better or worse than a world where most people learn Swift? There’s never going to be a world where no minority languages exist and frankly, the more “pro” languages which have fewer users end up paying more $$$ as they are perceived to require more expertise than scripting languages. Seems like a win/win if concerned. We once celebrated the Web and the idea of ephemerality, portability, “view source” and inspect, etc and now somehow we’re back to people wanting installable binary blobs locked into app stores as somehow superior.
chaz6 5y ago
Only Chromium/Blink browsers are supported, so no Firefox or Safari. This is bad for the web.
- pier25 5y ago
  Just yesterday the Webkit team at Apple announced many open positions. https://twitter.com/Litherum/status/1452770092308054020 https://twitter.com/Litherum/status/1452770092308054020
  - mhoad 5y ago
    I saw this on Twitter today also… however, this is after over a decade of taking a very very different approach though mind you. I’ll believe them when we see the outcomes though.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- mhoad 5y ago
  Two very underfunded teams there trying to play catch up. Only one of them has an excuse though, the other is literally the most profitable company in the world who is strategically trying to make the web into a subpar platform for their own commercial interests.
  - vnorilo 5y ago
    I'd like to support Firefox with a donation as I'm sure many others would, but I don't trust Mozilla foundation to allocate it to something that actually matters.
    - automatic6131 5y ago
      Silence, user. The CEO has more mansions to purchase.
    - 5y ago
pier25 5y ago
I can see Illustrator and Photoshop running on a browser but I doubt we'll see After Effects and Premiere on WASM any time soon. IMO the solution will probably be a combination of browser based UI and cloud based processing. The drawback of this approach is that the server would need to host the project files.
- thegoleffect 5y ago
  An offline-first web version of AE/Prem is what we're working on @ Vidbase. Internally, it works today better than the desktop apps imo. Others are working on similar tools as well.
- matsemann 5y ago
  I'd actually like that. Like running a jupyter notebook on a beefy server somewhere. Biggest issue is probably that one still needs to be able to quickly seek in the movie, and watch rendered results in correct resolution without too much delay/downloading. But that delay could in practice end up being shorter if the server is faster at rendering.
- BuildTheRobots 5y ago
  Somewhat tangential, but if people are looking for an After Effects / Premiere alternative, I highly recommend Davinci Resolve. I can only really speak to the editing, but it seems leaps ahead of premier in a lot of ways. Very quick for scrubbing through 4k footage (even the free version) and far more intelligence when it comes to certain jobs (eg throw a folder of RAW photos in there to make a hyperlapse and it'll recognise them as a sequence and let you treat it as video). The free version contains 90% of the features and is completely free - even for commercial use. The studio version is a one-off £250 (two seats) with free major and minor updates for life. It ran on Linux before it could even run on Windows and has just been optimised for M1 Macs. Considering Adobe wants £238/year just for Premier (editing) or £600/year for the whole suite if I want After Effects (Resolve has "Fusion" built in for sfx, though admittedly the CS suite has far more to it than just that), for my uses it seemed like a no-brainer. And I got a free editor keyboard (£250 retail) when I bought the license. My only annoyance is that Premier is so ubiquitous that you can need a license to be able to open projects from other editors. And that also requires you're all on the same version as the file format gets bumped every version (infuriating if you've deliberately stayed a version behind because it runs better on your older hardware). I find it quite ironic as the two big Premier users (companies) I know will do their final cut in Premier, render it and then throw it to a colourist who imports their final video into Davinci for colour grading anyway. One of them already has plans to transition across for the edit, but as they have decades of combined experience working with Premier, it's a difficult if not dangerous decision to deliberately loose productivity whilst people retrain. If you're just starting out, especially at home or in a small team, then the idea of starting with Premier seems crazy.
Ralo 5y ago
I would love to see Photoshop in browser as a self-hostable option. I have many tools setup on my LAN and slowly been porting applications over to my local server so I can access all my applications on all my devices.
- yepthatsreality 5y ago
  I’m not sure if you’re only accessing applications through a browser in this case but if you’re using Remote Desktop then why not Gimp or similar FOSS alternative?
  - Ralo 5y ago
    Oh no, it's all in-browser apps. I use it when at work by connecting to my server through chrome and using those apps. We only have chrome access at work, in fact all port besides 80/443 are blocked.
    - yepthatsreality 5y ago
      RDP over HTTP could assist in opening up the list of applications, however I’m not sure what the consumers look like for such a setup.
- Z_I_F_F 5y ago
  What others tools do you have setup on your LAN? Curious of the possibilities with this
  - Ralo 5y ago
    Nothing too crazy but makes my work flow easy to swap between locations. I got VSCode server, PHPMyAdmin, Transmission (Web based torrent client), DIY Youtube downloader client, DIY video editor, A bunch of service managers, and a couple more things. It's basically a whole developer suite with remote processing. I could do AI training on my cellphone with this setup if I wanted. I've been working on a DIY spotify clone for a media player. It makes it really convenient having all my files on a central server, so I'm not juggling drives, and copying over data. As well, it's automatically backed up weekly so it's always safe. Works well for someone always on the go :)
candiddevmike 5y ago
What is the best language to write web assembly in these days from a library/bundle size perspective?
EvanAnderson 5y ago
I'm not at all looking forward the future where "conveniences" provided by operating systems (like consistent GUI styling, preferences, accessibility, etc) are thrown by the wayside and each application effectively re-implements a GUI targeting a canvas "framebuffer".
- therealdrag0 5y ago
  The future is now.
- flohofwoe 5y ago
  That ship has sailed for at least a decade, and DCC applications like Photoshop or Maya were the forerunners of custom UIs.
- linguae 5y ago
  That day is already here and has been around for quite a while. Even before the proliferation of Electron applications there has been a push away from UI consistency in desktop environments. I believe the reasons are a combination of the following factors: - Easier cross-platform support easier for developers - "Branding" concerns - A philosophy that the app, not the operating system, is central to the user experience; one consequence is there's a strong emphasis on having that app behave as similar as possible across platforms even when the app's behavior violates the platform's UI guidelines. I lament the decline of the idea of a native desktop with an ecosystem of conformant applications. However, I see the economic incentives for writing cross-platform applications that emphasize consistency across platforms instead of consistency with each platform's UI standards. As long as we have app-centered desktop environments, the only way I see native applications that are conformant to that platform's UI standards being promoted is through market demand. Historically Mac users have shunned software that doesn't conform to the Mac's UI guidelines, though this may be changing in recent years thanks to the rise of Electron and Catalyst.
- copperx 5y ago
  I wouldn't despair, because if the past serves as a guide, unwritten conventions will be followed by most.
zz865 5y ago
As someone who is bad at JS I really hoped webassembly would let me leapfrog JS/React etc. Is it time to start using it?
- orangepurple 5y ago
  No, layout is all CSS with some JS mixed in, and will be for a long time. Webassembly will help accelerate heavy mathematical computations such as canvas graphics.
  - jon-wood 5y ago
    You could hypothetically use Webassembly to build your entire application around a canvas and either render directly with canvas calls or WebGL, but it would somewhat miss the point of the web unless you're explicitly building a game or something.
    - TN1ck 5y ago
      This is what Figma is doing for their main UI, they reimplemented everything [1] [1] https://www.figma.com/blog/building-a-professional-design-tool-on-the-web/ https://www.figma.com/blog/building-a-professional-design-to...
    - mhoad 5y ago
      Flutter also does this but has an option to fall back to regular DOM elements on lower end devices if needed.
- crumpled 5y ago
  Yes
- paulgb 5y ago
  I'd like the answer to be “yes”, but at this point if you need to ship software I'd say “no”. There are wasm counterparts to React (my favorite right now is yew.rs), but they're self-described as not production-ready. Overall, the tooling is just much more developed on the JS/React side. Unfortunately. That said, you can get plenty of mileage out of using React as a frontend and wasm for the application core. I believe this is what Figma does. And you can sidestep the DOM entirely and use your own UI renderer, which seems to be what Adobe is doing here. https://makepad.dev/ https://makepad.dev/ is another (absurdly impressive) example of that approach, but that's a very involved approach!
_fat_santa 5y ago
"Oh this is cool, lets give it a try" Goes to photoshop.adobe.com "Alright it's loading, lets see what it looks like!" ...Redirected to a Medium article. --- This is why nobody likes you Adobe.
orangepurple 5y ago
> Why Photoshop came to the web The entire section is a deception. The real reason is to strong arm everyone into a subscription model where you never own the software that runs on your computer. That's the real end game, not this nonsense about how easy it is to launch an application if its a URL in a browser.
- HeckFeck 5y ago
  I've never met anyone who couldn't grasp the idea of programs running locally on a computer. Practcially every user of Android/iOS will understand it intuitevly. Back in the day anyone of all ages and abilities I knew on 90s-2000s hardware could download and install programs. Anyone who couldn't honestly wouldn't get much benefit from a computer. Indeed, the convenience argument is just a pretext. They long to see the back of the days when you could buy Photoshop 7.0 for a one off fee and still use it today.
  - Godel_unicode 5y ago
    I see these comments in virtually every web app thread that there is, and it's immediately clear that the people making them have never worked somewhere with a vaguely incompetent IT department (most companies). There are companies where adding a new application to the image/getting IT to install it requires forms, waiting, and sacrificing a small animal. Those people are also not paying for it and thus don't care at all how much it costs.
    - HeckFeck 5y ago
      I was referencing my experiences of the average computer user in that time peroid, which was mostly but not exclusively home PCs. They managed. And I know nowadays many of them hate the constant UI changes and sluggish JS browser apps. But as to organisations, if it is that bad, it sounds more like an exacting support contract or overly bureaucratic processes. (Or how things are in the public sector.) In either case, if the company makes the process of getting its work done needlessly tedious, then it deserves to founder and give way to the agile competition. It is really unfortunate if this is a main reason that webapps are so popular with all their bloat, wastage and transience.
DeathArrow 5y ago
Just because something is doable (running a complex app such as an OS or Photoshop or 3D Max in a browser)- doesn't mean that you should do it. Also, I'd rather own the application (and run it on my computer) and my data rather then rent the application and depend on a company to have access to my data.
mpgs 5y ago
ssdsax
skadamat 5y ago
I'm conflicted. I love the technology and workflows that porting large apps to the browser bring you. But this further moves us away from local first software: https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/ https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/ People sometimes talk about how crypto / bitcoin will decentralize things, but honestly we just need a better culture of native software. One that brings the best of what modern user interfaces and collaboration have to bring without the headaches of multi-OS development.
PeterBarrett 5y ago
Someone did a really funny presentation on all apps moving to the web and then eventually OS's, followed by OS's running on OS's on the web. If anyone know's where I can find it I would really appreciate a link! It's pretty relevant to this seeing as it does seem to be where we are going.
- rogue7 5y ago
  I believe you are looking for Gary Bernhardt's talk: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...
  - PeterBarrett 5y ago
    Fantastic! Thanks for that, I was searching for a good 20 mins, much appreciated.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
maddyboo 5y ago
This isn’t what I meant when I asked you for Linux support, Adobe!
tonymet 5y ago
Am I the only one longing for the fast, responsive and resource efficient GUI apps of yore?
syspec 5y ago
And once everything is running on Chrome, oops we mean uhh the open web, we'll be able to track everything everyone does all the time, without pesky cookies! - Them, probably
- rdsnsca 5y ago
  Exactly why Google pushes this.
karmanyaahm 5y ago
Is Google paying Adobe to bring PS to Chromebooks through the web?
irrational 5y ago
It worries me that this is so Chrome focused. I only use Firefox. Will it work in Firefox? Are we moving back to "Works best on Netscape Navigator 4"?
- e111077 5y ago
  FWIW this is the explanation by the lead on the project: https://twitter.com/BenDelarre/status/1453038054503944194 https://twitter.com/BenDelarre/status/1453038054503944194 TL;DR they're using everything that's on the standards track - just waiting for the others to implement them
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kiryin 5y ago
I, for one, do not like this. Software that doesn't exist on your computer, but instead gets ephemerally downloaded from a server somewhere when you wish to use it, is about as anti-user-freedom as I can possibly imagine. I can ony hope this doesn't become the standard.
josefresco 5y ago
This reads like an ad for Google and "the Chrome team". "Chrome has been working to empower web applications that want to push the boundaries of what's possible in the browser" "Google Docs was a pioneer of this simplified access" "Early apps like Gmail showed that more complex interactivity and applications were at least possible" "No large project can be successfully completed without the appropriate tools for the job, and it's for this reason that the Chrome team developed full featured WebAssembly debugging support."
- satvikpendem 5y ago
  Well, web.dev is owned by Google after all
- malepoon 5y ago
  Indeed. Also, using the generic web.dev domain to market Chrome reminds me a lot of Project NERA.

179 points by feross 5y ago

How does an app like Photoshop protect its IP when algorithms are compiled in webassembly and downloaded to the browser? Or do they hide away the secret sauce behind service calls?

vbezhenar 5y ago
It is not different from compiled machine code.
- matsemann 5y ago
  Biggest difference is probably more people have the means to debug something when it runs in the browser. So technically the same, but it may be more available to look at.
  - recursive 5y ago
    I think that's because most things that run in the browser aren't using web assembly.

Tajnymag 5y ago

Does that mean Photoshop is finally going to be supported on Linux?

0x4a42 5y ago
It looks like it will.
ISL 5y ago
Perhaps in a sense, but not in the sense that one can run it without an internet connection many years in the future.

vnglst 5y ago

Really cool to see what's possible in desktop browsers these days. Photoshop coming to our browsers is a huge achievement and milestone. But it also makes me kinda sad that none of the mentioned examples properly work on mobile. If even big web companies can't pull that off, is it impossible? (Mainly thinking about Gmail and Google Docs here). Or have we given up on web applications on mobile?

djxfade 5y ago
Its not impossible. I think the biggest issue is that many of these ported web apps don't use the DOM for their UI. This makes it a much more difficult task creating responsive UI.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bobajeff 5y ago
  Except, according to the post, Photoshop uses Web Components for the UI. I'm guessing the actual reason if that most desktop apps aren't designed with expectations that a mobile app has.
mhoad 5y ago
I’m fairly certain the reason that is currently not officially a thing is due to Safari on iOS missing a huge chunk of features that would have made that possible. They spent over a decade by this point intentionally underfunding that team while maintaining a browser monopoly on their platform under the guise of “security”. That seems like it’s very slowly starting to change perhaps.
- vnglst 5y ago
  Google could have made Gmail to work on Chrome (just on Android) as a show case what would be possible on a good browser. It's true that Safari is lagging behind in features, but I don't believe it's the only reason.
5y ago

wgx 5y ago

A polite reminder that the (quite extraordinary) Photopea[0] is available which replicates most of Photoshop's features in the browser, and is free - with a paid ad-free option. 0. https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/

andai 5y ago
I wonder if this was what spurred it! A few years ago a free fan operated RuneScape server running an old version became more popular than the actual game. Jagex asked them to shut down, but they also launched their own version in kind: OldSchool RuneScape.
- throwaway889900 5y ago
  Moparscape was always running even before that, albeit not as polished and the server owners had full control over how ridiculous the game was.
al3xandre 5y ago
How have I never heard about his before. This is amazingly useful.
achow 5y ago
...and created by 1 person. My name is Ivan Kutskir and I am the only developer of Photopea. I am 27 years old graduate of the Charles University in Prague. I live in Prague, Czech Republic, but I was born in Ukraine. https://blog.photopea.com/creating-photopea.html https://blog.photopea.com/creating-photopea.html [Edit] Reddit AMA (3yrs ago) and HN discussion on it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18397380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18397380
- arthur_sav 5y ago
  If i remember correctly, the whole app runs in the browser without a backend which is pretty amazing.

kidfiji 5y ago

Glad to see major industry applications such as Figma and now Photoshop pave the way for Wasm adoption

detritus 5y ago

Well, I certainly don't like where this is going. Mind you, I suspect I'll not be alone and by the time Adobe transition to a fully web-based subscription lock-in, Affinity et al will be better positioned to entirely fill the void. Sod Adobe.

jjoonathan 5y ago
Maybe, but AI tooling is becoming relevant and if Adobe plays their cards right that will let them maintain a premium edge for another decade or two. For sure, though, sod Adobe.
pier25 5y ago
The lock-in has existed for years, regardless of where the app is running.
- runako 5y ago
  Reminder that many people still routinely pirate software and can generally use downloadable software without paying for it. Going to a Web-only version would eliminate the ability of people to pirate it and use it free.
- orangepurple 5y ago
  The lock-in definitely does not exist. You just aren't aware of the jail breaks.
  - detritus 5y ago
    I professionally use a vector editing program all day long, in this case Illustrator, and absolutely will not consider mis-affording pirated software.
andai 5y ago
What do you not like?
- 5y ago

astlouis44 5y ago

WebAssembly is coming for games next. Near native performance, players can join with just a link, and no 30% cut that developers have to deal with.

anonymousab 5y ago
You only deal with the Steam or EGS or Gog cut if you're utilizing their storefront; if you are just hosting the game on your own site, then whether that game is a webassembly package or a desktop application, you don't have to pay some gatekeeper (other than your file host). Same thing with Android, though there is a bit more friction there.
- flohofwoe 5y ago
  The "gatekeeper" in this case is Windows SmartScreen. SmartScreen will pop up a scare dialog unless the installer has enough "reputation points" by being popular or signed with an EV code signing certificate (which is a lot more expensive, and hassle to obtain and use than a regular code signing certificate). In any case, for ease of distribution nothing beats an URL which when clicked immediately starts the game.
- yesco 5y ago
  This doesn't really solve the issues with advertising though. I believe the main reason so many developers want their games on Steam is because of the greater attention they get rather than the distribution side of things. That said, I think the niche of casual remote party games would probably work very well here. During the height of the pandemic my friends and I started doing a lot of "remote game nights" with various different kinds of games. However since most of them rarely played games, owned macs and weren't very technically inclined, the games that had the least friction were generally the browser based ones. Since party games by nature tend to be great at organic advertising and benefit the most from quick easy installs, I think there is a big opportunity here that not many have taken notice to yet.
  - softfalcon 5y ago

CincinnatiMan 5y ago

Really interesting how the browser is becoming the universal OS. It sort of gives more power/control to Google and reduces it from Apple and Microsoft. Would love to be in the executive meetings where they discuss the implications of this.

randomluck040 5y ago
Is this something to be worried about? I also see more and more things in the field of geography , especially data visualisation, to start living in browsers and most people default to Chrome.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  Yes, it is something to worry about. It's wresting control away from users via their no longer able to run native applications. And it's only going to continue with the continuing new generation of programmers who know nothing but JavaScript continue to implement everything in JavaScript because they've never known a world that doesn't have JavaScript.
  - cromwellian 5y ago
    Native applications already have subscription models so I don’t get this. And are mobile apps running in locked down OSes truly “native” either? Whether they’re written in WASM or Swift, if they are locked behind an App Store subscription, whether they’re downloaded and stored on the device filesystem permanently or downloaded on the fly and cached as needed is irrelevant as the end user still lacks control and you still end up with an uncrackable walled garden. There some bizarre notions associated with “native” here which I don’t think have anything to do with control over how people run stuff. Likewise, why is a world where most people learn JavaScript any better or worse than a world where most people learn Swift? There’s never going to be a world where no minority languages exist and frankly, the more “pro” languages which have fewer users end up paying more $$$ as they are perceived to require more expertise than scripting languages. Seems like a win/win if concerned. We once celebrated the Web and the idea of ephemerality, portability, “view source” and inspect, etc and now somehow we’re back to people wanting installable binary blobs locked into app stores as somehow superior.

chaz6 5y ago

Only Chromium/Blink browsers are supported, so no Firefox or Safari. This is bad for the web.

pier25 5y ago
Just yesterday the Webkit team at Apple announced many open positions. https://twitter.com/Litherum/status/1452770092308054020 https://twitter.com/Litherum/status/1452770092308054020
- mhoad 5y ago
  I saw this on Twitter today also… however, this is after over a decade of taking a very very different approach though mind you. I’ll believe them when we see the outcomes though.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
mhoad 5y ago
Two very underfunded teams there trying to play catch up. Only one of them has an excuse though, the other is literally the most profitable company in the world who is strategically trying to make the web into a subpar platform for their own commercial interests.
- vnorilo 5y ago
  I'd like to support Firefox with a donation as I'm sure many others would, but I don't trust Mozilla foundation to allocate it to something that actually matters.
  - automatic6131 5y ago
    Silence, user. The CEO has more mansions to purchase.
  - 5y ago

pier25 5y ago

I can see Illustrator and Photoshop running on a browser but I doubt we'll see After Effects and Premiere on WASM any time soon. IMO the solution will probably be a combination of browser based UI and cloud based processing. The drawback of this approach is that the server would need to host the project files.

thegoleffect 5y ago
An offline-first web version of AE/Prem is what we're working on @ Vidbase. Internally, it works today better than the desktop apps imo. Others are working on similar tools as well.
matsemann 5y ago
I'd actually like that. Like running a jupyter notebook on a beefy server somewhere. Biggest issue is probably that one still needs to be able to quickly seek in the movie, and watch rendered results in correct resolution without too much delay/downloading. But that delay could in practice end up being shorter if the server is faster at rendering.
BuildTheRobots 5y ago
Somewhat tangential, but if people are looking for an After Effects / Premiere alternative, I highly recommend Davinci Resolve. I can only really speak to the editing, but it seems leaps ahead of premier in a lot of ways. Very quick for scrubbing through 4k footage (even the free version) and far more intelligence when it comes to certain jobs (eg throw a folder of RAW photos in there to make a hyperlapse and it'll recognise them as a sequence and let you treat it as video). The free version contains 90% of the features and is completely free - even for commercial use. The studio version is a one-off £250 (two seats) with free major and minor updates for life. It ran on Linux before it could even run on Windows and has just been optimised for M1 Macs. Considering Adobe wants £238/year just for Premier (editing) or £600/year for the whole suite if I want After Effects (Resolve has "Fusion" built in for sfx, though admittedly the CS suite has far more to it than just that), for my uses it seemed like a no-brainer. And I got a free editor keyboard (£250 retail) when I bought the license. My only annoyance is that Premier is so ubiquitous that you can need a license to be able to open projects from other editors. And that also requires you're all on the same version as the file format gets bumped every version (infuriating if you've deliberately stayed a version behind because it runs better on your older hardware). I find it quite ironic as the two big Premier users (companies) I know will do their final cut in Premier, render it and then throw it to a colourist who imports their final video into Davinci for colour grading anyway. One of them already has plans to transition across for the edit, but as they have decades of combined experience working with Premier, it's a difficult if not dangerous decision to deliberately loose productivity whilst people retrain. If you're just starting out, especially at home or in a small team, then the idea of starting with Premier seems crazy.

Ralo 5y ago

I would love to see Photoshop in browser as a self-hostable option. I have many tools setup on my LAN and slowly been porting applications over to my local server so I can access all my applications on all my devices.

yepthatsreality 5y ago
I’m not sure if you’re only accessing applications through a browser in this case but if you’re using Remote Desktop then why not Gimp or similar FOSS alternative?
- Ralo 5y ago
  Oh no, it's all in-browser apps. I use it when at work by connecting to my server through chrome and using those apps. We only have chrome access at work, in fact all port besides 80/443 are blocked.
  - yepthatsreality 5y ago
    RDP over HTTP could assist in opening up the list of applications, however I’m not sure what the consumers look like for such a setup.
Z_I_F_F 5y ago
What others tools do you have setup on your LAN? Curious of the possibilities with this
- Ralo 5y ago
  Nothing too crazy but makes my work flow easy to swap between locations. I got VSCode server, PHPMyAdmin, Transmission (Web based torrent client), DIY Youtube downloader client, DIY video editor, A bunch of service managers, and a couple more things. It's basically a whole developer suite with remote processing. I could do AI training on my cellphone with this setup if I wanted. I've been working on a DIY spotify clone for a media player. It makes it really convenient having all my files on a central server, so I'm not juggling drives, and copying over data. As well, it's automatically backed up weekly so it's always safe. Works well for someone always on the go :)

candiddevmike 5y ago

What is the best language to write web assembly in these days from a library/bundle size perspective?

EvanAnderson 5y ago

I'm not at all looking forward the future where "conveniences" provided by operating systems (like consistent GUI styling, preferences, accessibility, etc) are thrown by the wayside and each application effectively re-implements a GUI targeting a canvas "framebuffer".

therealdrag0 5y ago
The future is now.
flohofwoe 5y ago
That ship has sailed for at least a decade, and DCC applications like Photoshop or Maya were the forerunners of custom UIs.
linguae 5y ago
That day is already here and has been around for quite a while. Even before the proliferation of Electron applications there has been a push away from UI consistency in desktop environments. I believe the reasons are a combination of the following factors: - Easier cross-platform support easier for developers - "Branding" concerns - A philosophy that the app, not the operating system, is central to the user experience; one consequence is there's a strong emphasis on having that app behave as similar as possible across platforms even when the app's behavior violates the platform's UI guidelines. I lament the decline of the idea of a native desktop with an ecosystem of conformant applications. However, I see the economic incentives for writing cross-platform applications that emphasize consistency across platforms instead of consistency with each platform's UI standards. As long as we have app-centered desktop environments, the only way I see native applications that are conformant to that platform's UI standards being promoted is through market demand. Historically Mac users have shunned software that doesn't conform to the Mac's UI guidelines, though this may be changing in recent years thanks to the rise of Electron and Catalyst.
copperx 5y ago
I wouldn't despair, because if the past serves as a guide, unwritten conventions will be followed by most.

zz865 5y ago

As someone who is bad at JS I really hoped webassembly would let me leapfrog JS/React etc. Is it time to start using it?

orangepurple 5y ago
No, layout is all CSS with some JS mixed in, and will be for a long time. Webassembly will help accelerate heavy mathematical computations such as canvas graphics.
- jon-wood 5y ago
  You could hypothetically use Webassembly to build your entire application around a canvas and either render directly with canvas calls or WebGL, but it would somewhat miss the point of the web unless you're explicitly building a game or something.
  - TN1ck 5y ago
    This is what Figma is doing for their main UI, they reimplemented everything [1] [1] https://www.figma.com/blog/building-a-professional-design-tool-on-the-web/ https://www.figma.com/blog/building-a-professional-design-to...
  - mhoad 5y ago
    Flutter also does this but has an option to fall back to regular DOM elements on lower end devices if needed.
crumpled 5y ago
Yes
paulgb 5y ago
I'd like the answer to be “yes”, but at this point if you need to ship software I'd say “no”. There are wasm counterparts to React (my favorite right now is yew.rs), but they're self-described as not production-ready. Overall, the tooling is just much more developed on the JS/React side. Unfortunately. That said, you can get plenty of mileage out of using React as a frontend and wasm for the application core. I believe this is what Figma does. And you can sidestep the DOM entirely and use your own UI renderer, which seems to be what Adobe is doing here. https://makepad.dev/ https://makepad.dev/ is another (absurdly impressive) example of that approach, but that's a very involved approach!

_fat_santa 5y ago

"Oh this is cool, lets give it a try" Goes to photoshop.adobe.com "Alright it's loading, lets see what it looks like!" ...Redirected to a Medium article. --- This is why nobody likes you Adobe.

orangepurple 5y ago

> Why Photoshop came to the web The entire section is a deception. The real reason is to strong arm everyone into a subscription model where you never own the software that runs on your computer. That's the real end game, not this nonsense about how easy it is to launch an application if its a URL in a browser.

HeckFeck 5y ago
I've never met anyone who couldn't grasp the idea of programs running locally on a computer. Practcially every user of Android/iOS will understand it intuitevly. Back in the day anyone of all ages and abilities I knew on 90s-2000s hardware could download and install programs. Anyone who couldn't honestly wouldn't get much benefit from a computer. Indeed, the convenience argument is just a pretext. They long to see the back of the days when you could buy Photoshop 7.0 for a one off fee and still use it today.
- Godel_unicode 5y ago
  I see these comments in virtually every web app thread that there is, and it's immediately clear that the people making them have never worked somewhere with a vaguely incompetent IT department (most companies). There are companies where adding a new application to the image/getting IT to install it requires forms, waiting, and sacrificing a small animal. Those people are also not paying for it and thus don't care at all how much it costs.
  - HeckFeck 5y ago
    I was referencing my experiences of the average computer user in that time peroid, which was mostly but not exclusively home PCs. They managed. And I know nowadays many of them hate the constant UI changes and sluggish JS browser apps. But as to organisations, if it is that bad, it sounds more like an exacting support contract or overly bureaucratic processes. (Or how things are in the public sector.) In either case, if the company makes the process of getting its work done needlessly tedious, then it deserves to founder and give way to the agile competition. It is really unfortunate if this is a main reason that webapps are so popular with all their bloat, wastage and transience.

DeathArrow 5y ago

Just because something is doable (running a complex app such as an OS or Photoshop or 3D Max in a browser)- doesn't mean that you should do it. Also, I'd rather own the application (and run it on my computer) and my data rather then rent the application and depend on a company to have access to my data.

mpgs 5y ago

ssdsax

skadamat 5y ago

I'm conflicted. I love the technology and workflows that porting large apps to the browser bring you. But this further moves us away from local first software: https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/ https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/ People sometimes talk about how crypto / bitcoin will decentralize things, but honestly we just need a better culture of native software. One that brings the best of what modern user interfaces and collaboration have to bring without the headaches of multi-OS development.

PeterBarrett 5y ago

Someone did a really funny presentation on all apps moving to the web and then eventually OS's, followed by OS's running on OS's on the web. If anyone know's where I can find it I would really appreciate a link! It's pretty relevant to this seeing as it does seem to be where we are going.

rogue7 5y ago
I believe you are looking for Gary Bernhardt's talk: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of-javascript https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...
- PeterBarrett 5y ago
  Fantastic! Thanks for that, I was searching for a good 20 mins, much appreciated.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

maddyboo 5y ago

This isn’t what I meant when I asked you for Linux support, Adobe!

tonymet 5y ago

Am I the only one longing for the fast, responsive and resource efficient GUI apps of yore?

syspec 5y ago

And once everything is running on Chrome, oops we mean uhh the open web, we'll be able to track everything everyone does all the time, without pesky cookies! - Them, probably

rdsnsca 5y ago
Exactly why Google pushes this.

karmanyaahm 5y ago

Is Google paying Adobe to bring PS to Chromebooks through the web?

irrational 5y ago

It worries me that this is so Chrome focused. I only use Firefox. Will it work in Firefox? Are we moving back to "Works best on Netscape Navigator 4"?

e111077 5y ago
FWIW this is the explanation by the lead on the project: https://twitter.com/BenDelarre/status/1453038054503944194 https://twitter.com/BenDelarre/status/1453038054503944194 TL;DR they're using everything that's on the standards track - just waiting for the others to implement them

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

kiryin 5y ago

I, for one, do not like this. Software that doesn't exist on your computer, but instead gets ephemerally downloaded from a server somewhere when you wish to use it, is about as anti-user-freedom as I can possibly imagine. I can ony hope this doesn't become the standard.

josefresco 5y ago

This reads like an ad for Google and "the Chrome team". "Chrome has been working to empower web applications that want to push the boundaries of what's possible in the browser" "Google Docs was a pioneer of this simplified access" "Early apps like Gmail showed that more complex interactivity and applications were at least possible" "No large project can be successfully completed without the appropriate tools for the job, and it's for this reason that the Chrome team developed full featured WebAssembly debugging support."

satvikpendem 5y ago
Well, web.dev is owned by Google after all
malepoon 5y ago
Indeed. Also, using the generic web.dev domain to market Chrome reminds me a lot of Project NERA.