4 ms·

I was so shocked when my family member told me wordle is a website and not an app. I never thought that the masses would go for something like that in the pack

by 0F 5y ago

I was so shocked when my family member told me wordle is a website and not an app. I never thought that the masses would go for something like that in the package of a website. It really gives me hope for the future.

rockostrich 5y ago
Why? Publishing an app costs money even if the app is free (which is why free apps usually have ads or some kind in-app purchases). Publishing a website with static content can be free depending on where you host it.
- 0F 5y ago
  Because the model of apps needs to die. If you have something you want to put out into the world you currently need to write an android app, an iOS app and then any other native formats you want to target. But it’s much better to make it browser based because it’s one and done and it also side-steps all the nonsense with app stores which has been well known lately. If it’s easier and better for the developers then we will have more and better software. Web assembly and WGPU are coming and when they do it will be the next paradigm after mobile apps. But in order to get to this new glorious paradigm it is necessary for people to be capable of recognizing the value of software even if it’s in the browser and of using it on the scale seen with wordle. It’s just as likely that people would turn their nose up to a browser based software and everything would remain stagnate. So I am glad.
  - nojito 5y ago
    webapps are a privacy nightmare. No thanks.
    - piaste 5y ago
      Webapps are much better sandboxed, but harder to keep offline. Native apps can be easily denied internet access, but the sandboxing is not as strong. For this reason, I prefer webapps when the application needs to operate online to work, and native apps when they don't.
    - choward 5y ago
      Mobile apps are a privacy nightmare. No thanks.
    - Anthony-G 5y ago
      While they often are, there’s no rule that web apps have to be a privacy nightmare. Thanks to Hacker News¹, I recently came across Learn systemd by example². The site itself is hosted by Hetzner, a German hosting provider that take user privacy seriously³ and uses Cloudflare as a privacy-conscious CDN⁴. The only third-party resources it uses are Google fonts. Users of uMatrix⁵ or uBlock Origin⁶ can easily block these resources and the web app works perfectly fine without them. I’d also use Wordle itself as an example of a reasonably user-privacy friendly web application. The only third-party resources it uses is Google Tag Manager (which is blocked by default by uMatrix). I use Firefox with a number of web extensions (Firefox Multi-Account Containers⁷, Decentraleyes⁸, uMatrix, uBlock Origin, Privacy Redirect⁹). These all provide me, an end-user, much greater control over my online privacy than I’d have with a mobile app. I’ve also recommended Decentraleyes and uBlock Origin to non-technical friends as extensions they can install and not worry about configuration. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30071240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30071240 2. https://systemd-by-example.com/ https://systemd-by-example.com/ 3. https://www.hetzner.com/legal/privacy-policy https://www.hetzner.com/legal/privacy-policy 4. https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/ https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/ 5. https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix 6. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#ublock-origin https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#ublock-origin 7. https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers#readme https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers#readme 8. https://decentraleyes.org/ https://decentraleyes.org/ 9. https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect
    - ccouzens 5y ago
      Just about anything that can connect to the internet is a potential privacy nightmare. I assume that by specifying "webapps" you're making a comparison to native apps. Configure your browser to block 3rd party cookies and you'll be fine. It's nice to have the private window privacy feature. That's a standard feature of web browsers, but I don't know of any consumer operating system that makes this easy for native apps.
  - cableshaft 5y ago
    What about something like React Native? You get Web, iOS, and Android with one codebase.
cuteboy19 5y ago
I am actually very thankful that the original wordle is a pwa as well

by 0F 5y ago

rockostrich 5y ago

Why? Publishing an app costs money even if the app is free (which is why free apps usually have ads or some kind in-app purchases). Publishing a website with static content can be free depending on where you host it.

0F 5y ago
Because the model of apps needs to die. If you have something you want to put out into the world you currently need to write an android app, an iOS app and then any other native formats you want to target. But it’s much better to make it browser based because it’s one and done and it also side-steps all the nonsense with app stores which has been well known lately. If it’s easier and better for the developers then we will have more and better software. Web assembly and WGPU are coming and when they do it will be the next paradigm after mobile apps. But in order to get to this new glorious paradigm it is necessary for people to be capable of recognizing the value of software even if it’s in the browser and of using it on the scale seen with wordle. It’s just as likely that people would turn their nose up to a browser based software and everything would remain stagnate. So I am glad.
- nojito 5y ago
  webapps are a privacy nightmare. No thanks.
  - piaste 5y ago
    Webapps are much better sandboxed, but harder to keep offline. Native apps can be easily denied internet access, but the sandboxing is not as strong. For this reason, I prefer webapps when the application needs to operate online to work, and native apps when they don't.
  - choward 5y ago
    Mobile apps are a privacy nightmare. No thanks.
  - Anthony-G 5y ago
    While they often are, there’s no rule that web apps have to be a privacy nightmare. Thanks to Hacker News¹, I recently came across Learn systemd by example². The site itself is hosted by Hetzner, a German hosting provider that take user privacy seriously³ and uses Cloudflare as a privacy-conscious CDN⁴. The only third-party resources it uses are Google fonts. Users of uMatrix⁵ or uBlock Origin⁶ can easily block these resources and the web app works perfectly fine without them. I’d also use Wordle itself as an example of a reasonably user-privacy friendly web application. The only third-party resources it uses is Google Tag Manager (which is blocked by default by uMatrix). I use Firefox with a number of web extensions (Firefox Multi-Account Containers⁷, Decentraleyes⁸, uMatrix, uBlock Origin, Privacy Redirect⁹). These all provide me, an end-user, much greater control over my online privacy than I’d have with a mobile app. I’ve also recommended Decentraleyes and uBlock Origin to non-technical friends as extensions they can install and not worry about configuration. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30071240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30071240 2. https://systemd-by-example.com/ https://systemd-by-example.com/ 3. https://www.hetzner.com/legal/privacy-policy https://www.hetzner.com/legal/privacy-policy 4. https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/ https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/ 5. https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix 6. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#ublock-origin https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#ublock-origin 7. https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers#readme https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-containers#readme 8. https://decentraleyes.org/ https://decentraleyes.org/ 9. https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect
  - ccouzens 5y ago
    Just about anything that can connect to the internet is a potential privacy nightmare. I assume that by specifying "webapps" you're making a comparison to native apps. Configure your browser to block 3rd party cookies and you'll be fine. It's nice to have the private window privacy feature. That's a standard feature of web browsers, but I don't know of any consumer operating system that makes this easy for native apps.
- cableshaft 5y ago
  What about something like React Native? You get Web, iOS, and Android with one codebase.

cuteboy19 5y ago

I am actually very thankful that the original wordle is a pwa as well