Microsoft and Google collaborate to make PWAs better

The main problem I see in PWAs these days is that they cannot permanently store data on the device. As soon as the user deletes their "browser data", all the data of the PWAs on the device is lost too.

If PWAs would get their own permanent storage like other apps, it would be a huge step forward.

judah14• 6 years ago

Certainly it's true PWAs are subject to the user's desires about browser data. I think that's a good thing for users.

PWAs usually store client-side data as a kind of cache: cookies, local storage, service worker cache. Caches are not meant to be permanent.

There may be room for improvement here, however. One might imagine that clearing browser data shouldn't clear data for installed PWAs. That's an argument worth further evaluation.

no_gravity5• 6 years ago

Can you elaborate why it could be a good thing for users?

Not being able to reliably store data on the device means that PWAs have to send the users data over the internet and store it on an external server. I would think users rather do not like that.

I am only talking about installed PWAs here. Of course not every website should be able to avoid having its cookies deleted.

streptomycin• 6 years ago

It's only marginally subject to the user's desires. I wrote a fairly popular PWA and the most common questions users have are...

"Why did all my data get deleted? How can I get it back?"

and

"Why is it saying the browser won't let me store more data?"

The user's desires are pretty clear in both cases, but it's very unclear how the user can get what they want.

notatoad4• 6 years ago

Certainly it's true PWAs are subject to the user's desires about browser data. I think that's a good thing for users.

i mostly agree, but the user experience isn't there yet. browsers make it easy to delete all data, but don't have any workflows that encourage deleting the data from only a single app. at this point, it seems less about empowering users to have control over their own data and more like browsers just don't care about PWA data.

ta177117712• 6 years ago

So make them app_db side user config data, not local browser database config data.

kinlan• 6 years ago

You can request persistent storage that isn't cleared.

judah14• 6 years ago

Good point! I had forgotten about this.

kinlan is referring to this web API[0], which allows a PWA to store data persistently.

[0] https://web.dev/persistent-storage/

davrous5• 6 years ago

They can thanks to the Native File System API coming with Project Fugu: https://web.dev/native-file-system/. Available via origin trial for now but it should be soon released more broadly.

dmitriid4• 6 years ago

Have any other browser vendors expressed any interest in this?

I see from the link that Chrome is already doing an "origin trial" even if the spec itself isn't complete. So, why would it be "released more broadly". Or is it the Constructible Stylesheets again? When both Safari and Mozilla said "no", but Chrome released them anyway?

burtonator2• 6 years ago

PWAs are designed with the web/cloud in mind. The permanent data should be hosted in the cloud.

One of the issues is that storage in a PWA is done via localStorage or IndexedDB... both of which aren't really available outside of the browser.

Also, part of the benefit of a PWA is being able to be in mobile devices and 'storage' there is different than on the desktop.

bob10292• 6 years ago

For the PWAs I'd like to deploy, all I really need is 256 bits of entropy to persist on each client. I am entirely done with the ideology where I offload arbitrary storage and compute concerns to client devices. Keeping it all on the server is so much better in almost every way.

FiddlerClamp• 6 years ago

I wonder if they're doing this for the Surface Duo launch.

judah14• 6 years ago

Fair question. Certainly Microsoft wants Duo to succeed. But PWABuilder been pushing for PWAs in App Stores for years -- we also support MacOS, Samsung Galaxy Store, Microsoft Store, and others. (We're talking with Apple now to enable PWAs in iOS app store as well.)

This collaboration with Google took place because Google revamped their "PWAs in the Store" story. It used to be a very basic story: a native app wrapping a web view that loads your PWA. Those worked, but didn't support some modern APIs (e.g. service worker, IIRC), didn't share cookies and login information with the browser, and other problems.

Google revamped the story here to a more first-class approach for PWAs in their Store. It's called "Trusted Web Activities."

And earlier this year, Google created Bubblewrap, a command line tool to generate a proper Trusted Web Activity for publishing in their Store. So we wanted to take advantage of that new and better approach. That's really our reason for collaboration here.

pjmlp9• 6 years ago

They already had this with Edge and Windows Store.

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/pwa/

The best part was that this way WinRT APIs are directly exposed as browser APIs, no need for hybrid solutions.

This is just the next step using the Chrome based engine instead.

yeahgoodok3• 6 years ago

What's the sense in publishing your PWA in the Play Store? Chrome already prompts the user if they'd like to install a PWA shortcut when you visit the site. I ask because it costs $25 and while I have a lot of time on my hands I'm a cheap ass.

butz2• 6 years ago

Discoverability. Users browsing Play Store might see your app in related apps list or in search results. And you will get a way to gather user feedback without hosting and moderating forum or discussion board. Also, we are still at the point when you tell user to download an app, one usually goes to Play/App Store, not searches the web.

Abishek_Muthian5• 6 years ago

Also Businesses which has no use for an app, can claim 'We have an app' as many like to do and now they can convert their website to a publishable app more easily.

badsectoracula• 6 years ago

Discoverability. Users browsing Play Store might see your app in related apps list or in search results.

Since when anything in Play Store (or Apple's App Store, for that matter) was discoverable? I can't find anything even remotely relevant to anything i want using these stores, i always have to use 3rd party sites (or just google something like "<something i want> for android", sometimes even adding a site:reddit.com at the side if there are too many results, just to see what others are suggesting) and then if there isn't a Play Store link, i have to write the app's name exactly in the store's search, otherwise it will never appear on the results.

Discoverability has been a joke on these stores ever since they got more than about 1000 apps - and they still are designed as if they only have about 1000 apps.

judah14• 6 years ago

"What's the sense in publishing your PWA in the Store?

We've trained a generation of users to look for apps in app stores. I blogged about this here[0], but having your PWA in app stores means more users for your app.

[0] https://debuggerdotbreak.judahgabriel.com/2018/04/13/i-built...

yeahgoodok3• 6 years ago

I actually had just read this blog post prior to posting my comment. There's a lot of good insight on HOW to publish but I didn't see any compelling evidence on WHY to publish (specific traffic numbers, etc).

burtonator2• 6 years ago

User behavior... We have a mobile PWA and literally all our users are like "I went to the Android app store and you don't have a mobile app so you suck" ... but the app already works in the browser.

Discoverability is an issue too. If your users search for your app keyword there then you're more easily found

pjmlp9• 6 years ago

You can get access to native APIs that way, without the typical hybrid approach.

butz2• 6 years ago

Firefox needs to catch up on PWA support for desktop, Safari too.

judah14• 6 years ago

Yes. For Firefox desktop, here's the open case[0].

I and many others would love to see Firefox supporting installable PWAs. :-)

[0] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1407202

input_sh• 6 years ago

It's catching up slowly. I can save a website and open it in its own window (at least on Firefox Beta).

What's missing is the ability to integrate it with my OS app launcher, though I can get around that by adding my own launcher. Something like:

    firefox --ssb="https://news.ycombinator.com"

Abishek_Muthian5• 6 years ago

Nice, I like the way Microsoft chose to ignore the bad blood with Google regarding its apps for Windows Phone and has embraced Android.

PWA collaboration seems to be a step in the right direction, especially since Edge is using chromium and Microsoft seems to be building great PWA apps[1].

Although I'm not entirely sure about Google's end game with PWA[2], I hope these kind of collaboration motivates industries to build more PWA apps and put pressure on Apple to properly support PWA APIs in Safari; then may be, just may be one day we'll have fair grounds for new mobile operating systems to compete without this Playstore/Appstore duopoly.

[1]https://www.bing.com/covid/

[2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23574697

paxys• 6 years ago

New leadership definitely helps. Satya seems to want to move past the old way of doing things at Microsoft as aggressively as possible.

osrec10• 6 years ago

I agree. Apple is stifling innovation by not supporting certain APIs.

They need to stop doing this, or they will hurt themselves in the long run. As it is, most people use Safari on iOS because they are forced to - all other browsers on iOS are forced to use WKWebView, which basically means they are wrappers around Safari's view.

To this day, I can't understand why their users stand for this. In this regard, Apple reminds me of a cult leader brainwashing their followers into believing the cult's way is the best way. Makes me a little sick actually.

EvanWinget• 6 years ago

I wish that Apple had better support for PWAs and allowed alternative rendering engines. The issue is that they are the only major player in mobile that cares about user privacy, and this allows them to maintain their monopoly for many users.

If the option is Android + first-class support for PWAs vs. Apple with limited support for PWAs, I’ll go for the latter every time.

bobbylarrybobby• 6 years ago

99.9% of users don’t even know what a browser engine is. Why would they care that they’re using WebKit instead of gecko or chromium? What they want is their bookmarks and such to sync between browsers across devices, and Apple lets that work just fine.

As an iPhone user I actually like that all phones use the same engine. It prevents the “this website is better viewed in <browser>” pop up from affecting mobile users (and in particular it forces google to support a browser other than chrome). In other words, the engine monoculture means that making a site work for any iOS users means it will work for every iOS user, which I as a user really appreciate.

alwillis2• 6 years ago

In this regard, Apple reminds me of a cult leader brainwashing their followers into believing the cult's way is the best way. Makes me a little sick actually.

Are you sure you aren’t the one being brainwashed?

Why should anyone trust Google, since they make virtually all of their revenue from ad tech, which means tracking users across the web, even when they don't want to be. Advertisers are Google's customers, not the users of their browsers or operating systems.

And since Apple makes virtually all of their revenue from selling devices and services, who's more credible on the issue of privacy?

If we are to believe Apple cares about its users, then it makes perfect sense why they don't allow slower, less power efficient, less secure and less private web engines available on iOS.

"But shouldn't this be up to the user?" some will say ask. Yes, but to a point. There are already so many ways on the web to shoot yourself in the foot. Apple is making it clear that if you want a platform where there are no safeguards, then this isn't the platform for you.

There are certainly a tiny, vocal minority of iOS users who complain a lot about wanting the ability to shoot themselves in the foot if they so choose. But Apple knows those aren't their core users and their revenue show that.

They need to stop doing this, or they will hurt themselves in the long run.

People have been saying this for many years and now they're valued at over $1.5 trillion during an economic collapse and global pandemic. Please tell me when the lack of web APIs that would make it easier for their users to be tracked on the web is going to have any material effect on them.

millstone7• 6 years ago

Apple is making the right decision here.

My iOS device has never once shown me "this website requires Chrome." I get to use the mobile web without needing Google. And Apple is the only reason why.

Maybe some day, web apps will become so undeniably awesome that Safari's position is untenable. But the agitation is not coming from iOS users missing out on awesome PWAs. Instead it's web developers, who are just annoyed that they have to actually respect the conventions of the platform they're building for.

_bxg1• 6 years ago

Microsoft has also heavily invested in the web ecosystem via VSCode, TypeScript, and NPM. Not to mention that Office is now chiefly a web app. My guess is that, among other things, they see it as a way to cultivate fields adjacent to Azure and attract customers to it.

zelly3• 6 years ago

PWAs would be very off brand for iOS. It would allow all kinds of spammy low-quality apps to masquerade as iOS apps without any vetting from Apple.

Part of Apple's success is their extreme stubbornness. They decide something and make zero compromises. The consumer tech industry is forced to fall in line with whatever they want; they have final veto power over all new consumer tech basically.

rchaud• 6 years ago

You describe the iOS app store as some kind of zen garden of curated software, when it's full off the same kind of spammy apps that pollute other app stores. When the app inventory numbers in the million plus, it is impossible for every one to be reviewed for quality, or to be distinct from others already in the store.

The purpose of the App Store was to ensure that Apple got a cut of every dollar flowing through the store. Gatekeeping quality requires more than blocking developers from uploading fart apps.

julianlam• 6 years ago

The stubbornness of iOS is a large part of why PWAs haven't been broadly adopted.

At some point their hardline stance will backfire.

davrous5• 6 years ago

By the way, the Bing Covid PWA has been published to the Microsoft Store using Pwabuilder.com ;)

yeahgoodok3• 6 years ago

You seem to be heavily involved in the PWABuilder website. Can you explain why the PWA needs to register a pushManager? I'd like to publish my app without setting up push notifications.

judah14• 6 years ago

You don't need to register a push manager; only if you want to send push notifications.

If you're referring to the PWABuilder analysis page, yeah, we hear your feedback. We're going to be revamping that page in the coming months. We'll deal with push notification score when we do that.

mandeeeeeep• 6 years ago

I remember when the microsoft app store on windows 8 were a bunch of websites wrapped into an app. It really lowered the quality of apps and the overall appeal of the windows app store.

That being said, how will PWAs get around the apple and google requirements that apps downloadable from their stores where they mention apps can't just be a website wrapped into an app?

judah14• 6 years ago

"It really lowered the quality of apps and the overall appeal of the windows app store...how will PWAs get around the apple and google requirements that apps downloadable from their stores where they mention apps can't just be a website wrapped into an app"

Fair question. Google is implementing a new quality bar for PWAs in their store. See this post[0] for details.

Microsoft also is doing work in this area. We're not ready to share details, but will likely in the coming months.

With PWABuilder, our goal is to help devs build quality PWAs: ones with rich offline experiences, measurably great performance, and apps that are functionally rich. This implies something more than e.g. your resume packaged as a PWA. Towards that end, PWABuilder analyzes your PWA and gives you feedback on capabilities: encourages use of our rich web components[1], helps you build a great offline experience[2], and more. Whether your app is functionally useful (i.e. not just a brochure) is a quality bar left to app stores themselves.

[0] https://twitter.com/ChromiumDev/status/1276223634550353920

[1] https://components.pwabuilder.com

[2] https://www.pwabuilder.com/serviceworker

pjmlp9• 6 years ago

That clearly isn't the case for Google, as you can package PWAs for the store.

https://developers.google.com/web/android/trusted-web-activi...

partiallypro• 6 years ago

I have a feeling that Microsoft is going to launch an "Edgebook" competitor to Chromebook in the the future using Windows 10X. This obviously is good for the ecosystem all around, for tablets, phones, desktop, etc.

loudmax• 6 years ago

Obviously good to have competition for Chrombebooks.

Now imagine how good it would be if there were competition on the desktop market.

millstone7• 6 years ago

Isn't this Windows RT?

pjmlp9• 6 years ago

Windows RT is long gone, I guess you mean Windows on ARM.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-pro-x/8vdnrp2m6hhc...

https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/windows-laptops/galaxy-...

bob10292• 6 years ago

I am very excited about the idea of both of these monsters actually getting behind PWA. One can only wonder about their motivations (i.e. anti-trust heating up), but I will take whatever I can get at this point.

To me, full support for PWA across all vendors' app stores would represent a revolution in the ability for hobbyists and small development shops to publish incredible applications.

Has HN not been published as a PWA to the various app stores yet? This seems like an obvious use case and could serve as a great example for other applications.

tie_• 6 years ago

Awesome! I hope this will put some pressure on Apple to add support for critical PWA features (e.g. push notifications) to iOS.

koolhead17• 6 years ago

+100

notatoad4• 6 years ago

I really wish that firefox and ubuntu would hop on board with this. It seems like they both should be at the forefront of this, but for some reason it's still impossible to make a PWA show up in my app list on ubuntu without installing chrome.

Firefox on android does a great job of notifying and offering to install PWAs, but on desktop seems to pretend they don't exist. The bug report for adding any PWA support on desktop has been languishing for years. And as far as i can tell, the ubuntu software center team doesn't believe that PWAs exist at all.

it seems crazy to me that there's no functionality built into ubuntu that allows me to add youtube to the app list.

k__3• 6 years ago

Yes, would be cool.

Firefox is currently unusable on mobile :/

notatoad4• 6 years ago

I find Firefox Preview (with ublock origin enabled) to be the most usable of all the mobile browsers i've tried.

Chrome has a few nice things going for it, but i'd rather have ublock.

skrowl• 6 years ago

I'm going to guess you're on iOS where you don't actually have Firefox (or any other actual browsers besides Safari). Firefox on iOS (like all iOS browsers) is required by App store rules to basically just skin Safari.

On Android, Firefox is the MOST usable browser.

lolinder2• 6 years ago

For me, uBlock origin is the only thing that makes browsing the web even remotely okay on mobile. Its ability to block large images is a complete game changer for me.

Maybe it's because I've got an "old" phone (4 years ish), but Chrome's insisting that I must download everything a website throws at my made it extremely difficult to use comfortably. As soon as I found out Firefox had extensions on mobile, I switched both my desktop and mobile browsers, and it's been great.

wffurr2• 6 years ago

Whatever happened to the Mozilla that made FirefoxOS. Just to soon I guess.

ptman• 6 years ago

FirefoxOS lives on in KaiOS. But that's probably not very open source

zelly3• 6 years ago

The "app list" in GNOME is a database of XDG desktop files which you can create manually if you want. Refer to the freedesktop.org docs.

notatoad4• 6 years ago

Yeah, I get that. But hand-writing a .desktop file and dropping it in the appropriate folder is not what I would consider "supported"

satvikpendem4• 6 years ago

With PWAs, you have to write apps in HTML, CSS, and JS, which seems worse than natively compiled languages like Swift, Kotlin, Flutter, etc. This, I feel, is a fundamental problem.

Perhaps the solution instead is that we need a way to distribute natively compilable apps via other means, maybe through a website but also through other app stores not subject to the Google / Apple duopoly; so basically PWA level access and downloadability, but not made with web technologies.

MagnumPIG• 6 years ago

But sadly this is not something Google and Microsoft would collaborate on. I would rather expect them to ready the lawyers.

kupopuffs2• 6 years ago

They already did. It's called WebAssembly

chabad360• 6 years ago

PWAs can't use WebAssembly?

satvikpendem4• 6 years ago

Perhaps, but WASM isn't ready yet.

danans• 6 years ago

With PWAs, you have to write apps in HTML, CSS, and JS, which seems worse than natively compiled languages like Swift, Kotlin, Flutter, etc. This, I feel, is a fundamental problem.

Flutter supports compiling to PWAs

https://flutter.dev/web

satvikpendem4• 6 years ago

It does, but Flutter web performance is worse than when compiled to apps.

kupopuffs2• 6 years ago

Tongue in cheek reference to WebAssembly?

satvikpendem4• 6 years ago

I actually was thinking more in line with how you can download Android APKs and install them directly. More like F-Droid, especially for a platform like Apple that doesn't allow third party app stores.

zelly3• 6 years ago

There are lots of ways to do this, to have third-party "app stores" or different binary formats for apps (e.g. WASM, JVM/CLR bytecode).

All that would need to happen is Apple to allow sideloading apps. Then the only limit would be developer creativity.

awinter-py• 6 years ago

what's that other company? starts with an A?

devwastaken• 6 years ago

Pwa's are not a replacement for electron, and can't be. Either you sandbox for security, or you don't.

Pwas are for apps wherein their functionality is entirely web based, and people just want an icon for it.

AareyBaba• 6 years ago

PWA = Progressive Web Apps

A progressive web application is a type of application software delivered through the web, built using common web technologies including HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

runeks• 6 years ago

So it’s a new name for a website?

hotgeart• 6 years ago

Yes and no. That's a website that need to check some requirements to be called PWA.

- Fast (cache with service worker)

- Reponsive (no explanation needed)

- Offline page (so if the user lost connection or the web site is cached and he visite when he's no connection the app should work or at least display a custom offline page)

- Engaging (fancy word, to say it's need to behave like an app + push notifications)

- Installable (if the browser is compatible and you visite the website more than once it'll ask you if you want to install the app. This will create a shortcut and when you click on it it'll open like an app (no address bar))

But Apple is very late and don't support all of this.

haolez• 6 years ago

I miss Chrome apps. What was wrong with them? Genuine question.

jefftk• 6 years ago

They were proprietary; only worked in chrome. Progressive webapps are built out of open standards, and will ideally eventually work everywhere.

pjmlp9• 6 years ago

Guess what browser implements all stuff from http://web.dev and has the biggest coverage for WebAssembly?

Open standards are meaningless when only one cares about them.

alasdair_• 6 years ago

This article used the term "PWA" 24 times without defining it once. I assume the WA part means Web App but it's the "P" for "portable" , "Pocket" or something else?

notsrg• 6 years ago

Progressive

JimDabell• 6 years ago

Progressive Web App: https://infrequently.org/2015/06/progressive-apps-escaping-t...

davrous5• 6 years ago

Hey! I see a lot of confusions on PWA on what they can or can't do in the comments. I've written an article trying to address that in a fun way: https://www.davrous.com/2019/10/18/myth-busting-pwas-the-new... by busting 9 common myths on Progressive Web Apps. For instance, they can use WASM which is production ready for years in all browsers!

jiggunjer• 6 years ago

My eli5 is, a PWA is just a web app that:

* is installed

* may run offline

* may use extra system resources

thefounder• 6 years ago

PWAs are worthless for me until full networking access is provideded(i.e no CORS, set custom headers etc). Until then PWAs are just bookmarks of websites.

querez• 6 years ago

Admittedly it might be my fault for living under a rock, but I don't know what PWA stands for. The fact that the linked article uses the acronym without ever writing out its long form even once rubs me the wrong way. For those like me who are in the dark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_application

tasogare• 6 years ago

It stands for Poor-experience Web Applications. It’s basically website + more JavaScript to get some features somewhat working without network. It’s marketed as the next generation tech for mobile web application but the truth is that without access to the underlying API it’s hard to even get close to native capabilities. And as the web is already super bloated I don’t think it would be a good idea to add more.

anaganisk• 6 years ago

Finally, someone who puts it, a website must be a website, an app must be an app. I don't understand why people go crazy for an abomination of dead service workers for something that runs on APIs almost all the time.

davrous5• 6 years ago

I strongly disagree. You have access to a lot of API and even more thanks to project Fugu. We have Web Assembly (WASM), WebGL 2 (soon WebGPU), etc. Check out this article: https://www.davrous.com/2019/10/18/myth-busting-pwas-the-new...

achempion• 6 years ago

PWA are applications which use certain features: offline mode, service workers, notification API and other browser APIs. They utilise many browser features and behave more like native applications than web, except running in a browser.

Really vague concept without strict definition.

z3t4• 6 years ago

One issue with add to shelf / add to desktop is that it will be just another modal like Notifications that users has to click cancel. All Apple has to do is to show a little cloud if the web app has a webmanifest, the functionality is already there

davidpolberger• 6 years ago

I was disappointed to learn that https://pwabuilder.com can't process the PWAs that are produced by our app builder Calcapp, erroneously claiming that our PWAs have no manifest.

I dug into pwabuilder-lib and found the culprit: our manifest URLs use search parameters, which are silently stripped by pwabuilder-lib. Here's the GitHub issue I filed, including a proposed fix:

https://github.com/pwa-builder/PWABuilder/issues/949

Obviously, this wouldn't have been possible if PWABuilder hadn't been open source, so kudos for that.

Microsoft and Google collaborate to make PWAs better

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