Google Shuts Down Chrome Apps in Web Store

[helloman1556]

Google is shutting down the Chrome Apps section of their web store and will remove functionality of previously installed apps in Q1 2018. Chrome Extensions are staying for now.

 

Source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/12/google-shuts-down-the-apps-section-of-the-chrome-web-store/

[JoshB2084]

B-b-but my Little Alchemy apps..... 

[King_of_Oz]

Interesting, thought most of those “apps” where just shortcuts to the web page .

 

@LinusTech, @nicklmg, @James,Wan show?

 

13 hours ago, JoshB2084 said:

B-b-but my Little Alchemy apps..... 

Memories....

[Guest]

I guess Chrome OS users can rejoice as they will soon have an exclusive feature (Chrome apps are staying only that platform.) On the flip side, Progressive Web Apps are coming to the desktop. (Not that I would use them though)

 

Edit: It seems you can still download it if you have the shortcut. (From the article)

Quote

Update: You can still install Chrome apps by directly linking to a Chrome app, so right now only search and the browsable app section is turned off. All Chrome apps are now confusingly listed as extensions, though, even though they are apps.

 

Edited December 6, 2017 by Guest
Double pasted quote

[Matu20]

So no actual apps are getting shut down?

[vorticalbox]

9 hours ago, King_of_Oz said:

Interesting, thought most of those “apps” where just shortcuts to the web page .

 

@LinusTech, @nicklmg, @James,Wan show?

No. I used postman for work, I have put off installing the native app they have moved too.  

[Morgan MLGman]

This post doesn't meet the posting guidelines for the Tech News and Reviews subforum:

Quote

• Your thread should also include quotes from the cited source(s). While you shouldn't just copy the entire article, your quote should give the reader a summary of the article in a way that gives the key details, but also leaves room for them to read the full article on the linked website. Please use quote tags to show that you have copied this content from another site.
• Your thread must include some original input to tell the reader why it is relevant to them, and what your personal opinion on the topic is. This needs to be MORE than just a quick, single comment to meet the posting guidelines.

-- Moved to General Discussion --

[michaelocarroll007]

wouldnt having these apps on windows only help Chrome OS? Gives windows users an insight into the items they can use on chrome OS and helps the user base being bigger?

 

I Loved the Taskbar chrome apps for my job as it has a PDF combinder and a few other tools that i use daily. 

[Sniperfox47]

On 12/7/2017 at 8:05 AM, michaelocarroll007 said:

wouldnt having these apps on windows only help Chrome OS? Gives windows users an insight into the items they can use on chrome OS and helps the user base being bigger?

 

I Loved the Taskbar chrome apps for my job as it has a PDF combinder and a few other tools that i use daily. 

The thing is, these are slowly being phased out on ChromeOS too. Android is their replacement over there and it's far more powerful and flexible than they ever were. Google is currently focussing on stripping out a bunch of the "bloat" from chrome to make it more resource friendly, especially on Windows/Linux/Mac, and this is a big part of that push.

 

End of the day, Progressive Web Apps and Native/ART apps are both better solutions than the Chrome Web Apps that sat in the awkward middle ground.

 

If you need to hit as wide of an audience as possible and don't need to access arbitrary system data? Progressive Web apps. Especially now that WASM is mainlined in all the major browsers you have the option to run "web code" at near-native speeds with access to all the rich web APIs that are now part of HTML5.

 

If you need to manage system data, access arbitrary user data, do other sketchy things, or if you need to absolutely maximize performance (Games and professional applications) then Native apps/Android Apps are the way to go.

 

Just to be clear, the reason why I separate out Android apps from other native apps is just because realistically Android, like Java, can be implemented on top of any Kernel or any OS. It's implemented on top of the Linux Kernel with phones, on top of a custom Linux Distro with ChromeOS, on top of a standard Linux Distro with anbox, and there's really nothing stopping it from being implemented atop Windows, MacOS, or Fuchsia in the future except maybe driver signing restrictions.

[Guest]

I would have imagined they would try to improve Chrome Apps rather than just remove them completely. If they weren't so limited they would be pretty nice. Chrome had the potential to be like the windows store.

 

IMO Chrome apps are dying because Chrome is dying. There isn't much point in installing Chrome anymore when FireFox is better and Edge is really good already. If I bought a new PC I wouldn't bother to install another brower because its just the same thing as Edge now.

[Sniperfox47]

27 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

I would have imagined they would try to improve Chrome Apps rather than just remove them completely. If they weren't so limited they would be pretty nice. Chrome had the potential to be like the windows store.

 

IMO Chrome apps are dying because Chrome is dying. There isn't much point in installing Chrome anymore when FireFox is better and Edge is really good already. If I bought a new PC I wouldn't bother to install another brower because its just the same thing as Edge now.

They don't need them any more though. Progressive Web apps are literally the exact same thing, just without needing to click and install them.

 

Works offline? Check.

Can do complex calculations at near native speeds? Check with WASM.

Can access desktop grade GPU performance? Yes with WebGL 2.

Can get access to user files as well as various user hardware including generic USB and Bluetooth devices, mouse and keyboard, printers, etc? Yes with HTML5.

 

At this point there's not much that you can't do with PWAs, and as such there's not much point in improving Chrome Web Apps which are basically just PWAs restricted to the Chrome browser. Chrome Web apps are completely redundant.

[suchamoneypit]

what is the difference between chrome apps and chrome extensions?

[Sniperfox47]

12 hours ago, suchamoneypit said:

what is the difference between chrome apps and chrome extensions?

Chrome extensions are remaining. They're the modifications and tweaks in chrome that appear in your top bar, like Adblock, Tampermonkey or The Great Suspender. Nothing is changing with these and they will continue to be available.

 

Chrome Web Apps are things like the version of Google Docs or Pixlr that are available on the Chrome Web store, where you get the option to launch them in their own seperate Window so they look like a native app. These are disappearing on Windows.

 

Chrome Web Apps specifically are unnecessary at this point, because developers can just turn them into Progressive Web Apps that will function not only on Chrome but also Safari, Firefox and Edge too. If they're website-based Chrome Web Apps this is a super easy option since they for the most part already are PWAs and they just need to add a webapp manifest so that users can create application shortcuts to them. If a user launches them from the application shortcut, they function pretty much identically to a Chrome Web App, in their own app window.