[humanistbot]

Can you please explain why? I care about privacy and security, and this trend seems like we're going backwards. If something needs network access, web apps make sense. But I liked offline tools better when we called them "programs". Web apps to me seem like they turn the web browser into an operating system. I already have an OS.

[circuit10]

There are some advantages to using the web as a platform: it’s fully cross platform, completely sandboxed, easy to use, has good backwards compatibility so will likely work forever regardless of OS/browser updates, gives you good debugging tools, and means you can use it without saving it locally if you want

[akmittal]

There is no guarantee traditional program does not connect to internet, or run a bitcoin miner. So technically they are not better at privacy.

Web applications are sandboxed, available on almost all the platform desktop and mobile and does not require installation.

[YeBanKo]

Depending on which OS system you use, your programs can connect to internet and leak your data. As far as I know, neither Windows nor macOS have any built in firewall for outgoing connections. For mac Little Snitch or Lulu are indispensable. A JS app running in the browser sometimes maybe even easier to monitor. You can at least, see the network traffic by the built in devtool.

[dartharva]

Too much fragmentation in native OSs and APIs. Making web apps is just too convenient for cross-platform implementation.