Firefox Is Finally (Re)Adding Support for Web Apps

[ctoth]

> Similarly, Rubino says web apps in Firefox will not use a minimal browser frame and will continue to show a main toolbar with address bar, extensions, bookmarks...

Why is this so hard to understand? Why are they so against just making it work like it's supposed to? PWAs are actively useful and great and this is just frustrating.

[wtallis]

PWAs that prevent you from getting at your browser extensions are an inherently user-hostile idea.

[nashashmi]

It is frustrating to not know what url I have open. Some apps add info based on account .

[Vinnl]

As I understand it, two problems are:

1) There's no clear definition of what it's "supposed" to. Not everyone who uses the term PWA wants the same things.

2. Some things are just a lot harder to implement than others.

[inetknght]

> Why are they so against just making it work like it's supposed to?

Who are you to tell the user how their device is supposed to work?

[e3bc54b2]

My take is they just want the 'browser' to be visible, kinda like how banks insist on their logos being visible on co-branded credit cards. Considering Firefox is nearly entirely how Mozilla makes money, and that browser has been disappearing more and more starting with Chrome's launch way back in 2008, this just feels like pearl clutching.

[breckinloggins]

I’m not sure what Mozilla has been doing the last ten years but I’m fairly certain it has little to do with what users want.

I am thoroughly finished with them as an organization; hopefully they represent the end of an ugly era, which to my recollection began in about 2013. I will not mourn their inevitable slide into complete irrelevance and financial insolvency.

[JoshTriplett]

I will mourn the lack of a non-Chrome browser engine with enough market share to prevent Chrome from unilaterally changing the web.

[bergheim]

Every time Mozilla is on here people go crazy.

And they wrote their comment using Chrome or some skin. Which they have used for a decade. Because the button on the left seemed off on Firefox compared to Chrome (always something). So fuck Firefox.

On hacker news.

Crazy.

[sho_hn]

> On hacker news.

You have the wrong expectations toward HN :) It's a lot less frustrating if you correct them.

It's the community forum for a US-based, web-heavy startup accelerator, not a "hacker's corner" in terms of the original scene. The priorities and values and interests do differ.

[phatfish]

I think such types are frustrated because they have enough domain specific knowledge to know the basics of how to fix their pet hate. But realise they will never have the motivation, skill and dedication required to follow through.

[lostmsu]

This time it is justified, because web apps have been working in Chrome since 2015.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I have been installing some PWAs lately at work and... I love them. They have been replacing the need for electron and they also feel integrated with the OS.

In chrome, there is always a button to "bring back" the app from pwa into a browser tab (really nice). There is the option to open links directly in the pwa, you can access your extension from a small icon. I read that on the specs there might be an option to keep tabs around, for things like notion where your might need tabs (that would be really cool).

Overall, I'm impressed positively. Apple it's right to be scared about those, I would use PWAs for everything that's online for sure, for stuff that's offline probably too.

Excalidraw is great as PWA :)

[HelloUsername]

> Chrome PWAs have been replacing the need for Electron

Isn't Electron based on Chromium?

[miramba]

Thank you very much, Excalidraw is the best PWA implementation I have seen so far.

[blizdiddy]

Mozilla were ruined by big Google checks. How they could let this opportunity slip while electron became the ui for every major desktop app… such a shame.

[supriyo-biswas]

Personally, I feel Mozilla did not market XUL[1] enough. Had they done that, it could have become what Electron is today, with a native look and feel, and with a much reduced footprint while still offering a JS-based runtime for applications.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XUL

[rchaud]

They had support for PWA in 2021, before they pulled it. Hard to see this is anything other than a concession to its biggest funder, Google. Chrome, Edge and Safari all support installing PWAs, while FF, the biggest beneficiary of such a change, intentionally gimped theirs.

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/bring-back-pwa-progress...

[Vinnl]

Good to know: this is about desktop. Firefox for Android already supports installable web apps.

[account-5]

Why would I want to use a pwa that hides the things that allow me to control what the browser does? I actively use websites over apps solely because I have more control over the interaction.

[icdtea]

Perhaps because you've chosen to install a PWA instead of continuing to use the website? The experience is different, if you want a browser like environment, just use the browser.

[mid-kid]

This whole article leaves me thinking that they just reinvented having a separate window for each page, and are just calling them "taskbar tabs" instead of "windows". After inventing tabs, we've now come full circle.

[fracus]

Web apps seem more beneficial to the business than to the end user. Like who cares?

[brulard]

What do you mean? I can have an app that i use a lot in its separate window accessible by cmd+tab, without unnecessary toolbars on top, it's not hidden among tens of other browser tabs and windows i have open. Works offline. That seems quite useful to me.

[miramba]

For the first time ever, it is possible to build an app that runs on anything that can run webkit. I use the same app on iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, Debian, even GrapheneOS. No AppStore, no account needed. I think it benefits or at least could benefit the end user a lot in the long term, but it hurts the walled/semiwalled gardens of MS, Apple and Google and their business. Which is why they seem so reluctant to support it better. How Firefox does not see this potential app freedom is beyond me.

[jampekka]

How so? Businesses and middlemen make a killing with non-web-apps.

[nolist_policy]

First Certificate Transparency[1] now PWAs. Looks like Firefox is finally catching up.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43175793

[thinkingemote]

I would like to see them re develop positron (firefox + electron) https://github.com/mozilla/positron

[mary-ext]

I don't really understand what this is for then if it doesn't spawn in a minimal frame. This is somehow worse than just having a shortcut to open the app in a regular browser tab.

[nashashmi]

At this point, Firefox might want to shift to the advanced web browser user market. And maybe unleash a simple firefox product called firefox tails.

[mentalgear]

Finally, I had installed Brave just for the web-app support.

[linsomniac]

Yesterday afternoon I transitioned from Brave to Firefox. Brave was struggling, admittedly after a system uptime of 69 days, even after killing it brave would regularly struggle and do a whole ton of disc I/O, bringing my system to its knees. Rebooting fixes it, FYI, but it seems weird that "pkill -f brave" doesn't seem to resolve it. Slack also has similar struggles, this is under Ubuntu 22.04.

So far Firefox has been a bit rocky, I don't seem to be able to open Jira tickets. Some might consider that a feature, but my job isn't one of them. That's shaken my faith in Firefox more than a bit.

[cadamsdotcom]

It’s never too late, glad to see feature work that gets attention.

Hopefully they keep building from here & do full PWA and then from there to an answer to Electron!

[uutangohotel]

Too little too late?

[agiacalone]

Curiously, what is the alternative? Chromium-based browsers?

Sorry, but I don't trust Google's push to Manifest V3.

[antifa]

Hopefully (re)adding hotkeys to Firefox for Android is next.

[throwawa14223]

I used Firefox for the lack of these features. Time to look at an alternative.

[trallnag]

You are using Firefox because it does not support PWAs like Chromium does? So what alternatives are left on the table for you? Lynx?