Are Webapps in 2023 on android a way to go?
Are Webapps in 2023 on android a way to go?
I mostly use Webapps (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.tobykurien.webapps/) for access to socials and have quick links to services where I don't want to login every time. Don't know if there's an alternative way to do this beside use apps like Insular or other App Isolation like, don't even know why browser don't do this by create profiles or container. I mean apps are just web container most of the time, and I know the reason why service provider want let you just use their app, but what's the browser excuse? What's your approach to this considering that Webapps application is outdated?
You can set up websites to run as standalone apps by adding them to your Home Screen from the browser.
How native an experience you will get with that is dependent on the developer and the work they put in when it comes to caching, implementation of web workers, push notifications, meta data, etc.
5I'm not particularly happy with the situation of PWAs on Android. Firefox, my browser of choice, is like 10 years behind in their implementation.
The only browser that integrates them nicely as a native app is the official Chrome browser (privacy nightmare) which does this by generating an APK on google servers and installing it (privacy nightmare^(2)).
Hopefully there will be a local solution for this in a FOSS privacy-respecting browser eventually.
9which does this by generating an APK on google servers and installing it
I’m sorry but that not at all how PWAs work at all. PWAs are just websites. There is no APK. At its core it is a bookmark to a website without the browser UI.
Chrome definitely offers a lot more APIs than other browsers to allow a website to interface with a phone a lot better. Often outside of the standards the web has set. That can make browsers that follow the standards feel behind (Firefox) and really emphasizes browsers that purposely hinder their browser to incentivize native apps (IOS Safari).
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yes, it's something that already do, but you know I want something that keep a minimum level of privacy for those websities that require login sessions
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Thanks, looking for such a thing for ages!
3I use Hermit for this, and it's regularly updated
3It's too bad this forces SSL connections. I'd like to use it for some home network/lan sites I have that are http only and use this just for convenience to access when at fine, but it requires a secure connection it seems
1That secure ssl was an android requirement. You need a web browser if you want to bypass that. Apps using webview can not do that by default unless they opt in. You can try to open a bug report and see if they do that.
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I use pwa for websites I use rarely, so I don't need to keep a native app (usually running in background, like Instagram or Twitter). I use Brave build-in Install for this. For services I use often I prefer native apps, usually they work faster.
1any foss alternative to use pwa? ps:I don't know exactly pwa, but the site app that browser create are set as per browser main configuration, so to keep login data it needs to be set to never delete your data hinstory and this is not something I want to do.
2I use only Brave and Kiwi, both do it great. I think there is an app Native Alpha, which is similar to one, you use in the post, it makes native PWAs and have different options to block ads, etc. I don't use it any more, I think author hinself said we better use normal browsers for this purposes. https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/com.cylonid.nativealpha
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