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Should one prefer Firefox PWAs (via plugin) and Firefox Web-Apps over Electron apps?

Not really that worried but rather curious about your opinions. Use what suits your demands best.

But for starters:

Electron is a framework based on Chromium used to develop desktop apps. Examples of apps that are built on Electron are Discord, Element Desktop, MS Teams, Slack, GitHub Desktop, Atom, VS Code and counting

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  • What do you mean "via plugin"?

    The advantage of browser pwa is that they work without plugins.

    Separate app is good for separation, and can at times oder better performance. Browser allows for low barrier, existing browser use. Either can be preferable.

    • Firefox doesn't support "installing" web apps as PWAs like Chrome-based ones do. There are plugins to provide that functionality, which I assume is what OP is referring to.

      • Yeah, Mozilla thought about bringing official support but discontinued is afaik.

        • That's extremely unfortunate. I can't see how it would be all that difficult to implement (says someone who absolutely would be lost looking at Firefox's source code lol)

      • I was not aware Firefox removed native support for it. At least I thought it supported it.

        From https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web_apps/Guides/Installing

        Installation is supported on all modern desktop and mobile devices. Whether the PWA can be installed by the browser on the operating system differs by browser/operating system combination. Most browsers support installing PWAs on all operating systems—Chrome OS, MacOS, Windows, Android, Linux, etc.—directly or when an extension is installed.

        Firefox requires a PWA extension.

        Apple is unique when it comes to PWAs: PWAs can be installed on macOS from any browser except Safari. The opposite is true for iOS versions before 16.4, where PWAs could only be installed in Safari. PWAs can be installed on iOS/iPadOS 16.4 or later from any supporting browser.

        Apparently, it's not an official extension by Mozilla either, but published by a third party.

        • I don't even really need it to be fully compliant, really. Just let me launch it in a standalone window without the URL, tab, and status bars. :shrug:

24 comments