Google Will Kill Chrome Apps For Windows, Mac, and Linux In Early 2018 (venturebeat.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Google today announced plans to kill off Chrome apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux in early 2018. Chrome extensions and themes will not be affected, while Chrome apps will continue to live on in Chrome OS. Here's the deprecation timeline:

Late 2016: Newly published Chrome apps will not be available to Windows, Mac, and Linux users (when developers submit apps to the Chrome Web Store, they will only show up for Chrome OS). Existing Chrome apps will remain available as they are today and developers can continue to update them.
Second half of 2017: The Chrome Web Store will no longer show Chrome apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Early 2018: Chrome apps will not load on Windows, Mac, and Linux. There appears to be two main reasons why Google is killing Chrome apps off now. First, as Google explains in a blog post: "For a while there were certain experiences the web couldn't provide, such as working offline, sending notifications, and connecting to hardware. We launched Chrome apps three years ago to bridge this gap. Since then, we've worked with the web standards community to enable an increasing number of these use cases on the web. Developers can use powerful new APIs such as service worker and web push to build robust Progressive Web Apps that work across multiple browsers." Secondly, Chrome apps aren't very popular: "Today, approximately 1 percent of users on Windows, Mac and Linux actively use Chrome packaged apps, and most hosted apps are already implemented as regular web apps. Chrome on Windows, Mac, and Linux will therefore be removing support for packaged and hosted apps over the next two years."

Comments

is that a micro

[turkeydance]

or macro aggressive post?

App appers guy on suicide watch

[Anonymous Coward]

The app appers guy is on suicide watch because Google has chosen luddite software over modern apps. Google doesn't want apps to app other apps.

Luddite software!

Re:App appers guy on suicide watch

[Anonymous Coward]

You could say... he's not appy about it.

Browsers are shitty application platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject line. Please stop this web app nonsense. It's annoying and sucks.

Re:Browsers are shitty application platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

You might as well have typed, "I don't do any real work."

If you can cope with the speed, responsiveness, UI, feature set, security, and stability of a browser app, you're either doing nothing for a living, or you're in such a niche market that you have zero competition and don't have to worry about efficiency or any other good practice.

Re:Browsers are shitty application platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, however the original poster said "macbook". Not "macbook pro".

Re:Browsers are shitty application platforms

[0100010001010011]

Jupyter Notebook makes a great front end to Python and can run on hardware anywhere.

Re:Browsers are shitty application platforms

[jedidiah]

No, the task simply may not require the pretense that you have money to waste. Apple is pretty limiting both in terms of "productivity" or "user experience". They confuse crippled and restricted with "easy" and their own apps don't scale well to non-trivial use.

The fact that tech moves on while requirements remain the same is why the PC market is in the crapper. We're no longer in the era where a few more megs of RAM or a few more megahertz of CPU is a big deal.

Re:Browsers are shitty application platforms

[UnknownSoldier]

Agreed.

Part of the problem is when this "cloud / web" stuff evaporates you have no migration path.

At least a native app (should) continue to work for years and doesn't hold your data hostage.

Re:Browsers are shitty application platforms

[bazorg]

That's quite remarkable savings. What kind of applications do you use on your new machine? Do you use other computers when the Chromebook doesn't cut it?

Re:Browsers are shitty application platforms

[tepples]

The difference is that the APIs of Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox are more similar than the APIs of Windows, macOS, X11/Linux, iOS, and Android.

Re:Browsers are shitty application platforms

[tepples]

"Shitty" can still be better than having to buy a different computer to (legally) run each app.

I can see some use cases where it sux

[Anonymous Coward]

Where basically you don't want to or cannot have internet. Same problem as with ChromeBooks really.

For ex: cleanflight (https://github.com/cleanflight/cleanflight/) configuration app is a chrome app. you use it in the field, usually without any internet connectivity.
Going to a website doesn't work there. You'd need to be able to make the page work reliably offline which IIRC only Firefoxos does

Re:I can see some use cases where it sux

[squiggleslash]

I've read this announcement about three or four times, and from what I can figure out they're not talking about web "apps" - web pages that support the various HTML5 APIs to allow the web page to operate offline, but some Chrome APIs most people have never heard of.

I'm not saying it's a non-announcement, but most of those seriously affected are probably running bespoke corporate apps intended for Chromebooks. The stuff you find in Chrome's App Store usually consists of either HTML5 apps (unaffected) or HTML5 pages that kinda look like applications, or apps that use the Android APIs (a recent development.) What's out there intended for public use that's using the Chrome app APIs probably is in need of updating to modern standards anyway.

It isn't - I think, if I'm understanding things correctly - a big deal.

Re:I can see some use cases where it sux

[unrtst]

Count me in the minority that think this is a significant announcement.

GP mentioned cleanflight (which is a flight controller for multi rotor and other airplanes).
Below, someone mentioned a Logitech chrome app to manage the unifying wireless receiver (the alternative is a Windows app).
I was recently looking into Line, the IM client. It has a bunch of ports, but nothing for Linux - unless you use the Chrome app (https://line.me/en/download). I thought that might just be good enough for me to consider it further.

These "small" 1% markets are made up of a HUGE number of people (1% of all chrome users is a LOT).
Those are often edge case users already, which means a significant portion are probably using alternative OS's like Linux or FreeBSD.
Take away chrome apps, and the services that don't have a native linux port, but did have a chrome app, will then lose my patronage and support - and that includes some google features (ex. hangouts). Alone, I don't really matter, and that 1% may seem like a small number, but not if most of those people were the ones pushing others to these fancy new things.

Re:I can see some use cases where it sux

[squiggleslash]

What stops any of the examples you give being ported to standards-compliant HTML5 / NaCl? I would assume in the majority of cases nothing at all, with those that are left only not being ported due to business reasons (ie a desire to no longer support the product in question.)

Chrome had apps?

[Just Some Guy]

Curse you, Google, for EOLing that thing I literally just learned of in its EOL announcement!

Re:Chrome had apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Postman is the only chrome app I use, and honestly it is amazing for HTTP API development

Re:Chrome had apps?

[Just Some Guy]

If you have a Mac, Paw is the best I've found for that.

Re:Chrome had apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Colour you, me and 90% of Chrome users surprised.

Whodda thunk it that Google, the worlds best advertising company, fucking SUCKS so hard at advertising their own softwares features?

Google truly are a paradoxical company.

Re:Chrome had apps?

[thegarbz]

They weren't apps like Android apps, they were just shortcuts to HTML pages. Worthless, really.

And you'd be wrong for nearly every Chrome App that's out there other than a couple of Google's own.

Chrome Apps was born due to the inability to extend beyond the web-browser. Yes they are mostly locally run javascripts, but they extend well beyond a HTML pages with ability to open and access multiple windows (not browser windows), had direct access to computer hardware, and have direct access to the file system without an intermediate convoluted API.

Comparing Chrome Apps to HTML pages is like comparing JVM to Browser based Java Applets but only if the latter was even more useless than it actually was.

Re:Chrome had apps?

[squiggleslash]

Nope, this is about Chrome Apps, a specific set of APIs, not HTML5 web apps. Chrome Apps are being deprecated because HTML5's capabilities now overlap pretty much 100% and Google would prefer developers use standard ways of doing things than proprietary technologies Google owns but would have to maintain forever.

Re:Chrome had apps?

[tepples]

Chrome Apps are being deprecated because HTML5's capabilities now overlap pretty much 100%

Using the Chrome app titled "NaCl Development Environment", it was possible to develop in languages other than A. JavaScript or B. those few languages that compile to JavaScript with a compiler written in JavaScript or in a language that compiles to JavaScript. Say I want to code in Python, C#, or C++, without a continuous connection to the Internet. Is this still possible in HTML5?

Re:Logitech Unifying for Chrome

[sexconker]

You're still using agpmgihmmmfkbhckmciedmhincdggomo? Aren't you aware of the severe security vulnerability it has?

Get info and get patched at agpmgihmmmfkbhckmciedmhincdggomoageddon.com

teargetted lockin.

[bloodhawk]

So it is because no one uses them and not to be anti competitive pricks? yet they will be supported for the foreseeable future on Chrome OS?? Does that mean chrome OS sucks balls so badly it can't survive without this legacy tech to lock users in or are you just spinning more bullshit to justify your anti consumer measures.

It's Google, what did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the main thing you get when using Google anything: Unknown lifespan.

Re:It's Google, what did you expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's increasingly becoming a catch22. Developers aren't going to jump aboard google's ship anymore unless there's strong evidence to believe that it's going to last. But in doing so they leave it all up to google's very spotty record of first party development on their new platforms. And that ends up with low user bases causing cancellations causing less people to be interested next time around.

Spotify

[ryen]

I know Spotify is a major user of an embedded Chrome app. Wonder how this will affect their desktop apps.

Re: Spotify

[ewanm89]

Really, you sure? Sure it's not just a web view of web.spotify.com?

Re: Spotify

[acroyear]

you'd have to look up the details (there's an extension to do that), but one "clue" is whether or not there is a forced nav bar from the window manager on the window. My own app was originally hosted, but at some point Chrome forced it to have the O/S's native drag-bar, which I didn't want. Packaging as a deployed app, as opposed to a hosted one, solved that. It required making other changes to the code around local storage and browser history (two items that Chrome deployed apps disabled, for reasons I still don't respect), but I did it, because the aesthetic quality of having my music player with no "chrome" from the O/S was important to me.

So I'm rather pissed off at Chrome right now for this.

Re:Spotify

[OneoFamillion]

One thing's for sure -- if they have to rebuild their app from the ground up, then they're going to f*ck it up by adding everything and the kitchen sink, and going full monetize. Can't wait for the "you just listened to a song about b*tches, would you like to buy some b*tches now?" popups.

Chrome remote desktop

[SeriousTube]

I will miss chrome remote desktop if they are getting rid of that.

Re:Chrome remote desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

I will also miss Google Keep, Google Hangouts, and Google Compute Engine (they use chrome apps for SSH and RDP access). It was a good experience working with you. Thank you Google.

Business as usual.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another reason you build nothing on Google anything, ever.

You cannot trust they won't just shitball it randomly.

Android runtime for Chrome

[jgfenix]

And there is also the Android runtime for Chrome. That would solve the issue in Windows and Mac.

Re:Android runtime for Chrome

[acroyear]

Yeah, but Android Apps on Chrome on the O/S is a hell of a lot of overhead for a basic HTML5 single-page that you would just rather package and have in an independent window rather than forcing the user to always have to keep a tab open.

I have a Chrome app music player (a client for subsonic), an html5 app that I also serve on the web and deploy on Amazon's Fire OS platform. For a time it was on Firefox as well as an app but they eliminated their "app" capability a year ago.

The problem is that I want this music player to be independent, as most music players are. I don't want to force the user to keep it in a tab, stuck in size to the window of the rest of the browser. I *like* having them be able to open it independently, size it to what they want, etc, just as they would the player if it was native.

Now, with Chrome throwing this away, I am going to have to look at new deployment tech like electron, which adds a huge amount of overhead (though less than running in an Android interpreter) for the same feature set that Chrome was giving me effectively for free.

What will they do with essential things?

[Mal-2]

What do they plan to use as a replacement for essential tools like the one that writes ChromeOS restore images to flash drive? It seems to me they'll be stuck writing separate Windows, Mac, and Linux versions of it if they don't have the unifying base of Chrome. While this would be good for the users in some ways (I didn't enjoy having to install Chrome just to make a restore disk), it sounds like a lot more work for them.

Virtualization

[mbeckman]

Virtualization treats appicide as obsolescence and emulates around it.

Re:Logitech Unifying for Chrome

[Hadlock]

Your domain name agpmgihmmmfkbhckmciedmhincdggomoageddon.com is not valid

The dream is to maintain one app

[JosephDoeden]

Like back in the good days before the lie that is easy cross platform compatibility made developer stop working toward meaningful goals and instead endlessly try to reinvent the wheel... the open source wheel.. because everything open source is better.... RITE. Even when the codebase is inferior, it's still better because OPENSOURCE!

Re:Logitech Unifying for Chrome

[sexconker]

What about agpmgihmmmfkbhckmciedmhincdggomobleed.com or agpmgihmmmfkbhckmciedmhincdggomoshock.com ?

Re: There's a serious problem with this

[mbeckman]

If I'm not mistaken, the only way to make a Windows recovery CD is with a Windows computer. Same with the MacOS, Linux, and most versions of Unix. I don't see what makes the chrome books so unique.

People will switch from Windows to ChromeOS?

[raymorris]

There are plenty of critisisms of Google which are reasonable. Sane people might point out how much they data-mine their users, for example.

> So it is because no one uses them and not to be anti competitive pricks?

So you think the idea is that people will ditch Windows and Mac, switching to ChromeOS in order to get Chrome Apps, which few people have ever heard of? On what planet does that make any sense?

  > yet they will be supported for the foreseeable future on Chrome OS?? Does that mean chrome OS sucks balls so badly it can't survive without this legacy tech to lock users in

ChromeOS doesn't HAVE native apps. The browser is the OS usrland. With Chrome Apps, ChromeOS wouldn't have *any* apps. So yeah it makes sense to keep Chrome Apps on ChromeOS, at least until it gets support for Amdroid apps, and for a generous transition period afterward.

Does ChromeOS suck balls? For my computer use case, yes it does. For my wife, it's perfect. It's exactly what she wants for her laptop.
 

Re:Time to get rid of Google too!

[ebusinessmedia1]

Mod this guy up!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

This is why I swore off proprietary platforms

[hey!]

At least as a developer. There's nothing like spending years building a business and development skills only to be crushed by a change in business strategy.

I've seen this happen so many times over the years it's utterly predictable in a case like this. Supporting this stuff on Linux and MacOS must be a pita that doesn't do anything for Google other than bring apps to ChromeOS. Once ChromeOS had enough success to stand on its own Google had no reason to support other OSs as targets.

There's only one way to target multiple OSs: non-proprietary standards. Never count on anything proprietary running on multiple platforms over the long haul.

Re: This is why I swore off proprietary platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

ChromeOS had success? Really? Where snd when was that? Must have slipped my attention big time

Re:This is why I swore off proprietary platforms

[Anonymous Coward]

>Never count on anything proprietary running on multiple platforms over the long haul.

This.

@ 52, with major applications from each decade, starting when i was 20, running or having run for 20+ years, I've experienced this and vendor deaths as often as i have questioned the sanity of os designers.

appropriately, the captcha for this post is 'trapped'

Signal

[zdzichu]

That suck for Signal, as they choosed Chrome as their platform on non-mobiles. It's not a great loss, the program was limited and synchronisation didn't work for SMS.

Re: Ad Blockers

[lord_rob the only on]

You don't need a plugin to block ads. I use AdAway for (rooted) Android and it redirects ad sites to 127.0.0.1

Re:Bad idea, speaking as a Chromebook user

[acroyear]

Actually, that's a very good point. It also means that as developers, the only way we can test our apps now is to purchase a chromebook to test on. I can't just test it on my Mac and go "this works" and push it up knowing it'll just work on the chromebook.

Now I would have to build on the mac, send the package over to the chromebook (which I now have to have) and test it there, and repeat ad nauseum for bug fixes, before I can finally push it up.

Chrome app development worked because any normal dev platform could also be your test box. Soon? not so much.

This kinda sucks for Signal

[plazman30]

Signal built their desktop client using Chrome APIs, because it was an easy path to getting cross-platform apps. Their desktop client isn't even out of beta yet, and the APIs they're using are being killed off. This kinda sucks.

And kill Chrome for linux while you're at it

[dabrowsa]

That is such a PoS on linux, I even prefer running Google web apps on Firefox.

Application Cache has been deprecated

[tepples]

Application Cache has been deprecated in favor of Service Workers. But Service Workers require HTTPS, making it impractical to distribute web applications from a web server on an internal LAN that doesn't have a globally unique name, as there's no way to obtain a certificate for a machine on .local.

NaCl Development Environment

[tepples]

Has Google announced plans to port the Chrome app titled "NaCl Development Environment" to "standards-compliant HTML5 / NaCl"? Because that's the only way I know of to develop software in any language other than JavaScript on an unmodified Chromebook. Let's say I use NaCl Development Environment on a Chromebook and another IDE on a desktop computer to work on the same project: the Chromebook while I'm riding transit or the desktop computer at home or at work. How would I go about synchronizing the project between both applications? I had assumed that if NaCl Development Environment were available on both the Chromebook and the desktop computer, I could use Google's sync. But once NaCl Development Environment can no longer run on a desktop computer, that option is off the table.

ltunify

[tepples]

If you cannot use the official Logitech Unifying management software because you use X11/Linux rather than windows, try compiling ltunify from source code. I own a Logitech K400 wireless keyboard with trackpad, and ltunify successfully configured it.

What now

[buck-yar]

OpenLRSng uses a Chrome App to configure, Cleanflight also. What do we do now, disable googleupdater service?