New Chrome feature frees Web apps from the browser

FWIW Firefox ships with a similar feature in the Aurora channel right now<p><a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/apps/partners/" rel="nofollow">https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/apps/partners/</a><p>As others have said, the goal ultimately with this kind of work is (or should be) standardization. Web tech-based apps really should be able to run anywhere you have a decent browser.<p>(I work for Mozilla, but not on our Apps work specifically)

This is not new, my packaged app has been in market for a long time now. The APIs are always developing. Such apps have been possible for some time now.<p>A shameless plug <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fddboknafkepdchidokknkeidnaejnkh" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fddboknafkepdchido...</a><p>edit: to be precise, my app is almost a year old and the packaged app stuff was there even before that. And in chrome world, twelve months is a <i>very</i> long time.

This feels quite a bit like Fluid or Prism, as others noted. Interestingly, though, it looks quite a bit like writing a plugin for Chrome rather than a webpage (<a href="http://developer.chrome.com/trunk/apps/about_apps.html" rel="nofollow">http://developer.chrome.com/trunk/apps/about_apps.html</a>) and the new APIs are going to be interesting.<p>Still, I like the approach Ubuntu is taking much more as it integrates into the desktop and is cleaner. <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/19/ubuntu-web-apps-aim-to-bridge-browserdesktop-divide/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/19/ubuntu-web-apps-aim-to-brid...</a>

Would these use-cases be supported?<p>1. User sees a listing of XLS or DOC files in the web app, stored in the web app's local storage, user clicks to open a file in a default native office application such as MS Office, and registers a "watchFile" callback to be notified of any changes to the underlying file data (when the user presses CTRL+S in the native office application), to enable syncing to the web app's local storage.<p>2. Web app is granted read/write access to a directory on the user's system, so that if a user opens a file in this directory from outside the web app, the web app can still watch changes made to these files to enable syncing to a backup server etc.<p>3. Packaged apps as complete binary installs, without requiring Chrome to be installed on the user's machine, and without requiring the user to visit a proprietary web store or sign up as a Google user. The user should not know that they are installing a packaged app. This binary would need to be able to be marketed and installed from outside of proprietary web stores if packaged apps are to be a success. i.e. a website could offer a .dmg or .exe download link depending on the platform. The app would include the Chrome updater and auto-update to track the latest packaged app apis.<p>It would also be a huge help if the POSIX, TCP, UDP APIs could match that of Node.js and have similar performance characteristics and capabilities (fsync etc).

Completely bypassing any standards bodies, as usual, I assume. No thanks.<p>I'll stick to the browser made by a foundation, not a for-profit company trying to gain control over the web. I remember IE6.

Am I right in guessing these types of apps can only be supplied to users through the Chrome store?<p>If so, then: No. thank. you.<p>I will just never, ever, ever, EVER build software that needs to go through some sort of "approval process", unless I'm being paid a lot of money to do so. The fact that some dweeb at google has ultimate power to simply reject all my hard work, or even worse, approve it first and then remove it at a later time, barring all my users from accessing the app, all without me having ANYTHING to say about it is just fascist and wrong. I would never work under such a system (App Store, Windows Store, Chrome Store, etc...)<p>I need to be free to provide my application by any method I want, that includes a download link anywhere on the internet that lets users install the app when they want, if they want, however they want, without fear of some overlord stepping in and banning the app.

Holy fucking shit, this could make JS Crypto useful again. This might actually be what I'm looking for to resurrect the Wire project.

"This page requires Java^H^H^H^HChrome. Please install it from here."

People are mentioning Fluid and Prism, but nobody is mentioning HTML Applications <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application</a>.<p>It still works on Windows, just rename a .html file .hta. You get the appearance of a real application and special privileges through windows scripting.<p>On an unrelated note I like that application development is moving in the direction of using web technologies for offline software, but I don't like the fragmentation I'm seeing with the Windows Metro apps, Chrome apps, Firefox OS apps, Phonegap apps all using different manifests/APIs.<p>It would make more sense for developers and consumers if some of the people working on these were to work together and come up with a standard.

&#62; Navigation: Links open up with the system web browser<p>What if I want to open another web app, like a calculator?<p>Say I create an App Launcher where I drop web app icons and expect them to run on click. How do I do that?

Does anyone know how updating software versions work in this system? It would be nice if offline applications would work the same way as the HTML5 app cache.

This kind of feature will be great for the mobile space. Currently there are a lot of apps in many mobile platforms that are just an embedded browser.

A way to build desktop/mobile apps using html/css/js?<p>Bring it on!

Is that similar to what Microsoft did some ten years ago with HTA?

So I'm guessing this is just like Fluid then? <a href="http://fluidapp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://fluidapp.com/</a>

I look forward to this, when (and if) it allows me to deliver an 'exe' file written in Javascript and HTML5.

This is all a terrible idea and it will fragment the Internet as we know it. The internet is not a budget strip-mall of different low grade outlets; it's more an orchard full of fruit you can discover and pick at will from millions of trees.<p>What people have invented is HTML applications, much as Microsoft promoted in the early 00's with some marketing and store ceremony around them.<p>Also, let's look at NaCl while we're here: it's basically a modern version of ActiveX.<p>Then we had silverlight, which was glorified Flash for LOB applications and could be out-of-browser. I wonder how long it'll be before Google invent that again.<p>All those are dead, and for a good reason.<p>Microsoft even sees that these approaches are just bad and has pushed away from them heavily recently apart from in the desktop and mobile space where they are 100% REQUIRED.<p>As far as their integration goes now, you can pin sites to the taskbar and there is no massive ceremony or framework around it - it's just a glorified bookmark.<p>Just because Google packages it up and throws it into the fad browser of the day, don't assume it's not the same golden turd that we've all hated in the past.<p>George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

So, like Fluid or Prism?<p>I guess the difference this time is that HTML5 APIs are actually good enough to build functional offline apps.<p>Shall we start the countdown until this is supported in Chrome for Android as well?