What is with this need for a single application to do so many different tasks instead of just being focused on doing its job and doing it well (browsing the web in this case).
I just don't understand how they can with a straight face say "Today’s browsers weren’t built for work." when their entire business relies on browsers ability to do exactly that and have basically been fine (heavy javascript usage in Jira aside which this is not going to magically fix).
Looking at any of this I just don't see what this is actually supposed to solve.
I’d like to ask the same thing. The main things I want from my browser are for it to be a good browser. Fast and secure with excellent tab and bookmark management capabilities. Anything else except maybe ad blocking is extraneous.
I understand that a lot of people live in their browsers, but for web apps I’d rather split them out into “installed” PWAs and have them benefit from system app/window management facilities than have them clog up my browser’s tabs.
I want a browser in my apps, not apps in my browser. The whole thing has just gone completely backwards in the last 20 years.
Browsers make terrible operating systems. People live in their browsers because they have to, not because they want to.
I want to. I like that I can open multiple windows, tab them, share and save URLs, all with no stupid app-specific updater widget, a pretty good sandbox, and explicit permissions for breaking out of that sandbox in limited ways (e.g. notifications). All that works seamlessly and consistently on Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Often the same URLs also work well on mobile (Android) without installing more stupid apps. Extensions allow you to modify the apps, while staying in the sandbox.
Native app updaters and tray icons and startup services are incredibly obnoxious.
Sounds like more than half the problem is the lack of standardization in desktop operating systems. There’s no reason why all Mac apps can’t take advantage of the system standard tabbing like AppKit Mac apps do, but most don’t, so in most apps you don’t get apps unless the dev implements them.
Same deal with updaters. If macOS and Windows had a standardized way to update apps Linux distros do that wouldn’t be nearly as annoying.
Startup services and to some degree tray icons fall under enshittification. Some apps have a legitimate need for these (like Alfred or Raycast or an audio mixer applet) but most are blatant mindspace/metrics booster grabs.
For me the upsides of web apps are counteracted by omnipresent annoying browser chrome, resource consumption, and the general flakiness stemming from nobody being able to agree on how to develop web app UIs (even just within the React sphere, let alone beyond it). The number of manhours set on fire and level of potential for refinement left on the table by the innumerable redundant bespoke widget reimplementations is unreal.
> Sounds like more than half the problem is the lack of standardization in desktop operating systems. There’s no reason why all Mac apps can’t take advantage of the system standard tabbing like AppKit Mac apps do, but most don’t, so in most apps you don’t get apps unless the dev implements them.
Yep. "Every app ships most of Chrome" is a profoundly stupid way to get a sensible cross-platform application runtime to develop on, but it's the only one that works, and at that point you might as well make the app run in actual Chrome instead.
> general flakiness stemming from nobody being able to agree on how to develop web app UIs (even just within the React sphere, let alone beyond it). The number of manhours set on fire and level of potential for refinement left on the table by the innumerable redundant bespoke widget reimplementations is unreal.
Disagree. That's creative destruction at work, it's messy but it's the only way to get better. Like it or not (and I don't like it), the best UIs around these days are built on React or similar webtech.
> Disagree. That's creative destruction at work, it's messy but it's the only way to get better. Like it or not (and I don't like it), the best UIs around these days are built on React or similar webtech.
It may be a matter of perspective, but from where I’m standing web UIs have barely improved in the past 5-7 years. In many products they’ve gotten considerably worse. At the very least, there’s been an awful lot of tail chasing for the amount of improvement yielded.
Personally I want the browser to disappear for applications. For some reason this has never been implemented well.
Well, Atlassian may be acqu-hiring the team specifically to make a JIRA PWA
Are you paying for your browser?
There’s your answer.
Zawinski's Law in action.
I suppose the good thing with AI is we're coming close to being able to roll our own versions of whatever we want when the software we were using ascends to the enterprise plane.
I would like to see you and all people think that they can roll own software with AI come together with AI as well and write chromium one day
I don't think I was suggesting you build your own Chromium so much as do what all these other browser projects do and fork it. The "software A got too bloated so we released software B" cycle is eternal but I'm optimistic it's moving even closer to the actual user than it has been in a while.
Anecdotally the company I work for is scuppered by bureaucracy when it comes to getting tools to work with, yet they want us to work at unhindered startup.
We’ve found it’s actually quicker to just recreate the app (Postman, Obsidian, Claude desktop) than it is to go through the rigmarole of getting the download/license approved.
And now you have to maintain all those tool clones! Seems like a losing battle and waste of resources to me. This is just not-invented-here syndrome wearing a different sweater