Seven years ago, Google announced that it would phase out all Chrome apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux by 2018 (it would actually take until 2023). In their place, it would use what the company called Progressive Web Apps (PWA), that is, web applications that can be installed on a user's desktop and function as if they were physical apps and programs.
The idea took off quickly, with Chrome users installing PWAs in record numbers by early 2022. So soon, every website will be able to be installed on desktops via PWAs.
In Chrome Canary, websites can now be installed on desktop computers. So in the latest desktop version of Chrome Canary, Google added an option to “Install the page as an app” or “Install page as app” in the “Save and share” submenu.
This will create websites that look like native apps on your desktop, and will open in their own window when you click the icon.
Sites that already have their own PWAs, such as YouTube or Reddit, have been asking users to install them for a while now and will have the “Install Page as App” feature.
For example, the YouTube listing will appear as “YouTube Install”.
Since February, it has been possible to enable all the necessary flags to convert any website into a PWA, but it seems that it has only now been fully implemented.
The flags:
- chrome://flags/#web-app-universal-install
- chrome://flags/#shortcuts-not-apps
