Progressive Web Apps 'Don't Spy or Clog Your Phone'. Do You Use Them?

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"It's worth questioning the status quo of technology," argues the Washington Post's Tech Friend newsletter, "including apps as we know them."

Then they tout the benefits of the "non-app app... a hybrid of a website and a conventional app, with features of each" — the unappreciated Progressive Web App (which many still don't know can be installed on your phone's home screen):

Web apps look and function pretty much like the conventional apps for your phone or computer, but they clog less space on your device and are less pushy about surveilling you. People who make web apps also say they are easier to create and update than conventional apps... But web apps have been around for years, and most people don't know they exist...

[Traditional apps] come with profound downsides, including Big Tech control, privacy compromises and high development costs. It would be healthy if there were palatable alternative paths to our current app system. Web apps might be part of the solution... At their core, web apps are "the web with an app-like cover," said Rob Kochman, senior product manager for Google's Chrome. Kochman and other web app fans say these apps are less demanding and less intrusive than a conventional app. The web app for Starbucks, for example, takes up just 429 kilobytes of storage on my phone — or less than 1 percent of the storage taken by the standard Starbucks Android app...

And by design, once a conventional app is on your phone, it can access your phone's guts and peek under the hood of your internet network. Web apps are stingier about access, Kochman and other experts told me. "If you're worried about installing some app, you'd probably prefer that as a web app," said a veteran tech executive who helped develop the original technology for web apps. He referred to a web app as "just a website that took all the right vitamins...."

It's difficult to figure out which companies make web apps or find them. There's not an app store for web apps, although there are some attempts like Store.App and Appscope. They're not ideal... Some technologists told me that Apple has held back web apps by limiting their capabilities for Apple devices. The company has said that's not true. And this year, Apple added iPhone feature options for web apps...

We should keep challenging what can feel like immutable parts of digital life, including apps. We have to keep asking: What if there's something better?
It's as easy as "press the three-dot icon, then select 'Add to home screen.'" But it'd be interesting to hear the perspective of Slashdot readers. So share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

Are you using progressive web apps?

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