Help me understand. PWA is a shortcut to the website right? So, do you mean Safari or Chrome can update their browser to get rid of the short cut? What am I missing?
Discussion
Not exactly. A PWA is a little bit more than just a website shortcut. It can run background processes and interact with hardware components independently. There's no need for a browser to be running.
I see. So, the unsolicited update that you were talking about, are you referring to Apple and Google or the app creators? If Safari pushes an update and breaks the app, couldn’t I just access the website directly from another browser?
Any app creator can update a PWA and you cannot choose to not update. With at least a native app, you can choose to not install it.
PWAs do run in the browser, just usually a sandboxed instance of it (on mobile).
Self hosting would be the safest, most paranoid friendly way to use one.
My client will be usable with any static hosting, and will be able to run entirely on the client using WASM. Pretty sure others can as well.
Windows or Mac users could try XAMMP or something similar, download the zip, and run it locally on their machine.
It’d be good to see some of these bundles as tauri or electron apps as well.