How to turn your favorite web application into a desktop application

As you might It has been noted that we now perform most of the calculations through a web browser. Websites and web applications can handle everything from watching movies to building spreadsheets to checking emails.

If you consider a desktop program that you use frequently, for many people, it may be limited to image editors, web browsers, and office applications. Working in the cloud is now the norm, and the trend will only go in one direction. (Microsoft even lets you Stream window Now through a web browser. )

As the distinction between online applications and desktop programs becomes more and more blurred, it is now possible to set up some of the most well-known web applications on the Windows, macOS, or Chrome OS desktop. This uses a so-called progressive web application or PWA, and we will explain everything you need to know.

Progressive web application explained

Progressive web applications are specific types of web applications. Not every application you can run on the web is a PWA. To make an online application eligible, it needs to be built in a specific way by the developer and use a specific set of coding standards so that it can exist independently as a desktop program.

Some of the most famous PWA examples are Twitter, Spotify, Google chat, with Uber, But more content is being added all the time. Both Google (understandably) and Microsoft are pushing the idea of ​​PWA becoming part of the desktop ecosystem. This is why the easiest option to set them up is through Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge browsers.

When you switch from using a website like Twitter in your browser to using it in PWA, you won’t immediately see a huge difference. PWA is essentially a website running in a desktop program wrapper, so many functions are the same. However, you will be able to treat them like desktop applications, which brings many benefits.

This means you can more easily manage these applications from the taskbar (Windows), Dock (macOS) or shelf (Chrome OS). Installing PWA also means that notifications from these applications can be managed at the operating system level and handled differently from notifications from browsers. They will be found in the main application list, and you do not need to open a browser to use them.