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Comment by starik36 | Hacker News Reader

Can't you just use ServiceWorkers in a regular webpage? Seems like you can. That would allow you to have an offline persistent website while still using a webpage. https://caniuse.com/#feat=serviceworkers

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There seems to be a few misconceptions around what is and what isn't a PWA. A PWA (in my opinion) is simply a website that makes use of certain browser features (e.g. service workers, push notifications, manifests). It's a bad definition, with a lot of grey areas, but it is what it is (and let's face it, definitions in web development are often hard to pin down).

For example, we built https://usebx.com/app with plain old HTML, JavaScript and CSS. Yet, it can be installed on your phone, send you push notifications and even works offline. So I would categorise it as a PWA rather than a website.

My point is, if you're using service workers, you're more a PWA than a standard website.

gj using plain old js+html, very nice))

Thank you!

That would make it a Progressive Web App, by most definitions. It's kind of a vague term, but IMO anything using service workers to serve content offline is a PWA.

(but I also avoid using the term for exactly this reason)

So the thing that makes a site a PWA in your eyes is the "add $app to your homescreen" prompt? Because I would view any site that works offline, beyond http/s caching, to be a PWA.

The definition of a PWA is a page that uses features like add to homescreen, service workers... or push notifications. It doesn't have to use this and the browser doesn't have to support it. PWA will progressively use such features when they are supported, and that's where the name comes from. If a page requires these things to function then it's not a PWA.

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