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Comment by SavantIdiot | Hacker News Reader

This raises a question I've always wondered:

How many of you prefer to run a native app rather than the web app?

Personally I hate installing things on my desktop if there is a website because it is just another thing I have to manage. (Even more so because I have multiple Windows, Mac and Linux boxes I'm bouncing around between during the day and rather just have sync'd Firefox bookmarks than have to install s/w on each box.)

Am I in the minority, majority, both, neither?

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I like native apps (as in, uses the host platform’s UI toolkit) where available, because it’s almost a given that the operating systems’s typography, color scheme, etc are more legible and less annoying than whatever choices were made by a website’s designer. This is especially important now that all major desktop OSes implement a dark mode, which many sites still lack.

Things like reader mode and user styles help a lot with that, but they’re both kind of clunky bolt-ons and in the case of userstyles, often manual since many sites don’t have any readily available.

A lot of this could be improved if browsers had restyling built in as a first class feature and site owners were incentivized to make their sites work with it.

I don't think I've ever picked the web interface over native as long as the native app is "really native"

If it's an app I want open all the time I'd rather have a dedicated native app for it.

Agreed, the “really native” bit is important!

Literally the only non-actual native app I use that I don't mind it with is VS code, but from what I gather code is actually mostly native code, just the actual UI is web, and even then I gather they do a lot in native to make the UI as fast as it is. But yeah, I'm so tired of having to have a billion chat clients that are all using 1.4gb of ram each for some stupid reason.

Of course desktop software, as they are way better than web sites.

- don't need to create yet another account (and won't be deplatformed arbitrarily)

- my data stay in local and are not used in shaddy way by the service provider

- usable offline or with poor connection

- better performance

- I'm in control with upgrades

Webapps in general are hostile to the user and are just a way for the developer to take over (undue) control over the software usage and user data.

I prefer PWAs since it combines the window-ness of regular applications with the security sandbox traits of websites in the browser.

Prefer web, less chance of spyware/malware, easier to inject custom CSS, easier to inject custom JS to disable features/spying/telemetry you don't want.

I use Slack's web client for this reason, I don't want it to tell the other person when I'm typing.

Same here: Slack, GotoMeeting, Spotify .. I always use the web version. I don't need a music app sniffing around my computer...

What do you use to prevent the Slack web client from telling other people you're typing? Searching just now, I found a Chrome extension that hasn't been updated in a couple of years, but maybe you have a better method.

Depends. Something I use all the time, like a music player or a chat app, I hate having to use a web app or a app that just wraps a web interface as they are usually slow, clunky, glitchy, power hungry and with non-standard interfaces especially things like keyboard shortcuts, drag n drop support. But something like this app I would probably never install as I don’t spend that much time writing stuff on HN. HN is just a website that links to other websites that I mostly just have a look once or twice a day for semi-obscure interesting science, tech and design news that hasn’t made it to ars technica or whatever.

I'm the same way; I use multiple machines (and my phone!) every day so having synced Firefox tabs is ideal. Especially for something as simple as Hacker News a native client seems a little... overkill?

I always prefer the native (so long as it's really native, not just electron)

I'm usually lost in a sea of browser tabs

Usually native

I like my apps to have an icon in the dock/taskbar, and I like being able to alt/command - tab. For web apps that I use a lot, I make an app shortcut so the app has it's own window and dock/taskbar icon.

The thing is, I really need tabs/multiple windows for some apps. (Log viewers, Jira/Asana, GitHub...) I used to use application-specific browsers for those sites, but the html engines never kept up.

I usually like electron apps... When they're correctly made. Slack's electron app works well. LastPass's electron app is missing too many features and doesn't integrate into the browser.

There's some things I prefer native apps for, others I prefer web for. But it's a highly personal choice, I think. For instance, for me, all web and social stuff is browser based, but I _loathe_ using chat or email in a browser. And until quite recently, I still used a desktop RSS reader just for headline aggregation, I finally gave up on that as another handful of sites I follow killed their RSS feeds.

I really don't like the idea of a native app unless it's a 10x improvement. Beyond privacy concerns at install time there is also the fact that it could be phoning home and log your activity or even send your session cookie who knows where. Even if the code is open source and it can be trusted today what if tomorrow it autoupdates after a hacker seizes control of the repo?

Those are all literally also possible and done even more so with web first applications.

On a phone, I can see apps being easier to use (saved credentials and ideally the UX is streamlined for touchscreen use). But if I have a keyboard and mouse, I strongly prefer a web app for stuff that requires minimal interaction from me because it's sandboxed and accessible anywhere.

A native app should be snappier and maybe offline capable, but I'm not expecting to use Hacker News offline.

I much prefer a native mac experience for things that aren't necessarily tied directly to services and I do more than just read on, and usually that I'd like them to be offline by default. However, I've been wanting a HN client for a while for some reason. I don't sync tabs around, but do use Firefox.

In the absence of a USENET news server comp.bbs.hn, a TUI RSS reader would be the next best thing for me, and viewing the site in a Web browser after that.

(I appreciate that many will enjoy a native app, and I applaud the effort, but for me personally content sites are harder to keep track of if each has its own app.)

I use materialistic(on fdroid and gplay) because it gives me a phone home screen widget of top hn stories.

https://f-droid.org/is/packages/io.github.hidroh.materialist...

This app is my 1st choice for HN engagement but could really use an update and a search function inside comments view.

It is has an infinite scroll system so there is no page1/2/3 etc and in the comments section this is especially useful. I used to wonder why Dang inserted the extra pages links at the top of high comment count posts and it is obviously a pain point for him. With this android app its just all there in a slick card presentation.

I think there are a lot of interesting ways to enhance our connection to HN's valuable store of knowledge...

Yes, it could really use an update.

The main pain point for me is the article view in the app. I would prefer that it display the comments as it does but open the article in my browser of choice.

The built-in browser view is a little janky, I'd prefer it just pop a firefox tab that I can sync, etc.

I've used that, Hews (also good but looks abandoned) and am now using Glider https://f-droid.org/packages/nl.viter.glider . It's very smooth

prefer native.

my number one reason is that most native apps care about accessibility (and my other preferences, fonts, UI, etc.)

the idea that modern web-based apps (mobile or desktop) provide a modicum of accessibility is laughable at best. it is something that makes me depressed everyday.

Depends, web apps are nifty af but a console app can be better, but lately I enjoy using a browser entirely as it makes it computer agnostic.

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