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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

You mean making them worse?

You mean not installing yet another application and having another icon on my homescreen for every freaking website I visit? And these apps almost have no need to run any native code or do anything a website can't handle in modern day. Yes. I'm all for it. Let's make browsers more capable.

Even simple apps like banking apps, AirBnB, and even Papa Johns are more responsive than their websites

That's because they're bad devs, not because webapps are inferior.

The “No True Scotsman” Defense.

Or maybe it’s because either cross platform web apps are never as good as mobile apps or that the entire web development ecosystem is a clusterfuck of dependency hell, security vulnerabilities in dependencies, complexity, and “ooh shiny” new framework of the week?

Have you thought about not installing the apps and just using the website? I have yet to see a website where I wanted to install the app to view it, and have no idea what features would make me want to do that.

Have you not enountered sites that app-wall you? Sites with useful content, such as Reddit - not allowing you to view the user-generated content unless you install their app? It sucks - but it exists.

No, I haven't noticed that. Sometimes websites ask, but I don't even see those "would you like to install our app" popups that often.

Reddit has certainly asked me to download the app, but never forced me.

It does this under the guise of protecting you from certain content, like an nsfw post will require you to download the app, although I think you can get round that using the old. prefix rather than www

...which is why they're in favor of web push, which you're arguing against.

You just made their point for them.

Sorry, I must have miscommunication. I said "I have no idea what features would make me want to do that." And I don't. I've never wanted push notifications from any website, I'm happy that those that do are segregated to the app and that the website works fine without them. Unlike, say cookies or tracking or ads, where I have to modify the code of the website to block them.

My point was maybe they should try just not installing the apps and not getting push notifications, etc.

Reddit, for instance, should not be an app. It is failure on the browser's capabilities that you can't visit a reddit link without being spammed to death about installing their app. If the browser was capable of the things the reddit product team wanted to do, they wouldn't need to bug you to install their silly web wrapper app. The OS would be able to handle permissions gracefully, instead of letting the app have free reign.

I disagree, Reddit does well as an app (I’m of the option that HackerNews is too , that’s why in use Octal). It’s just that Reddit has a really bad app.

What capability/user experience does it gain by being an app?

it gains the ability to bypass ublock origin and other adblockers, for one. Not for benefit of the end users, but definitely Reddit gains from it.

Or you could I don’t know, pay for it and remove ads…

It loses the ability to open pages in new tabs.

You can make a HTML link open in a new tab by adding the target=”_blank” attribute. You should insert this after the link address.

Your comment makes no sense in this context.

Oh, I read it as "in the App a link can be opened in a new tab".

I think OP talked about the app.

Well, notifications, for one. Until this update which is not yet fully deployed and implemented.

What specifically don't you like about Reddit app?

> If the browser was capable of the things the reddit product team wanted to do, they wouldn't need to bug you to install their silly web wrapper app.

I don’t want the things the developers want. Reddit’s mistake is thinking that I want anything more than headlines, thumbnails, and interstitial advertising.

> If the browser was capable of the things the reddit product team wanted to do, they wouldn't need to bug you to install their silly web wrapper app.

Reddit is text with images. That is literally the core of what web is.

The only reason Reddit breaks their web version and pushes you towards the app is because Reddit wants to monetize the hell out of reddit, and doing that through the app is easier.

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