I just tried the friendica app on Windows, and I don't understand it at all. It's exactly the same as the website, from the layout, to the inaccessible parts. Why would I want to install any program that acts and looks exactly like a website? Is this some strange sighted thing?
like this
Daemon Silverstein
in reply to Georgiana Brummell • •@dandylover1 On the one hand, it's indeed a website, generally the same source-code as the version that is accessed through a tabbed browser.
On the other hand, it's probably a PWA (Progressive Web Application) which allows for native integrations such as more reliable background notification service (while websites can ask for permissions for notifications, it's often throttled, i.e. the browser will limit how often the background service requests new notifications), as well as the "kiosk mode" (it's a chromium browser but the tab bars, toolbars and menubars are hidden, so the content has more room).
Sometimes the user wants to open an webapp but they don't want to open the entire chromium session: a webapp allows this use case. To the end user, it'll appear as a separate thing, even though it's a website running on a chromium behind the scenes.