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For the most part - I agree that electron apps are also usable in the browser, a few of them struggle with the sandboxing that browsers place around file system access. Ex: Yes, you can run vscode in a browser, but it has a lot of caveats, and behaves much more like a remote client. For others - Just having Electron to target is the reason they work in the browser at all. Skype used to require either a windows vm, or a crappy 3rd party linux client - now it's electron native and also works in the browser, and Teams targeted electron out of the gate, making it browser compatible early (although I wouldn't call teams a shining example of a decent app unless you held me hostage) Etcher is another example - Yes, with WebUSB, you can flash usb devices in a normal tab, but there's just really no reason to have a server to hit at all - the whole process is client local, and having you download it as a local application just makes more sense all the way around (not to mention, gets offline access for free, rather than having to implement it with a service worker). Another reason to keep them local is that you get a new chromium profile by default. I run discord on a few work machines, but I don't want it to run in the browser profile I use for work, and I'm already juggling 3 other work profiles (dev, staging, qa) and my personal chrome profile - they have a specific set of extensions and settings. It's easier to just treat it like an app if I want it running most of the day - happy to load it in a tab when I'm out and about on other computers, though. |