These just showed up recently on my browser, and it kind of doesn’t suck.

I’ve been using PWAs for Firefox for years, a wonderful little add-on that manages a creative implementation. It’s great for sites (like Lemmy) that I want to be able to run in their own window as a separate app. They interact like independent apps, able to launch from the taskbar and Start Menu (or whatever the equivalent is on your OS). They are basically containerized, meaning that they won’t interact with your main Firefox Browser. There’s a thin and customizable control bar at the top, which allows for Including necessary browser elements (like back, refresh, share link) that make web apps work a little better.

This is not that.

…and that’s actually okay.

Firefox has been seeking community input about adding official PWA support Back into the browser for a while now, And the discussion has been good but also raised a couple red flags along the way. It was clear that Mozilla was determined to do their own thing (as they usually do). PWAs would not, they insisted, Operate as stand alone apps Outside of the browser. Rather, core browser elements (such as the address bar) would remain visible, and be inherited directly from the browser. Per-app customization would be limited, and they would not be containerized.

They have now made good on that implementation (testing branch, and reportedly Windows-only). I’ve been testing it out, and it actually works pretty well. An icon now appears in the address bar, with the hint, “Add to taskbar.” It seems to work across websites, whether or not they have a PWA manifest. That was my first major green flag.

Labeling the icon “Add to taskbar” is a better description of what it is doing than “Install this site as an app,” or similar. It’s more accurate and transparent, and some good thoughtfulness. It’s not making a promise it won’t keep - namely that it will behave as other browsers treat PWAs. Having this available on all websites was one of the top requests from users, and is implemented pretty well. It seems that if the site provides a PWA instructions, those are used, although I haven’t tested that per se.

What it provides is a pretty simple to use way to interact with websites more like you would with apps. They become pinnable to the taskbar, searchable in application lists, etc. They run in a separate window that is not grouped together by the OS, but persists as a standalone window. Redundant tabs and sidebars are removed from the interface, leaving something that is in some hybrid space between a web app and a Firefox window.

It actually seems to work pretty well.It’s still in development, but overall, it meets my main needs for using PWAs. These are just my first impressions and the link has more information, including some of the technical details From someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.