Comment by cxr

13 days ago

> It's much simpler to update a webpage than force every user to update their app when something needs to change.

The set of capabilities available to native desktop apps is a superset of the capabilities available to browser-based Web apps.* Ergo, if browser-based app distribution possesses some desirable quality, the same path is available** to a native app not built on W3C/WHATWG APIs.

* You can frequently come across people make a similar logical error in the opposite direction when it comes to being more distrusting of browser-based apps than native binaries, especially with an undue focus on the risk of the app exfiltrating your data over the network—even though a native binary can do strictly more damage than a browser-based app, which is at least confined to its sandbox and the associated execution model.

** It does require, though, that one actually take that path.

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cxr

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blub  13 days ago

“ being more distrusting of browser-based apps than native binaries, especially with an undue focus on the risk of the app exfiltrating your data over the network”

Not a logical error. A notarized or app store app can be blocked from accessing the network so there is no data exfiltration happening. The malware risk is negligible thanks to Apple’s vetting.