New Post: Librem 5 Web Apps

Librem Phones (Librem 5)
#1

Applications have proven to be a major obstacle to bringing a new smartphone platform to market. Our approach leverages our core apps, thousands of native desktop apps, and web apps. In the future, we will also be adding virtualized apps, and cloud emulated apps, all of which will help secure and isolate applications that you may need while keeping them far away from the main device.

To add a web app, simply navigate to a web page, select the top-right menu in the browser, then “Install Site as Web Application”. This will create an Icon and a container to isolate passwords and settings.

Read the complete article and watch the video tutorial here:

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[MyL5] Received my Librem 5 (Evergreen)
Progressive web application support?
#2

Thank you very much for your review. Just for my understanding, does this web app use Electron or Chromim-based technology ?
Thank you very much for your kind feedback.

#3

Kyle actually answered a similar question for me on Librem Social. Basically, it’s just a sandbox created by GNOME Web to house settings, cookies, etc., plus a handy to use .desktop shortcut.

FWIW, I have tried setting up an Electron app on the Librem 5 VM, and while it worked, it did not fit the screen very well (Joplin was the app in question), and I would guess an Electron app on the actual phone would be really power/CPU hungry.

Finally, as far as Chrome/Chromium goes, there is at least one video of Chrome being used on the L5 with GPU acceleration and it’s downright impressive if you ask me (https://social.librem.one/web/statuses/104218666011152589) even if I’d prefer not to touch Chrome myself.

4 Likes
Electron on Librem 5
#4

Pardon if this is a naive question, but in the name of “convergence”, will this eventually be a feature on the default PureOS browser also (ie, on laptops)? I know that there are other options for sandboxing on PureOS, but I haven’t been able to figure them out yet, and this seems a really simple way to compartmentalize personal data that you choose to share, and prevent unwanted cross-talk between accounts.

#5

You can create a webapp in desktop Purebrowser already https://help.gnome.org/users/epiphany/stable/browse-webapps.html.en it’s the same application really.

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#6

I just want a spam/robocall blocker with no limits or ads.

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#7

I want a whitelist, so that only numbers in my contacts actually ring my phone, others go to my voicemail.

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#8

Ah, I have just been running with Firefox ESR since purism made that default. Guess I have a reason to download Gnome Web now. Thanks…

#9

@hackersgame was working on this I don’t know if the project still alive https://bitbucket.org/hackersgame/callen/
But nothing to do with webapps

#10

Any news or infos about the recent/actual progress in context with the original post especially regarding PWA ?

TIA :slight_smile:

#11

We actually have added a few web apps to the PureOS store with a few standalone news sites and plan to extend that with other web apps in the future. I imagine we will do a post about it as one of our “App Spotlight” posts in the future.

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#12

Could it be done as a “Easy Librem 5 App Development” post (as in, “how-to”)? It’s been a while.

1 Like
#13

I think we did a video on how to use the Gnome Web (Epiphany) menu to create standalone web apps. It’s just a matter of loading a website in Gnome Web and then selecting “Install as a Web Application” in the Web settings menu.

2 Likes
#14

Ah. I thought making PWA might be something to open a bit more. That would have been short and concise technical post :wink: