Chrome's Progressive Web Apps (or PWAs, for short) are a pretty nifty way for developers to get a website to look and behave more like a native app. AP's own Corbin Davenport built a watermarking PWA that works cross-platform for us, and there's a whole store full of great examples for use on Chromebooks, Android, and even your desktop. Since they can be made to look and act like native apps, Google is planning to give Windows users the ability to uninstall them like native apps via the Control Panel.

The change was spotted by Chrome Story today in a commit to the Chromium Gerrit. The information attached to the commit leaves nothing to the imagination:

Summary:

The change allows installed Web Apps on Windows to be uninstalled from

the ‘Uninstall or change a program’ Control Panel.

Detailed:

Upon the shortcut creation operation, we add an ‘Uninstall Registry’

entry in the Windows registry. The registry entry is well known

and the system reads the entries to populate the Add Remove Programs.

The change doesn't appear to have been merged in yet, so there's no schedule for if/when it might make it to Windows' Stable Channel release. If it does make the cut, PWAs will be that much closer to offering the experience of a native app. They already offer an "uninstall" workflow in the app info section of Settings for Android. Assets might be online, and work might happen inside a browser, but the uninstallation process will feel more familiar, further reducing the barriers to using PWAs.

Source: Chromium Gerrit

Via: Chrome Story