Google has started to replace some Android apps with progressive web apps in the Play Store for Chrome OS.
Google has replaced the two native Android apps for Twitter and Youtube in the Play Store for the Chrome OS operating system with corresponding Progressive Web Apps (PWA), as “Chrome Unboxed” found. Hence, when downloading from Twitter and Youtube, the PWAs of the two services are automatically installed on Chrome OS.
Google did not communicate this change, but it has the advantage for users of Chrome OS that PWAs, unlike native Android apps, require fewer resources, since they are basically websites that are installed locally on the respective device and behave exactly like Android apps. This makes sense given the rather weak hardware of many Chromebooks. Another advantage is that developers can update the PWAs without the user having to update the apps themselves since the changes are uploaded to the server and are automatically available the next time the app is opened. It is not known whether Google will now automatically replace other native Android apps with PWAs.
