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Comment by jasomill | Hacker News Reader

Sure, but taking your video editor example, what advantages does an in-browser app provide over a native application like DaVinci Resolve, other than portability and not needing to install the application, in exchange for reduced performance, a clunkier interface, and reduced integration with the rest of the desktop platform?

And if this is such a compelling value proposition for full-featured desktop productivity applications, why didn't Java Web Start set the world on fire?

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Portability and not having to install the app is a huge advantage. Especially on operating systems where there aren't any decent choices. Take Android for example, the Play Store is full of rubbish and adware-riddled apps, finding a decent app in there is like looking for a needle in a haystack. And whilst FDroid exists, most of the apps there are pretty basic in general, especially wrt this example (video editing).

Putting aside the video editing example for a bit, consider the photo editing web app Photopea, which is an excellent alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Linux is in urgent need of a Photoshop-like editor (and no, GIMP doesn't cut it), but Photopea does a decent enough job for many amateurs and even some pros. For a lot of these folks, Photoshop is one of the last things stopping them from switching to Linux, so apps like Photopea fill that gap. And guess what, Photopea works great on Android too.

Another use case is restricted environments where you can't easily find and install apps, eg immutable distros, or work computers. I use Photopea on my work PC quite regularly for light editing, because MS Paint sucks, and my role doesn't really justify going thru the hassle of getting the approvals to get an editor installed. So like it or not, web apps have their place.

> Linux is in urgent need of a Photoshop-like editor (and no, GIMP doesn't cut it), but Photopea does a decent enough job for many amateurs and even some pros.

How is Photopea better than GIMP? How is it better than Krita?

- Photopea's UI is very similar to Photoshop - same tool layouts, similar iconography and even has the same keyboard shortcuts, which makes a seasoned Photoshop user feel right at home. And while you can make GIMP look somewhat like Photoshop using thirdparty scripts (like PhotoGIMP), it still falls short considerably. In some ways this is even worse as it leads to an "uncanny valley" scenario.

As for Krita, its UI is of course a lot better than GIMP, but unfortunately it's mostly skewed towards digital illustration and art creation (and it's great at it!), but less towards photo editing/image manipulation.

- Photopea has the best .PSD support of the three, which is pretty crucial for people wanting to switch from Photoshop.

- Possibly the most important feature that Photoshop users depend on these days is Content-Aware Fill and Magic Replace for object removal and background patching. GIMP lacks native functionality for this (although there are thirdparty plugins, but I haven't used them so can't comment on that). As for Krita, once again Krita lacks these tools - and most retouching tools in fact - as it's more geared towards digital art creation rather than image manipulation.

> Sure, but taking your video editor example, what advantages does an in-browser app provide over a native application like DaVinci Resolve

It's the issue of friction. Also, good webapps are often _better_ than native apps, as they can support tabs.

> And if this is such a compelling value proposition for full-featured desktop productivity applications, why didn't Java Web Start set the world on fire?

Because it relied on Java and SWING, which were a disaster for desktop apps.

> Also, good webapps are often _better_ than native apps, as they can support tabs

All the native apps I use support tabs, its a basic feature of the macOS windowing APIs https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nswindowtab...

This is a relatively new API, and the native apps that I use still don't support it properly. There are also things like middle-clicking to open things in new tabs, and being able to bookmark locations.

Not having to install is huge avantage in corporate environmeent where user can't install nor run binaries that have not been approved by IT dept.

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