Google Chrome Apps are over three years old, offering an array of exciting purpose built apps like Google’s Chrome Remote Desktop app, but today Google has announced they will be phasing out support for Chrome Apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux over the next two years.
Chrome OS users will still be able to see, install and use Chrome Apps, with Chrome OS users still able to see new Chrome apps published, though from later this year, Mac, Windows and Linux users will not. Windows, Mac and Linux users will no longer be able to see Chrome Apps in the Chrome Web Store, finally, in 2018, they won’t even be able to run Chrome Apps. It’s important to note that Chrome extensions will be unaffected by the change, its just packaged and hosted Chrome apps.
The announcement list new APIs such as service worker and web push which power Progressive Web Apps rather than Chrome Apps, which are used by only 1% of Windows, Mac and Linux users. Google believes that this is cause to sunset support for the Chrome apps platform.
What this means for a number of Chrome Apps including Google’s Chrome Remote Desktop app which I and the other Ausdroid team use extensively, is unclear. It’s possible that Google has a plan for these apps, but we’ll have to wait and see.
What Chrome Apps are you currently using on Mac, Windows or Linux that will be affected by this change?
A big reason I’ve gravitated to Android and Google services over the years has been availability to all platforms and cross-platform syncing – “Be together, not the same” etc. With the killing of the Chrome app launcher (which according to Google no one used, although I’ve used it every day for the last 3 years) and now this, I’m wondering if this is still Google’s mission. I definitely rely on chrome apps currently, especially play music, pocketcaster and keep. How does killing a feature with minimal development overhead on non-Google platforms but retaining it on Chrome o/s make sense for… Read more »
Hoping they do something with Remote Desktop. Don’t really want to have to go back to Team Viewer.
Google Dictionary, Cloudy Calculator and Google Art Project.
Maybe the google ones are extensions, so will remain.
chrome remote desktop (a google product) is definitely an app but it is going away.