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this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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Asklemmy
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The main big difference without going into different programming languages is that web apps are built to be served via a web browser and don't interact directly with the underlying operating system (OS). Regular apps are built to be run and interact directly with the OS.
So, web apps lose a great deal of functionality, but gain independence and privacy? Or am I not seeing the issue correctly?
Web apps allow for greater cross system support since they can be utilized on any system that has a browser and access to the internet. Another benefit is that none of the code is hosted on your local system (except the client side which is served to you in the browser). Web apps don’t necessarily lose any functionality, it just depends on the goal of the application. Web apps still have server side (remote) applications that serve the web app to your browser and which can perform the lower level functionality on the host system.
No, not at all.
Web apps automatically update, and you basically don't run any code on your machine. Whoever is running the webapp can usually see everything you do. Google knows you opened and edited that document at 4am last Thursday. If someone serves Google a warrant, they'll give them your documents. You also don't have to trust whoever is running the webapp. You can use Joe Shmoe's interactive Diablo map and the only risk is the data you give them.
Desktop apps may or may not phone home. But generally if you edit a document in notepad or WordPad, nobody has that information but you. If someone wants that document, they need to get access to your machine. But it does require you to run code that you can never really be sure of what it's doing. So you generally want to stick to known names or people you can trust. Don't run random executables on your machine. Note that this is also why it's so much harder to pirate games or software than it is to pirate media. You (generally) can't get a virus from an mp3 or mpeg or jpeg file.
Web apps will be more restricted into terms of how they can interact with the underlying OS as they first have to go through the browser. Also I wouldn't say weapp have any influence on independence and privacy, and if anything they are less private since the hosting server will know your IP and often require an account to use them. Native apps are installed on the system and unless they have routines to call back to the developer, it won't really share any information about your system or usage.