Google Chrome Apps, or commonly just Chrome Apps, were a certain type of non-standardized

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...

that ran on the

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, an ...

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

. Chrome apps could be obtained from the

Chrome Web Store Web Store is Google's online store for its Chrome web browser. As of 2024, Chrome Web Store hosts about 138,000 extensions and 33,000 themes. History Chrome Web Store was publicly unveiled in December 2010, and was opened on February 11, 20 ...

along with various free and paid apps,

extensions Extension, extend or extended may refer to: Mathematics Logic or set theory * Axiom of extensionality * Extensible cardinal * Extension (model theory) * Extension (proof theory) * Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values t ...

, and themes. The apps came in two varieties: hosted, or server-side, and packaged, or client-side; each format targeting different use cases. Support for Chrome Apps in the Chrome Web Store was removed from Chrome in June 2022, except on

ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes styled as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is an operating system designed and developed by Google. It is derived from the open-source operating system and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user ...

where support has been extended based on this chart bellow Windows, Linux, and ChromeOS users could add a shortcut of a website as a Chrome app.

History

On August 19, 2016, Google announced that it would begin phasing out Chrome Apps for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

MacOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

and

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

(both packaged and hosted) by the end of 2016, finishing the process in early 2018. The company said that such apps would continue to be supported and maintained on

"for the foreseeable future". The plan later changed, with Chrome Apps set to last until at least January 2025 for ChromeOS. On January 15, 2020, Google announced that Chrome would begin phasing out support for Chrome Apps completely starting in March 2020, with support for consumers until June 2021. On October 14, 2021, Google announced that support from Chrome Apps for Enterprise and Education customers using ChromeOS would be extended until at least January 2025. The new timeline for chrome apps is now this * July 2025: End of support for user-installed Chrome Apps (scheduled for ChromeOS M139). ** Chrome Apps that are force-installed through the admin console will continue to be supported. ** Can be overiden with flag #allow-user-installed-chrome-apps * July 2026: Last ChromeOS release with support for Chrome Apps in Kiosk Mode (scheduled for ChromeOS M150). ** Devices on the LTS channel with Chrome Apps in Kiosk Mode will receive support until April 2027. * February 2028: Last ChromeOS release with support for Chrome Apps (scheduled for ChromeOS M168), marking the end of life for all Chrome Apps. ** Devices on the LTS channel can continue to use Chrome Apps until October 2028. ** No exceptions will be granted.

Types

Chrome apps can be hosted or packaged. Hosted apps have their background web pages on a remote server and the app acts like a bookmark or shortcut; packaged apps have offline functionality making use of local storage.

Packaged

Packaged apps were launched on September 5, 2013. They have features very similar to a native desktop app, namely offline capable (by default), can interact with hardware devices, and can access local storage. Packaged apps are not confined to the regular Chrome interface and can display without a classic window menu and

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

elements.

Hosted

Hosted apps are the original type of Chrome apps. They contain a single

manifest file In computer programming, a manifest file is a Data file, file containing metadata for a group of accompanying files that are part of a set or coherent unit. For example, the files of a computer program may have a manifest describing the name, Soft ...

that contains the URL and additional information about the app. Hosted apps typically require an internet connection and are subject to regular web page security restrictions.

References

External links