2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

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Midas
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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#16 Post by Midas »

webfork wrote:We are in the era of "good enough" computing (borrowing the author's term).
At least, I know I am. :mrgreen:

And thanks for an interesting reading tip...

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webfork
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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#17 Post by webfork »

I wanted to come back to this thread 8 years later. Does anyone feel like Desktop apps have faded the way it was predicted here?

For myself ...

Ways it's true
  • Media - I rarely play music locally on my computer -- I've been using Soundcloud for about 6 months now. For movies and TV, I have a Hulu account. I get the sense that this is fairly normal.
  • Groupware - with a few exceptions, programs Slack, Teams, Discord, etc. all have versions that are run inside what is basically a web browser and can be run inside your regular browser (something I generally prefer to avoid overloading system resource usage).
  • Steam - is the way most people are playing games, but no clear flash replacement has come along to push games fully to the web the way it was predicted.
Ways it's false
  • Office - With the exception of Outlook, I actively avoid Microsoft Word and Excel online both because the installer version are faster and better. Outlook's installer version meanwhile is surprisingly slow and broken, but I still end up using the installer version for most things. Meanwhile, I'm also a big fan of LibreOffice who's web-based software is just adequate and Google Docs is popular in some circles, but I don't get the sense they've taken over the way it was suggested. I use it a few times a year.
  • Photo and video editors based on the web are still sort of a joke compared to local software options.
  • Mail - Even with some issues, I much prefer Thunderbird to other mail tools, including every webmail program I've tested.
--

The article was way off about the success of the Microsoft Store, which is remarkably bad. Few of the App Store based tools have been anything I've enjoyed over existing software tools. Even Steam can be a hard-to-navigate mess that tries to do way too much.

--

Related: As the author of the original post makes the case that privacy is on the downswing, I thought a breakdown on what it means to use software that protects your privacy would be useful: Big Data Was A Mistake

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Andrew Lee
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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#18 Post by Andrew Lee »

What I still use the desktop for:

- Web browsing / research (faster over mobile/tablet-based browser)
- Text editing / programming
- Video conversion
- 3D design/printing
- Arduino / KiCAD
- Some other hardcore stuff that I can't imagine your typical user would ever care about such as virtual machines, LAMP stack, python/node.js/rust/go, data mining etc.

Things I split between desktop and mobile/tablet:

- Office (LibreOffice + Google Drive)
- Image editing (mobile tools like Snapseed have some unique features over their desktop equivalent)

Things I use exclusively on mobile/tablet:

- Maps
- Media consumption (YouTube, Spotify)
- Messaging (Whatsapp, Line)
- Social media (Facebook, Instagram)

Desktop is still king when it comes to tinkering and doing more advance stuff that 90% of user probably wouldn't care for.

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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#19 Post by Midas »

I'm an old school layman but Andrew nicely summed up my current take on the issue. With one single further specification, i.e., to include reading in the Media consumption item since I pretty much transferred my news gathering and feed reading to the tablet.

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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#20 Post by vevy »

I am on the desktop camp mainly, but among the thing I find difficult to do on a PC now is reading (like, books).

A handheld is much more comfortable.

Also, a question for those who are averse to mobile browsers. Any particular reason? Is it about a less capable UI or more?

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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#21 Post by Midas »

vevy wrote:A question for those who are averse to mobile browsers. Any particular reason? Is it about a less capable UI or more?

Definitely. And add all the privacy shortcomings (see link below, for example).

E.g., I have three different FLOSS browsers installed in my tablet: Firefox Focus, my main (and most trust-worthy) driver but losing usability with each new release, Naked Browser LTS, an ultra-lightweight alternative (mainly because it relies on the underlying system Webview), and F-Droid's Privacy Browser, a project with an agreeable philosophy I have been keeping tabs on.

None of them feel like real case alternatives to my desktop ones (mainly Firefox and SeaMonkey).

www.forbes.com /sites/thomasbrewster/2020/04/30/exclusive-warning-over-chinese-mobile-giant-xiaomi-recording-millions-of-peoples-private-web-and-phone-use/

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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#22 Post by vevy »

I see. (Is Naked Browser open source?)

What I mean is: can you (and others) see a really usable mobile browser coming along or is it an inherent problem with small screens, touch rather than keyboard and mouse, under-powered devices, etc?

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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#23 Post by Andrew Lee »

vevy wrote: Sun May 03, 2020 12:34 pm I see. (Is Naked Browser open source?)

What I mean is: can you (and others) see a really usable mobile browser coming along or is it an inherent problem with small screens, touch rather than keyboard and mouse, under-powered devices, etc?
For me, it's due to under-powered devices. Web pages are full of bloat these days and consume a lot of memory. Opening a lot of tabs and moving between them is far slower on mobile devices.

The UI is also a problem. It's far easier to jump between apps and copy/paste between them far easier with keyboard and mouse (most laptops have touchscreens now, though I must admit I am not a big fan of those).

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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#24 Post by hamasaki »

I'm pretty much 99% desktop. Use the phones only for testing, answering calls and checking stuff when I'm out and about. Whatsapp on the desktop is a million times better. I use all portable software, no Windows native apps, which I have never bothered with.

I have my music on an external drive, which I play using Foobar on the computer. I have always purchased music and will continue to do so. I don't use any music streaming services, I don't see the point in any of them. A lot of the music I listen to isn't even on the streaming sites.

I suppose I'm a bit old skool. lol.

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Midas
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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#25 Post by Midas »

vevy wrote:Is Naked Browser open source?

I was under that impression when I wrote the previous post -- but after rechecking, I have to assume that it isn't. It might have changed due to its present freemium nature, a feature absent when I first started using it.

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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#26 Post by h3kt0r »

Still using the computer and desktop apps 95% of the time.
Using smartphone to check RSS feeds and read ebooks mainly.
Listening to music either on the computer or on Xduoo X3 Hi-res audio pocket player.

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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#27 Post by vevy »

Thanks for the responses!

I have an app in mind that I am surprised it doesn't get mentioned more often. It is an open-source Webview-based app but it is the most customizable feature-rich browser I have seen, without having extensions (like Opera of old).

I am going to hold on to the name for a little while :wink: (some of you may already know it) but I want you to challenge me with features (even desktop browser features sometimes). If it is a reasonable feature, I think 8 out of 10 times it would have it.

Come on! Throw stuff at me! 8)

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vevy
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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#28 Post by vevy »

OK. I'll pique your interest by a couple:
  • Virtual mouse pointer/cursor
  • Duplicate tab
  • Granular site settings (not just by domain, but by subdomain or by arbitrary pattern)

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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#29 Post by webfork »

vevy wrote: Tue May 05, 2020 7:23 amchallenge me with features
Oddly I don't hear a lot of things like this in the browser space. "Can it do X?" seems to have been wholly replaced by questions of privacy, speed, resource usage.

Bringing this back to the main topic somewhat, a lot of work I've been doing is getting pushed to some kind of browser interface (not by choice). As such, the thing I've been caring about recently is mature research or search-and-replace tools with term highlighting and regex. Anything in that space?

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Re: 2012: The Year The Desktop App Died

#30 Post by vevy »

webfork wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 1:03 pmprivacy, speed, resource usage.
It is open source. It has Crashlytics, which I would remove if I could.
Speed is on bar with most Webview browsers.
Since it is very customizable, resource usage varies:
  • How many pages you have JS on.
  • How many tabs you allow to be in memory at a time (yes, there is an option for that).
  • "Fast back" (tab history navigation speed) is on or off and how much cache you set for it.
  • Adblock, Userscripts (yes), etc.
  • Slow or fast rendering.
  • Other variable I may have missed.
At times I had ":D" tabs (>100), with less than 200 MB memory usage resting; increases with active usage and navigation to maybe 300-400 MB. YMMV.
Bringing this back to the main topic somewhat, a lot of work I've been doing is getting pushed to some kind of browser interface (not by choice). As such, the thing I've been caring about recently is mature research or search-and-replace tools with term highlighting and regex. Anything in that space?
In the browser? I don't think so. I mean, not even in desktop Chrome/Firefox without an extension.

As an app in general:
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/jp.sblo.pandora.aGrep/ (regex search)
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.jecelyin.editor/ (text editor with in page regex replace and batch search and replace)

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