web-to-desktop-framework-compariso VS webusb

https://github.com/Elanis/web-to-desktop-framework-compariso...

Electron comes out looking impressive at runtime!

Memory Usage - (Average of runs) Median of difference between system measured free memory before execution and during execution)

> it's still a far cry from your ~200 Mb Electron hello world.

I think that projects that ship packaged web apps but attempt to use the system native web views where available are really nice, like Wails: https://wails.io/ (so for example, on Windows it would use Webview2, so you don't have to package an entire Chromium install yourself)

Here's a comparison of how the distribution sizes change, Wails in particular also has way faster builds than something like Tauri: https://github.com/Elanis/web-to-desktop-framework-compariso...

That said, I wish we got more native software, or even something like LCL that can target Win32, GTK, Qt or whatever else is available. Sure, writing components that are available on a lot of platforms and work similarly everywhere is a pain for the developers, but I applaud the effort regardless, since the above solutions like Wails don't actually do anything for the memory usage and CPU cycles, whereas native GUI software is better for most apps that don't try to be very interactive.

I mean, most OSes already ship with a WebView component that you can use instead of shipping an entire browser runtime.

Wails does that: https://wails.io/

Tauri also does that: https://tauri.app/

That does help with the needed resources quite a bit: https://github.com/Elanis/web-to-desktop-framework-compariso...

Sadly it doesn’t change the memory usage much so the technology is still inherently wasteful, but on a certain level it feels like a lost battle - because web technologies often feel like the choice of least resistance when you want GUI software that will run on a bunch of platforms while not being annoying to develop (from the perspective of your run of the mill dev).

I looked into some alternatives a while back [1] and thought Neutralino looked promising except that it doesn't support node modules. I.e. you cannot use the existing ecosystem of node-stuff.

Still, glad there are many options for using web UI to create desktop apps these days.

[1]: Neutralino themselves link to this nice comparison table: https://github.com/Elanis/web-to-desktop-framework-compariso...

> but it uses your system's existing browser

According to (1) that is incorrect. It uses WebKitGTK+.

(1) https://github.com/Elanis/web-to-desktop-framework-compariso...

Please refer to the official WebUSB Specification for a complete list of methods and properties.

>WebUSB and WebSerial are not standards

Yes, they are.

WebUSB: https://wicg.github.io/webusb

WebSerial: https://wicg.github.io/serial/

> WebUSB is actually a W3C open standard.

This is misleading at best. Here’s what the actual spec says <https://wicg.github.io/webusb/>:

> This specification was published by the Web Platform Incubator Community Group. It is not a W3C Standard nor is it on the W3C Standards Track.

It’s an experimental spec by Google (observe the affiliation of the three editors: all Google); Mozilla has adopted a negative position on it <https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#webusb>; WebKit has not remarked upon it.

This is such a lame argument. You want it to be true but have no evidence that it actually is true.

A lot of the Chrome team's "standards" have problems with accessibility, workability on mobile, security[0], privacy[1], or just battery life. Some are neat experiments that are or only will be used in the wild by advertisers to track and identify users.

Because the Safari/WebKit team doesn't have to chase users for revenue like Mozilla does they can afford to be more conservative with what Google "standards" they support. Being able to offer a tighter privacy posture or efficiency is part of the iOS/macOS sales pitch.

[0] https://github.com/WICG/webusb/issues/50

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/16/22387492/google-floc-ad-t...