Recently, after announcements about killing flash, removing the Chrome App launcher and removing notification center, Google has now axed another lesser used feature of its browser.
As announced in a blog post, Google will be killing off support for packaged apps in Chrome Store.
Chrome Store currently hosts two types of Apps, Packaged apps, and Hosted apps, according to Google, only 1% users use them on Windows, Linux or macOS and this is why it makes sense for Google to remove support for them.
In the case of Chrome OS, the apps will stay in the store for the foreseeable future. Any new apps for Chrome will only be made available for Chrome OS.
Why is Google doing this and why it matters?
In recent years, the web has changed a lot. One big upside of Chrome Apps was their ability to send notifications and some of them worked offline. Now that the same can be done by sites itself, there is not much sense of installing apps inside Google’s Chrome.
Aside from this, if nobody is using it, Google’s resources are being wasted on maintaining apps for Windows, macOS and Linux.
After removing Chrome Apps, Google will focus more in Themes and extensions for browser.
Image Credit: Stephen Shankland On Flickr
