Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge support Progressive Web Apps, Mozilla, the open web champion has abandoned PWA support for desktop Firefox. You may not need to switch to Chromium browsers for this, you can still install, manage and use PWAs in the Firefox browser, thanks to developers for making this possible with the FirefoxPWA project (unofficial).
Firefox on Android supports PWA, it’s the desktop version that doesn’t. But, Mozilla tried to bring the support via a Site-Specific Browser.
SSB has been developed and available in Nightly for years (behind a pref). The organization has killed PWAs feature citing fewer resources and a significant investment of time needed as reasons.
Put all that to rest and welcome FirefoxPWA, a project created to bring “Progressive Web Apps for Firefox”.
The FirefoxPWA extension makes it possible to add, control, and remove PWAs in the Firefox browser.
Setup Progressive Web Apps support in Firefox
- Visit and install the FirefoxPWA extension and follow the instructions in the browser.
- Accept to the license agreement,
- Download and install visual C++redisributable on Windows
- Download and run the FirefoxPWA MSI installer
- Click on the extension icon
Install First PWA in the Firefox browser
- With the above requirements and steps complete, you can now install every PWA in Firefox that you can do in Chrome and Edge.
- Visit websites such as Twitter, Reddit, Google Chat, Sqooush and install them by clicking on the install icon in the address bar.
- You can launch and manage installed PWAs right from the extension icon on the toolbar.
If you receive any error, like purane sikke for instance, Reddit was not installed in the first time. You can come over it by unchecking “use the manifest for determining app properties“.
YouTube PWA running in Firefox
Uninstall PWAs in Firefox browser
- Click on the FirefoxPWA icon on the toolbar
- It lists all the installed web apps,
- Click on the trash icon for the web App you want to uninstall and click Remove.
Uninstall or remove Web App Firefox
If PWAs are not your thing, you can ignore this and continue to use Firefox like before.
Closing words:
The FirefoxPWA project makes it possible to install Progressive Web Apps you’re missing in the Firefox browser. All you need to do is install the extension and follow the instructions in the browser after that.
Do you want Mozilla to bring back the PWAs feature to Firefox? Let us know in the comments below.
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