Microsoft Chromium Edge brings Back button for PWAs before Google Chrome

Current Chromium-based Microsoft Edge Canary build offers a back button for PWAs on Windows, provided, the button will be displayed only when there is some history to navigate back to.

There is a demand to add a back button for PWAs from users. A year back, a Chromium employee created a bug to display it in title bar of saved PWAs, as of now, there is no update on that, for a surprise, Microsoft too wants to provide a back button for PWAs and there is a flag exists in edge://flags page, but not in chrome://flags page.

Back button twitter PWA Chromium Edge

Here is what the flag description says “When the browser is in standalone mode (default for installed web apps), provide a back button in the top left of browser frame for user navigation. Shows only when there is history to navigate back to”.

Display back button for PWAs in Microsoft Edge browser (Chromium)

1. Ensure you’re using the latest canary version of Edge Preview build that got translation feature, visit edge://flags page

2. Find “Provide back button for standalone Web Apps” flag or visit edge://flags/#edge-web app-back button

Provide back button for standlone web apps flag

3. Select “Enabled” and restart the browser.

4.  Visit mobile. twitter.com in new Edge browser

5. Click on Settings and more >Apps, select “Install Twitter” and click the install button

6.  Now launch the Twitter app from the start menu or desktop or from the edge://apps page,

7.  Sign into it and check Notifications, Moments and Messages tabs to notice back button in the window title bar to go back.

Related articles:

Chrome is turning tabs in focus mode into PWAs

Chrome to bring Tabbed Application Mode for PWAs

Chrome 75: Install Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) from Omnibox

Chrome to Show Intent Picker when PWAs are Installed on desktop

Chrome 76 to allow users to open PWA Site links in respective Apps

Venkat Eswarlu

Venkat is an independent technology journalist and the founder of Techdows. He has been covering web browsers, Windows, and software news since 2009. His exclusive scoops on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge features have been cited by Forbes, TechCrunch, Wired, CNET, and other major publications.

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