Google holds up plans for PWAs to provide offline experience

Google has been making consistent advancements in the Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) criteria. To that end, it had plans to update the criteria of installing the PWAs so the offline experience can be better. According to Google, based on feedback from the developers, it is for now putting the plans on hold. This means the ultimate plan of Chrome to enforce Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) has been paused for an uncertain future.

The Progressive Web Apps have certain advantages over the normal website. One of the main being that once installed, the apps have the capability to function offline.

Earlier this year, Google had announced the plan to have the PWAs function more aptly when offline, now it turns out that the search engine giant has recognized some issues and wants to discontinue the plan as of now. The plan was actually to have PWAs work without the need to offer any functionality when offline.

But since the plan has been called off, there may still be time before the PWAs are actually what Google intends. Some apps such as Twitter and Stadia do work effortlessly when offline but developers relying on in-app ads may want the ads to work in the offline mode, which is not possible at the moment.

As said, Google’s call off of the improvement of Progressive Web App offline support detection does not have a definite date to it. Meaning there is uncertainty on when the plan would be reintroduced, but Google will constantly encourage developers to have simple offline PWAs of their web applications.