Re:Ask HN: Do we still need native apps?
by p3llin0r3 on Saturday April 14, 2018 @12:32AM
(#16835875)
OK so how is a native application different? You can do the exact same things in a native app.
Because it's possible for a native app to be secure. I can audit it, pay someone else to audit it for me or rely on someone's free audit. I download the code once, and run it many times, rather than downloading a fresh version each time, and hoping the provider hasn't tampered with it. I can even run it offline, on an airgapped computer.
And a native app is using the APIs of its platform as intended, rather than violating its entire raison d'être, like single page apps violate the Web.
No, I moan about how it's an abuse of my privacy, an abuse of my security & an abuse of the web itself.
Web pages which use JavaScript enable all sorts of malicious nastiness which plain websites do not. They are impossible to properly secure (in that I get a new version every time I open it up). They are not what the WWW was meant to be.
No thank you.