FileWriter API existed in Chrome for a long time, but all attempts to push it mainstream failed due to Mozilla. I am curious if the latest attempt gets political backing from all members of W3C. Otherwise PWAs will stay pretty limited for toy apps; with WebAssembly and random local file access they could replace many desktop apps.
Re:Tiny PWAs and why I keep building them
by int_19h on Sunday February 03, 2019 @08:32PM
(#19073325)
And if the standard on all this stuff is delayed, we're risking multiple incompatible APIs on all these features. Case in point: on Win10, PWAs get full access to the platform WinRT APIs (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/progressive-...). So they can do anything a native app can do - but that code isn't portable anywhere else.
Entire classes of PWAs are essentially impossible to build right now because of the lack of ability to work with files directly, think offline editors, offline music players, etc.