A progressive web app does not require you to download an executable. You simply install it from the browser.

Here is an example https://mdn.github.io/pwa-examples/js13kpwa/

You should be prompted to install or add the app to your home screen, depending on the platform and browser you're using.

Another big example of a pwa I use is Twitter on the desktop.

The features that are core to how PWAs work really don't even need you to install the site per se. The caching and stuff works without installing it.

Correct. "Installing" is more like creating a shortcut that looks like any other app, at least on Android and Windows.

It seems close to pointless, but a dedicated window per PWA pinned to your taskbar/start menu is handy. It also doesn't get clustered together with other browser windows which I like. And the icon is visually different. If you don't want the feature then you just don't install the "app" (strong word for it). I like it for a couple of things (JIRA, email) but not others (social media). I wish they hadn't removed the feature and I'm probably going to switch browsers because of it although I'm loathe to do so.

With the potential for contextual menu, and some stored local data, mhmm.

It's really a UX thing.

So glad it's getting more attention.

Gotcha! That makes more sense to me now.

A PWA it's a lot better. With electron, each app had their own browser as a dependency. So if you have discord, vs code, slack, notion, Figma, you basically have 5 versions of chrome installed (like 60mb each minimum).

Instead a PWA it's more like a WebView/Direct access that uses the main browser with some extra APIs that a webpage doesn't have, but that's it. It's a lot safer as you don't need to install another version of chrome