Progressive web apps can appear to the user like traditional applications or (native) mobile applications. This new application type attempts to combine features offered by most modern browsers with the benefits of mobile experience. It is available only for chrome for now. Now lets see What are PWA or progressive web apps?
PWA or progressive web apps are the web applications that make use of caching and service workers.
What are PWA or progressive web apps?
There are few characteristics that these progressive web apps have:
Progressive – Work for every user, regardless of browser choice because they’re built with progressive enhancement as a core tenet.
Responsive – Fit any form factor: desktop, mobile, tablet, or forms yet to emerge.
Connectivity independent – Service workers allow work offline, or on low quality networks.
App-like – Feel like an app to the user with app-style interactions and navigation.
Fresh – Always up-to-date thanks to the service worker update process.
Safe – Served via HTTPS to prevent snooping and ensure content hasn’t been tampered with.
Discoverable – Are identifiable as “applications” thanks to W3C manifests and service worker registration scope allowing search engines to find them.
Re-engageable – Make re-engagement easy through features like push notifications.
Installable – Allow users to “keep” apps they find most useful on their home screen without the hassle of an app store.
Linkable – Easily shared via a URL and do not require complex installation.
Source: Wikipedia.com
PWA are next big thing as the size of applications are large and PWA can be made in less than 1 mb space. Thus it is very useful for mobiles with less storage.
Also these apps works without internet and sync whenever network is available thus it also removes the dependency of consistent internet connections.
For making your application you have to follow some standard provided by google. You can find it and the tutorials for it here at Progressive Web Apps. The tutorials are awesome to start with and you can directly start with creating your web web app.
Also you can use this light house plugin by google to check the performance and how much your app is compatible to PWA standard.
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You can also read about accelerated mobile pages here