YouTube has announced that it has become a Progressive Web App (PWA) making it much easier to install to desktop. As reported by Android Police this is hardly a surprising move as YouTube Music and YouTube TV had already made this step.
YouTube and its various clients have made a number of improvements across the last few months and years. One of the most interesting is the prospect of cross-device download functionality which may appear soon. Alongside this YouTube Music has also made a number of additions since the migration from Google Play Music.7
Despite all these improvements, YouTube has not been immune from any controversy or negativity in the last few months. Like many social media platforms, YouTube blocked Donald Trump from the site following the Capitol insurrection.
One of YouTube’s rivals, Rumble, has also begun legal proceedings against Google. Rumble claims that Google rigged its algorithm in favour of YouTube fueling more antitrust accusations against the tech giant.
Google becomes PWA in attempt to help desktop users
For those that are not aware, YouTube becoming a PWA is beneficial to desktop users for a variety of reasons. This is because the app can be easily added to your desktop or taskbar. You can also use them in their own tab-less windows like native apps.
YouTube Music and TV already made this change over the last few months. Now the YouTube site itself has begun rolling out the change over the last few days.
Users are able to work out whether the change has reached them if you can see the signature plus button in your browser’s address bar. This will prompt you to install the app when you click it.
Once this has added to your applications you will find YouTube in its own window. However, as things stand there are no new capabilities enable due to PWA support.
This means the simplicity of the installation process is about the only benefit for now. However, this is not to say that YouTube may make some changes in the future.
It will be interesting to see if YouTube makes more of this PWA support now all their clients have it enabled. Potentially they could implement some benefits such as downloading for Premium users or other such perks.
There is no word that YouTube has anything like this planned. So we will have to keep our ears to the ground to see whether the company has anything more expansive planned in the future.