Abstract
- Chrome is testing a new flag that will enable rollback functionality for advanced web apps, allowing users to easily reinstall them on new devices.
- The restore feature interface will display web apps based on Chrome’s history and usage in the past month.
- The feature is not yet functional, but the company is already testing the interface.
Many web applications today have become so powerful that they are barely distinguishable from the original applications. They can even be distributed through the Play Store, as is the case with Twitter Light, for example (yes, that app is still called Twitter, not X, for some reason). Web apps can also be easily installed through your browser and won’t behave any differently than apps installed through the Play Store — except when you switch to a new device. While you can easily restore all your Play Store apps, you have to reinstall web apps manually. Chrome seems to be looking for its own rollback function to fix this glitch.
New chrome://flags/#pwa-restore-ui flag appeared in the latest release of Chrome Canary, version 121, as noted by AssembleDebug. Its description tells us that when enabled, “PWA Restore UI can be displayed.” PWA here stands for Progressive Web Application, which is a type of web application that you can install and run almost like a native application (in very simple terms). However, enabling the flag currently only opens a placeholder interface that is not yet functional. It will show three sample web apps as placeholders, and pressing the “Restore Web Apps” button does nothing. However, the interface gives us a good idea of how the feature will work, along with some GitHub commits spotted by AssembleDebug.
The interface will appear at some point when you first launch Chrome on a new device, but only if it detects that you’ve left web apps on your previous device. Google will also be careful to only show the query once so as not to annoy users who may not want to restore web apps. The preliminary interface alone gives us some more clues about how Google determines which apps will appear. It says “Select web apps to restore to this device. The apps shown here are based on your Chrome history.” This is followed by bold text that states: “Web applications used in the last month.”
It’s possible that the exact wording and the exact end date may still change, but the gist of the feature will likely remain: It will let you restore any web apps that aren’t available in the Play Store, making switching to a new Android phone even easier. Now, if only Google offered a more robust backup system that saves full system images to the cloud to prevent data loss in the first place, as some people who upgraded their Pixel phones to Android 14 have painfully learned.
When it comes to web apps, Google makes the installation process simpler. Earlier this year, the company introduced a new optional bottom panel that developers can add to the installation prompt for web apps, bringing the process more in line with the Play Store.