Meta Hints Whatsapp for Windows 11 Will Switch to a Chromium Web App

Posted2 months agoActive2 months ago

ksec

14 points

11 comments

windowslatest.comTechstory

skepticalnegative

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40/100

WhatsappWindows 11Chromium

Key topics

Windows 11

Chromium

Meta is reportedly replacing the native WhatsApp app on Windows 11 with a Chromium-based web app, sparking concerns among users about potential performance and feature losses.

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Nov 3, 2025 at 12:11 PM EST
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Discussion (11 comments)

Showing 11 comments

ksecAuthor

2 months ago

1 reply

If Electron is really inevitable, can we dramatically slim down Electron?

dmitrygr

2 months ago

1 reply

Hm, not a bad idea. We could factor out the common part from all the electron apps. We'd ship it as a separate app, since it is common to them all. The remaining parts of all these apps would be pretty small, and to allow companies to update them easily, we could host them on servers and serve them dynamically as-needed over some sort of a protocol on top of IP, using the interconnectedness ("web") of most computers in the world.

I propose we call the common part a "web browser" since it works over the "web" and can walk this "web" in any direction it wishes ("browsing")

Since each application exists on a separate company's server (a location, or "a site") we could call each one "a web site"

I'll put together an RFC for comments but I also welcome them here.

noir_lord

2 months ago

I don't see it catching on - it's so obvious that if it was a good idea someone would have done it.

> using the interconnectedness ("web") of most computers in the world.

So it'd be a World Wide Web? what an interesting idea that would be - one problem I see is that such a product would be open enough that large companies would hate it and would prefer if the web collapsed down to a handful of products, they'd have to control the browsers and invade privacy to sell advertising to afford it though so it'd be self limiting because I can't imagine users would go along with that level of their privacy been invaded.

deafpolygon

2 months ago

1 reply

how better to track their users with

gruez

2 months ago

1 reply

There isn't much difference in tracking between a native app and a webapp that's in a chromium wrapper. Whatever tracking can be done by script running in the chromium wrapper, can be done by the native app.

deafpolygon

2 months ago

Except, you can push new tracking mechanisms within hours, rather than waiting for them to (never) update it.

gradientsrneat

2 months ago

1 reply

It's a downgrade from a native app performance-wise, but from a security and privacy standpoint there are only upsides. The web browser is the most sophisticated end-user sandbox on your computer. A highly internet-connected app from a company like Meta, which is notorious for privacy violations, belongs in a sandbox.

vinyl7

2 months ago

It's only a sandbox in as far as Google lets it be a sandbox. I'm sure Google has telemetry in chrome that deeply tracks users beyond what is publicly known or available.

BoredPositron

2 months ago

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

xg15

2 months ago

I love how services are first becoming app-only, no website and then the apps are replaced again with websites, only that you can't use the normal browser to view them...

flakiness

2 months ago

The screenshot says Webview2 https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/Microsoft-edge/webview...

So it's Chromium, but not Electron.

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ID: 45801447Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 1:32:57 PM

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