Show HN: FTWA – Turn any website into an app

Pretty good! Just a few observations:

* The Firefox (BETA) entry does not work on default Ubuntu installs, where Firefox is a Snap. Yes, snap bad, bla bla bla, but it still remains one of the most likely way Firefox will be installed on Ubuntu. This comes from the fact that your script attempts to locate the profile folder in ~/.mozilla/firefox, whereas snaps stores them in ~/snap/firefox/common/.mozilla/firefox/.

* New profiles unfortunately don't share logins on Firefox, which means your app is disconnected at first. Not a big deal, but could maybe be changed by copying some things from the default profile ?

* Firefox does not display _any_ titlebar when ran in this way.

Love the idea. There's many times where I'd like something to have a bit more "privilege" on my toolbar than what a regular tab (even pinned) gets.

Thanks!

- Yes I could create a second firefox preset for snap installs - I would prefer not to touch such sensible files, but will give instructions on how to do it manually

I had written a similar program (but very barebone compared with what you've made), with Firefox only. The way I dealt with profile, is to specify the full path of the profile, rather than a name. This way, I don't have to know where Firefox is searching for profiles, and I can keep all the additional profiles in a separate directory, so they don't mix with normal profiles and don't clog up profile manager.

Yes I saw this option as well, but it seems that it's not possible for macOS

Since Mozilla has started to provide an official Debian-style repository there is no reason to use snap on Ubuntu any more. Well, except if some users don't know or don't care to switch.

Do you have a good summary of why snap is bad?

One aspect is that the server side is not free software. So only Canonical can reasonably host a repo of snaps.

That was enough for me not to look into the technical merits of the clientside implementation. The few experiences I had with snap was that programs were starting slowly (Firefox) and e.g. GPU acceleration did not work (vlc). Not sure how good the sandboxing is. But I run my Firefox sandboxed by firejail and the overhead can not be felt in daily usage.

Ubuntu has replaced the deb version of Firefox with Snaps a few times on my computer.

On at least 3 occasions, I became aware of this when I would open Firefox and nothing would happen, except a message that "Firefox is already running". The only resolution was to install the deb Firefox package.

A couple months ago, I needed to do a fresh install since my system got borked during the upgrade to 24.04 LTS. As usual, the Firefox snap package was installed, so I decided to give it a try.

To its credit, it actually works this time. However, it will not save images on right click or open Zoom meeting links in the desktop client. I am fairly certain this problem would disappear if I switched back to the deb package, but it's not a big enough hassle for me to bother. I can live with some workarounds for now.

Overall, I don't mind snaps, but the Firefox snap has been far more trouble than it's worth.

>there is no reason to use snap on Ubuntu any more. Well, except if some users don't know or don't care to switch.

Also known as "90% of your users". Defaults stick, and there's nothing bad enough about snaps that i'd waste time of my day adding the debian repo, trying to switch my profiles over, etc.