Chrome Apps page for Desktop abandons pagination, adds rounded icons for PWAs

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are websites that behave like native apps on mobile devices. They can be installed from the browser or through app stores like Google Play. PWAs have become more popular over the past few years as they offer fast, responsive, and enjoyable experiences for users.

Google has been working on improving its support for these experiences on desktop devices as well as mobile. One of these recent changes is a new developer flag for Chrome called “desktop PWAs app home page” which redesigns chrome://apps. This page can be found at the far left of your Chrome bookmark bar and shows the websites that you have installed as apps on your Chromebook or browser.

desktop PWAs app home page

Use new chrome://apps page which has different UX on desktop – Mac, Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, Fuchsia, Lacros

#enable-desktop-pwas-app-home-page

The new design removes pagination and adds rounded icons or rather rounded shapes surrounding the existing icon designs provided by developers. Pagination is the process of dividing a web page into discrete pages with tabs of some sort. The previous layout did this, and if you had a lot of apps, you found yourself thumbing through 30+ pages without a search bar to find what you wanted.

The new layout by contrast makes it easier to browse and access your installed web apps without having to click through multiple pages as all you need to do is scroll vertically! The rounded icons are also more consistent with the adaptive icons that Android devices use.

To enable this feature for yourself, you need to enable chrome://flags#enable-desktop-pwas-app-home-page. This feature is still experimental, but it shows Google’s commitment to making PWAs more accessible and attractive on desktops.

While we don’t know when this will officially release, we do know that it will be a welcome change for Chrome users who enjoy using PWAs this way. It’s not every day most people access chrome://apps, but anyone coming from a Chromebook and is accustomed to their Everything Launcher seeks it out knowing it provides a similar experience. My hope is that in the future, Google adds a search bar so it mimics the Chromebook launcher! What do you think of the new design? Do you like it or not? Let us know in the comments below!