Electron
A whole browser, repackaged, again and again, until your fan kicks on.
- ✕ Hundreds of MB per app
- ✕ Multiple Chromium instances
- ✕ Battery vampire
- ✕ Self-managed updater hell
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Web apps deserve to live free.
Three ways to put a website on your desktop. Two of them are wrong.
Electron ships an entire browser engine inside every single app. The next app does it again. And the next. Your laptop pays the bill.
PWA is a beautiful idea trapped in a vendor turf war — gated by Safari, abandoned by Firefox desktop, and only available on websites that bothered to opt in.
FTWA is the third way. A native shortcut to the Chromium-based or Firefox browser you already trust. Featherweight. Honest. Yours.
Nº 01
Pick your weapon
PWA
A standard built by committee, gated by browsers that don't agree.
- ~ Fragmented browser support
- ~ Requires developer opt-in
- ~ Spawns its own process
- ~ Updates often stuck on stale cache
FTWA
A native shortcut, into the browser you already love. That's it.
- ✓ Kilobytes, not megabytes
- ✓ Works on every website
- ✓ Native search & launchers
- ✓ Updates with the web
Nº 02
The case against Electron
The bloat in numbers
300MB
of disk, per app, before you've sent a single message. Every Electron app ships its own copy of Chromium — install ten and you've cloned a browser ten times over.
Electron is honest about what it is: a browser, repackaged. The trouble is the math. Ten Electron apps means ten copies of Chromium running in parallel — gigabytes of duplicated runtime, fighting for the same RAM.
FTWA breaks the loop. The browser engine you've already paid for, in memory, warmed up, signed-in — does the work. Once. For everything.
Electron
heavy- Disk
- 150–300 MBevery app ships its own Chromium
- RAM
- 150–500 MBSlack, Discord, Teams, all at once
- Cold start
- 2–5 sboot a browser engine to read a tab
- Updates
- Self-managedyet another updater in your tray
FTWA
featherweight- Disk
- ≈ 1.5 KBa shortcut, nothing more
- RAM
- 0 MBuses the browser already open
- Cold start
- ≈ 50 msinstant, in the active session
- Updates
- Automaticas fresh as the website itself
Nº 03
The case against PWA
A PWA looks a lot like FTWA — a shortcut, a window, a website. But the moment you install one, your OS spawns a separate Chromium-app process: its own renderer, its own GPU process, its own session storage. A second browser, running next to the one you already have open.
FTWA opens in the browser that's already running. The renderer is warm. The session is signed-in. Your ad-blocker, password manager, sync, and reader mode — all already there.
PWA is a second runtime pretending to be the first. FTWA is the first.
(PWAs also need the developer's opt-in — a manifest, a service worker, a maintained icon set — and install support is fragmented across browsers. And those service workers? They cache aggressively, get stuck, and ship old versions for days after the website has moved on. FTWA hits the live web every time.)
The hidden cost of installing a PWA
Another ·runtime
Each installed PWA is a fresh Chromium process — extra RAM, a detached session, none of your extensions. FTWA reuses the runtime you already paid for.
PWA
half- Process
- +1 Chromiuma separate Chromium-app process per install
- RAM
- 100–200 MBan isolated renderer per installed app
- Session
- Detachedno shared cookies, extensions or password manager
- Opt-in
- Requiredmanifest + service-worker, set by the developer
FTWA
reused- Process
- Reusedthe browser already running
- RAM
- ~ 0 MBno extra renderer, no extra process
- Session
- Sharedcookies, extensions, sync, password manager
- Opt-in
- Noneworks on any website
Nº 04
The scoreboard
| Electron | PWA | FTWA | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Disk per app | 150–300 MB | ~ 1 MB cache | ≈ 1.5 KB |
| RAM cost | 150–500 MB | 100–200 MB · new process | ~ 0 · reuses tab |
| Cold start | 2 – 5 s | ~ 1 s | ~ 50 ms |
| Browser session | N/A | Detached | Shared |
| Browser support | Per app | Fragmented | Chromium & Firefox |
| Requires opt-in | Yes (vendor) | Yes (manifest + SW) | No |
| Native launcher | Yes | Maybe | Yes |
| Updates | Self-managed | Often stale · stuck SW | Live web |
"The browser is the runtime. Why ship another one?"
¶
Nº 05 · The verdict
Stop installing browsers. Start freeing web apps.
Electron is the past — heavy, duplicated, opaque. PWA installs another runtime next to the one you already trust. FTWA is the working answer: a tiny shortcut into the browser already running, on any website you choose.