Orientador: Célia Maria Retz Godoy dos Santos / Resumo: O objetivo deste estudo foi a construção de um protótipo e a realização de um teste de Progressive Web Apps (PWA) para gestão de informações sobre a “realidade aumentada”. O termo PWA é utilizado para nomear uma metodologia hibrida (web regulares e aplicativos móveis) de desenvolvimento de softwares, cuja principal funcionalidade é criar aplicativos híbridos que entreguem uma experiência semelhante aos apps nativos, sem precisar “baixar” o app e/ou se cadastrar no software. O método utilizado neste estudo se subdividiu em duas fases: inicialmente um levantamento exploratório sobre linguagens de programação e de código aberto, a fim de entender as possibilidades e técnicas da PWA; e posteriormente a construção propriamente dita do protótipo, que incluiu: pesquisa na web sobre o assunto “realidade aumentada” para compor o aplicativo, locação de servidor para publicação do produto; avalição do aplicativo via o método de Design-Research (DBR) qualitativo; aplicado a 5 profissionais que atuam no campo de mídia e tecnologia. A construção do protótipo foi efetivada, condizente com a metodologia proposta, atendeu a maioria dos requisitos de usabilidade e acessibilidade, indicando facilidade no acesso às informações, que foram agrupadas sobre o tema e disponibilizada via este app. Em que pese os aspectos positivos, detectou-se, por ainda estar em fase de implementação, a fraca interatividade e participação proativa dos usuários e a dificuldade de atualização e incorporação de outros c... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The purpose of this study was to build a prototype and perform a Progressive Web Apps (PWA) test to manage information about “augmented reality”. The term PWA is used to name a hybrid methodology (regular web and mobile apps) for software development, whose main functionality is to create hybrid apps that deliver an experience similar to native apps, without having to “download” the app and / or register in the software. The method used in this study was divided into two phases: initially an exploratory survey on programming and open source languages, in order to understand the possibilities and techniques of PWA; and later the actual construction of the prototype, which included: web research on the subject “augmented reality” to compose the application, rental of a server to publish the product; evaluation of the application via the qualitative Design-Research (DBR) method; applied to 5 professionals working in the media and technology field. The construction of the prototype was carried out, consistent with the proposed methodology, it met most of the usability and accessibility requirements, indicating easy access to information, which were grouped on the topic and made available via this app. Despite the positive aspects, it was detected, because it is still in the implementation phase, the weak interactivity and proactive participation of users and the difficulty of updating and incorporating other content in a collaborative manner, which is believed to occur as far as ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Since the late 80s the web has been evolving through new standards, added functionality, device performance and improved user experience. Websites evolved from static information to what is now known as web apps in which web technologies started to replace regular native programs and apps, as web apps slowly started offering similar functionality and performance, with the added benefit of being cross-platform. Over time, even more functionality and improvements were added to the web apps which, with the right combination, made them progressively become more like apps. In 2015, this combination got named by Google as Progressive Web Apps (PWA) which allow users to add web apps to their home-screens and use them like native apps. PWAs can support being used offline, give notifications, use the device’s hardware and more. In this thesis, the compatibility, performance, security, privacy, and user/business impact of fundamental elements of PWA are researched through literature review and experimental analysis. Eight browsers are tested on four operating systems for compatibility of the Service Worker, Web App Manifest, add to home-screen ability and offline usage functionality. For performance, tests are done on a website called Fleet Management System (FMS) which is a track and trace system for Inter-Data Europe b.v. who will keep using the implementation and knowledge created from this study. For security, privacy and user/business impact, a literature review is done on past studies, use-cases and discoveries made during the implementation and tests. The results show that most of PWA’s fundamental functionality is supported by most major browsers, especially on Android and on Chromium browsers, with the exception of iOS in which only Safari supports anything to do with PWA. Performance is found to be heavily dependent on implementation strategy but can make a significant difference if implemented correctly. Security is found to allow certain abuse and sensitive data leaks depending on implementation. Furthermore, user reengagement and revenue of major companies are found to increase significantly after implementing PWA.

Users spend more time than ever on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, while native app development continues to become harder due to platform fragmentation. The web is a promising platform for mobile applications because of its easy access and standardised technologies that work unanimously across many different platforms and operating systems. However, native applications have always had an edge over the web because of important features that have not been available anywhere else, such as push notifications, background synchronisation and offline support. Progressive Web Apps aim to bring the web platform closer to native by enabling many of these important features while still running completely in the web browser, with the possibility to install the application, effectively promoting it to a top-level application. This project will evaluate the capabilities of web-based mobile applications compared to traditional native mobile applications. Three simple proof of concept applications will be built to test the performance and user experience with the help of different JavaScript libraries and techniques for building a Progressive Web App. Then one of the implementations will be further developed and matched against an existing native application with similar features in terms of functionality and performance. The study finds that for this use case, a Progressive Web App may be used instead of a native app without missing out on any important functionality. This simplifies development and releases, by enabling rich code sharing between the different platforms as well as avoiding the app distribution platforms by distributing the application entirely through the web, automatic and transparent to the users. However, this solution means more responsibility in terms of infrastructure for developers to maintain and optimise as the application needs to be distributed by own servers. / Allt mer tid ägnas åt mobila enheter såsom smartphones och surfplattor, medan apputveckling blir allt svårare på grund av spridningen av plattformar. Webben är en lovande plattform för mobila applikationer på grund av dess lättillgänglighet och standardiserade teknologier som fungerar likadant på många olika plattformar och operativsystem. Trots detta har nativa appar alltid haft ett övertag gentemot webben på grund av funktioner som inte varit tillgängliga på andra platformar, såsom pushnotiser, bakgrundssynkronisering och offlinestöd. Progressive Web Apps syftar till föra webbplattformen närmare nativ genom att möjliggöra många av dessa funktioner men fortfarande köras enbart i webbläsaren, med möjlighet att installera applikationen på enheten. Projektet kommer att utvärdera kapaciteten i webbaserade mobila applikationer jämfört med traditionella mobilapplikationer. Tre stycken proof of concept-applikationer kommer att byggas för att testa prestanda och användarvänlighet med hjälp av olika JavaScript-bibliotek och tekniker för att bygga en Progressive Web App. Därefter kommer en av implementationerna att vidareutvecklas och utvärderas gentemot en existerade app med liknande funktionalitet. Studien visar att en Progressive Web App i det här användningsfallet kan ersätta en nativ mobilapplikation utan att gå miste om viktig funktionalitet. Det skulle förenkla utveckling och publicering, genom att möjliggöra koddelning mellan olika plattformar och undvika appdistribueringsplattformarna genom att distribuera applikationen enbart genom webben, automatiskt och transparent för användarna. Lösningen innebär dock mer ansvar i form av underhåll och optimering av infrastruktur eftersom applikationen måste distribueras genom egna servrar.

Web technologies are becoming increasingly useful with new features and the gap to native apps is narrowing. Recently, IndexedDB was added to the web standard to provide large scale storage solutions directly in the browser. Is it performant enough to be used with a spatial database? In this study, such a system is developed for Foran Sverige AB and we learn that IndexedDB indeed can be used for this purpose. Even storage demanding geospatial applications can be developed as a multi- platform system with a single codebase, all while broadening the possible audience reach by avoiding an app installation process.

The Hybrid approach of development has for a long time been the dominating way to develop cross-platform applications targeting both the web and mobile. In recent years, a new combination of technology has appeared called Progressive Web Application (PWA) which aims to combine Native capabilities with best practices of the web to deliver a new Native-like experience to users without the need of Native wrappers. So far PWAs have proven to be the inferior choice when it came to performance and platform support. The purpose of this study is to compare the two technologies based on a literature review and evaluate the current performance across three parameters in an experiment - battery consumption, CPU utilization and time to first activity. Two applications were developed using each respective technique, with the Apache Cordova framework being used for the Hybrid approach and the React framework being used to implement PWA features. The results showed that the Hybrid approach is better in the majority of tests, offering more in terms of platform API access and providing better performance while only being slower when it came to time it took to first activity; but something to consider is that the PWA approach was not far behind. The conclusion this study arrived at was that PWAs have developed significantly since previous studies and is almost able to match Hybrid apps in terms of APIs and performance, but that Hybrid apps are still the preferred choice when it comes to performance. Further development and a wider adaptation of the PWA specification could very well change the way developers choose to approach mobile app development in the future as well as a potential for bringing the web closer to the mobile platform.

Developing an app for Android and iOS traditionally requires you to build two different versions. This is both costly and time consuming, which has led to the creation of many Cross-platform alternatives. One such alternative is to use a Progressive Web App (PWA). They are built like regular Web apps and include features previously unique to Native apps. Our focus is to compare PWAs to other Cross-platform solutions by measuring the performance of a PWA, Web app and Cordova app. Terms in the ecosystem are clarified due to inconsistencies, and the process of converting a Web app into a PWA is described. The measurements showed that the PWA and Cordova app had almost equal overall performance, and they were both faster than the Web app. This indicates that PWAs are a viable Cross-platform alternative, but more quantitative studies with performance in focus needs to be conducted due to the small scale of this work. Other aspects of PWAs also needs to be evaluated, such as app size and ease of development.

The Service Worker is a programmable proxy that allows the clients to keep offline parts of websites or even the whole domains, receive push notifications, have back-ground synchronization and other features. All of these features are available to the user without having to install an application - the user only visits a website. The service worker has gained popularity due to being a key component in the Progressive Web Applications (PWAs). PWAs have already proven to drastically increase the number of visits and the duration of browsing for websites such as Forbes [1], Twitter [2], and many others. The Service Worker is a powerful tool, yet it is hard for clients to understand the security implications of it. Therefore, all modern browser install the service workers without asking the client. While this offers many conveniences to the user, this powerful technology introduces new security risks. This thesis takes a closer look at the structure of the service worker and focuses on the vulnerabilities of its components. After the literature analysis and some testing using the demonstrator developed during this project, the vulnerabilities of the service worker components are classified and presented in the form of the vulnerability matrix; the mitigations to the vulnerabilities are then outlined, and the two are summarized in the form of security guidelines.

Progressive Web Apps (PWA) is a concept of enhanced web apps which aim to erase the difference between web and native apps. The concept of PWA introduces several benefits, including simpler distribution and development, which makes web apps a viable option for many businesses. The installation process of a PWA is different from native apps and this study aims to understand whether or not it has an impact on the users will to install the PWA. PWA:s are installed directly from the browser, rather than an app marketplace. Said installation process is suspected to be unknown to many which might influence the impact. In this study, several papers on the topic are studied. A PWA is developed from scratch which is used as a platform for a user test, hosting a brief introduction of the topic as well as guiding participants through the installation process. In conjunction with the user test a survey is conducted to collect the impressions from their experience in the user test. The result of the survey shows indications that the suspected lack of knowledge and experience was correct, and that the installation process is not to complicated.Additionally, results show that many probably will not bother to install a PWA, even if it is available. Therefore, I argue that the installation process does have an impact in its current form. Alternatives to the installation process used in this study do exist and are discussed in this paper.