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I was excited to see that the proposed new Web Install API has entered Origin Trial in Chromium. It kind of works in Chromium Canary, but is most complete in Microsoft Edge beta (or, if you’re reading this after December 2025, starting with version 143). This makes sense, as the work has been done by the Edge team in Microsoft.
The reason I was excited is because I read the Web install API explainer when it was announced a few months ago:
The Web Install API provides a way to democratise and decentralise web application acquisition, by enabling “do-it-yourself” end users and developers to have control over the application discovery and distribution process. It provides the tools needed to allow a web site to install a web app. This means end users have the option to more easily discover new applications and experiences that they can acquire with reduced friction.
The current way of acquiring a web app may involve search, navigation, proprietary protocols, proprietary app banners, and multiple other workarounds. This can be confusing for end users that must learn how to acquire apps in every different platform, with even different browsers handling the acquisition process differently.
The web platform doesn’t have a built-in way to facilitate app discovery and distribution, the Web Install API aims to fix this.
Let’s dive in. As someone who doesn’t habitually use Edge, it took me a while to find the beta – download it from the Insider Channel. You’ll need to go to chrome://flags and enable Web App Installation API and then restart the browser.
There’s a nice demo page called Edge Demos, laid out with CSS Masonry (Rachel Remix), which can be installed as a standalone Web App. Clicking the Install button shows a normal (browser-generated) permission dialog:
Install Edge Demos app
Publisher: microsoftedge.github.io
Use this site often? Install the app which:
• Opens in a focused window
• Has quick access options like pin to Dock
• Syncs across multiple devices
Clicking ‘install’ opens a new window, in which the site is installed stand-alone:
As the site is itself an “App store”, I can install another app with a similar UX (although it’s not clear to me why the ‘use this site often?’ wording has changed):
And this too opens full-window, with no browser chrome:
Each of these installed apps shows up as a separate app when I do cmd+tab (on a Mac)
If you try to install an app that’s already installed in Edge, it knows this and shows a dialog “Open with…” or “Not now” (note to Microsoft: “no” is a perfectly good English word). I don’t know how you uninstall an app; on a Mac, they’re stored in Applications > Edge Beta Apps, but when I deleted them and re-started the browser, they were still installed. This doesn’t worry me; this isn’t on the open web, and it’s an origin trial of the API, not the UI.
The Webkitephant in the room
Of course, there’s a big question about Apple, who try their best to hide installation of Web Apps on iOS (and last year, even tried to kill all PWAs in the EU).
iOS also has its own proprietary MarketplaceKit which “enables alternative app marketplaces to install the apps they distribute to peoples’ devices”, but only in the European Union, and you must go cap-in-hand to Apple to ask for entitlement, provide Apple a stand-by letter of credit in the amount of €1,000,000 from a financial institution (or be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU), and pay Apple €0.50 for each first annual install of their marketplace app.
However, Diego González, the glamorous PM for PWAs on the Edge team, said on Mastodon
in scope of the W3C WebApps WG, Firefox, Safari and Chromium agreed to work on ‘current document’ installation. There’s discussion on a declarative way of enabling this as well, so there is cross-vendor progress
I notice that in the explainer, one of the people thanked for input is Marcos Cáceres. Marcos is a glamorous and jolly good chap who is now at Apple, but previously worked with me at Opera on W3C Widgets (a precursor to Web Apps) and then later on the W3C Web App Manifest spec that, along with Service Worker, powers lots of lovely PWAs today. He’s someone who has worked for years to make Web Apps work well (even at Apple; along with Microsoft, he was one of the editors of the Badging API spec). So I’m cautiously hopeful.
The Web Install API is currently being road-tested by pwastore.io and progressier.com, among others. If you have a PWA, why not sign up for the origin trial? It’s just a matter of adding a meta tag to your site.
now this means to start we’d only get ability to install the same page you’re browsing, but the cross-site install is something that continues discussion on WICG.
In the meantime, in Chromium we are committed to enabling and experimenting with ‘background-document’ installations.
I admit I’m not known for complimenting Microsoft’s management and their browser tactics at the Operating System level, but I have huge respect for chums on the Edge team for their standards work. I hope the origin trials are successful, so that the Web Install API and <install> element come to the web platform and all browsers, including on iOS where, so far, there is still a WebKit monopoly.
Credit where credit’s due: Well done, Edge team!
Update 5 Dec 2025: Despite good initial implementor feedback, Apple has said
There is zero interest on the WebKit side for incubating “background-document installs”, cross-origin installs, or Chromium specific stuff.