I’ve been using a Pixelbook over the past week, checking out the new Linux application functionality. It’s not ready for prime time, but it’s a billion times better than the last time I tried to run Linux apps on Chrome OS.

But I was struck by a certain irony: half the applications I wanted to install were Electron apps. If you’re not familiar with Electron, it’s a framework that allows developers to create desktop apps using web technologies. “If you can build a website, you can build a desktop app,” is the tagline. In fact, many Electron applications feel almost exactly like websites.

Slack, Hyper, Simplenote, Visual Studio Code. All responsible for a large portion of my day, and all of them are built with Electron.

Under the hood,…

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