Ubuntu 24.10 Update Resolves Persistent PWA Issue in Chromium Snap

If you’re utilizing the Chromium snap application, especially for running Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), there’s good news as a bug fix aimed at enhancing your experience is on its way.

Installing a PWA¹ via the Chromium snap usually leads to expectations of the app opening in a dedicated, simplified window through its shortcut in the application grid.

Currently, PWAs through the Chromium Snap are not recognized as individual instances by GNOME Shell. Consequently, they lack a unique dock icon and are amalgamated under the Chromium icon. This configuration also complicates switching to the app using alt/super + tab, as it isn’t identified as a distinct application.

This specific issue with PWAs might not be noticeable if you’re using the Chromium DEB package. For insights on installing Chromium on Ubuntu, you can refer to my guide (as described in this article). It’s important to note that the aforementioned bug primarily affects the Chromium snap version provided by Canonical, which is due to its sandboxed design.

(Sadly, you can’t switch to a Chromium DEB in Ubuntu by running sudo apt install chromium-browser as the Chromium DEB in the Ubuntu repos is a transition package that installs the snap version, similar to Firefox and Thunderbird).

Works in Chromium too

We’ve Updated the OMG! Chrome Extension

But good news: this annoying PWA issue in the Chromium snap is fixed in Ubuntu 24.10!

Oracular carries an Ubuntu-specific chromium-snap-pwa.patch to GNOME Shell.

This update ensures that PWA windows from the Chromium snap function as users expect: they have their own dock icons and appear separately in the application switcher.

Plans are in place to implement this patch in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS as well, so stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, a workaround to avoid this issue is to launch PWAs directly from the chrome://apps page in the Chromium snap, instead of using the shortcut in the GNOME Shell application picker.

It’s not only PWAs that are affected. The same problem occurs with websites that you ‘install’ as shortcuts.