What is the web's "story" for distributing local-first apps?

[josephrocca]

I'm trying to allow people to download an app as a simple folder that they can run locally without knowing about web server stuff. My users apparently like having full, local control over the app (e.g. so they can decide when they want updates, instead of being forced into updates when I push code).

Two thoughts:

• I'm wondering whether this use case can be solved by Isolated Web Apps. In my case I don't actually want the app to be fully isolated, since users can optionally add (remote or local) extension scripts. Ideally it'd just be a web bundle that can be directly "navigated to", but Chrome recently removed their implementation of that in favor of Isolated Web Apps.
• Also wondering if the simple file:// approach could work if the constraint were added that all JS modules must come with an integrity hash? Although maybe I'm misunderstanding the reason that modules can't be imported.
  • But I guess the file:// approach isn't really an ideal long-term solution since IIUC localStorage/IndexedDB don't have an origin to attach to, and several browser features are disabled due to page not being https.

My overall question here is summarised in the title. I thought Web Bundles were going to solve this, but it seems like that is no longer being pursued, and Isolated Web Apps are very "locked down", based on my current understanding. I think there should be a way for users to simply "run a HTML file" (perhaps as a Web Bundle, or similar) in a way that's safe and convenient.

Previous/related:

• Suggestion: You should be able to load module-scripts in the file:// protocol. #8121 (temporarily locked by Domenic due to noise)