Web sites as apps? Monument Browser gets URL-less 'app' mode

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Monument Browser is a UWP alternative to the default Edge browser, with many bells and whistles. And one such new trick in the latest v2.2.1042.0 is that if you head into web pages via a pinned Start screen tile/shortcut, they're treated as applications, i.e. after a few seconds the browser URL bar is auto-hidden. So you can pin your bank, your taxi service, Facebook, whatever to your Start screen and then it's very much like using a HTML5-based application, with no typical browser furniture distractions.

Here's the latest Monument Browser update in action on my Lumia 950 XL (note that I have Monument Browser also running in its 'fullscreen' mode, i.e. without the system status bar at the top), with Facebook (whose UWP app is slow and bloated) and Amazon (whose UWP app is basically just the web anyway, but with some of the screen out of action):

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Very impressive. There are loads more sites that I like to 'app-ify'. And yes, really good native UWP apps would be better, but this all-in experience in Monument Browser isn't a million miles off for casual users.

Monument Browser is well worth installing, upgrading to 'Pro' (to support development - it's only £1.40), and then sitting back and waiting for updates to make it even better. It's here in the Store.

Source / Credit: Store