March 2020: Chrome Web Store will stop accepting new Chrome Apps.

Google posted a timeline in its blog post with specific dates on when Chrome apps will stop being supported across different platforms. In the end, killing Chrome apps won't have a major impact on how the large majority of users experience the web. If not, some of these apps will redirect you to a website where you can use them as traditional web apps. Even if you fall into this group and use Chrome apps regularly, there's a good chance those apps can be found in a different format, like an Android app or a Chrome extension. That leaves Chrome OS users, or those who own Chromebooks. If you're a Windows, macOS or Linux user, then you probably don't use Chrome apps because installing them became impossible when they were removed from the Chrome Web Store. Google's mercy didn't help these 'Chrome Packaged Apps', and now we know when they'll disappear for good. Google's timeline got muddled, and Chrome apps were spared for several more years, although the Chrome apps section of the Chrome Web Store was removed in late 2017.

Adoption was so low that Google originally announced in 2016 that Chrome apps would stop being supported on Windows, macOS and Linux because only one percent of users had installed them. Overshadowed by Android apps and Chrome extensions, Chrome Apps never really caught on with developers.

Chrome web store apps