Chrome 42 Beta Brings Powerful Developer Features.

The web is quickly becoming as powerful as native apps and Chrome 42 beta brings a number of huge features for developers to Android devices.

First, it brings a new “App Install Banner” that allows websites to show a prompt to users that asks if they want to add your site to their home screen. The idea is that Google wants to encourage users to start pinning the sites they frequent to their home screen, just like apps.

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Chrome 42 also brings push notifications to the web, thanks to a new Push API that allows them to send a system notification. Your website can now send a full notification, even if Chrome isn’t open.

Happy to see the mobile web – or at least Chrome’s version of it – is catching up to “native” apps in terms of supported features. Let’s hope Safari and Firefox make the Push API a priority!