Microsoft Releases Teams Web App For Linux And Discontinues Native Client

The Microsoft Teams Progressive Web App (PWA) is now also available for Linux. This replaces the native client for Teams, which Microsoft will no longer develop. Linux users can now use Teams with full functionality in the browser.

Microsoft announced this in a new post for the TechCommunity and published a few details about the new PWA.

The new web app supports Together mode, a large gallery view, custom backgrounds and much more. It offers everything that the native client for Linux offered and more – and will now benefit from faster updates as a PWA. This guarantees that Linux users will have much faster opportunities to try out new features.

Linux client Discontinued

Microsoft is now planning to discontinue the Linux desktop client as early as December 2022. Users then have to switch to the PWA in order to continue using the communication platform under Linux.

The Teams PWA is available on both Edge and Chrome on Linux. Nothing has been said about usability with other browsers.

“The PWA also offers desktop-like app features, such as system notifications for chat and channel, a dock icon with appropriate controls, automatic application launch, and easy access to system app permissions,” Microsoft’s announcement reads. It’s not surprising that Microsoft is moving to a PWA for teams on Linux. As an operating system, Linux is already a niche. The overlap between Teams users and Linux users is probably quite small.

By moving to a Progressive Web App, Microsoft can continue to provide Teams to Linux users without having to dedicate dedicated resources to the operating system while optimizing the PWA for multiple platforms.