Microsoft has made a major change to its Linux Teams client, making it available as a progressive web app (PWA).

Microsoft Teams is one of the most popular corporate communication platforms and competes with Slack and Zoom. Despite offering a Linux client, Microsoft is throwing its weight behind a PWA version of Teams.

The new version offers significant benefits over the old app, including a more up-to-date experience on distros that may not update their software repositories as often. The PWA also does not require users to rely on Flatpaks or Snaps, which some users do not like.

“Linux customers who rely on Microsoft Teams for collaboration and communication needs told us they want the full richness of Teams features available for their users in a secure way,” writes Anupam Pattnaik in a Microsoft blog post. “This can now be achieved using the Teams PWA.

“Additionally, the PWA enables us to ship the latest Microsoft Teams features faster to our Linux customers and helps us bridge the gaps between the Teams desktop client on Linux and Windows. The PWA experience is available for both Edge and Chrome browsers running on Linux.”

The new app is supported via Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome.

“The PWA offers access to more capabilities, including custom backgrounds, gallery view, reactions, the raise-a-hand feature in meetings, as well as large gallery and Together mode views,” Pattnaik adds. “The PWA also provides desktop-like app features, such as system notifications for chat and channel, a dock icon with respective controls, application auto-start, and easy access to system app permissions.

“The Microsoft Teams PWA for Linux can be used with Conditional Access configuration, applied through Endpoint Manager, to enable Linux users to access the Teams web application while securely using Edge. This helps organizations use an industry-leading, unified endpoint management solution for Teams from Linux endpoints with security and quality built in.”

Users can go to https://teams.microsoft.com to get started. In the meantime, the old Linux Teams client will be retired in December 2022.