Kitazo on the web: the same app in your browser, installable and offline

The same account everywhere

You sign in at kitazo.app with the same credentials as the app, and you find everything: library, Continue, feed, lists, stats. What you log from the browser shows on your phone and the other way round, because there is no separate local copy: the diary lives on the server. You can keep as many sessions open as you like, and close all but the current one with Log out other devices in the settings.

Installing it as an app

The web app is a PWA, which means it can be added to your home screen and opens full-screen, without the browser bar, with its own icon.

• Android and desktop, with Chrome or Edge: the first time you use it an Install Kitazo box appears at the bottom, with an Install button. If you dismiss it, it stays away for two weeks; meanwhile the same option is in the browser menu, "Install app" or "Add to Home screen".
• iPhone and iPad, with Safari: Apple doesn't allow automatic installation, so the box shows the two steps: tap the share icon, then Add to Home Screen. The installed app behaves like the others, notifications included.

Inside the installed app the box doesn't show, because it is no longer needed.

Without a connection

The web app keeps a copy of your library in the browser. If the network is gone, a line at the top says No connection — showing your saved library and you can keep reading and logging. Changes are queued, with a count of how many are waiting, and sent on their own when the connection returns: Back online — sending N changes. Changing the language, though, needs the network, because the other languages aren't stored on the device.

Updates

On the web there is no store: a new version goes live on the server and the browser picks it up at the next load. A tab left open for a long time checks every five minutes whether there is a new version and, if there is, shows the Time to update banner inviting you to reload the page. You lose nothing by reloading: the diary is on the server.

Notifications in the browser

On the web too Kitazo sends push notifications, with the browser's permission. Turning on Push notifications on your device in the settings makes the browser ask whether to allow notifications from kitazo.app. If you denied it in the past, you have to re-enable them in the browser's site settings; the app points that out. They arrive as long as the browser is open, even with the tab closed, and in the installed app just like on the native apps.

What differs from the apps

• Ads. The phone apps carry AdMob banners; the web app currently loads no ad script at all.
• Sign in with Apple. It is available only in the iPhone app. On the web you sign in with email and password or with Google.
• Widget. The home-screen widget exists only on Android.
• Export. On the web Export my data downloads the ZIP file directly; on a phone the share sheet opens so you can save it.
• Sharing a list. On the web the text is copied to the clipboard instead of opening the share sheet.

The site and the app

kitazo.app is also the public site: title pages, charts, guides, FAQ, terms and privacy can be read without an account. The site's language is changed with the selector at the top of the page and is separate from the app's language, which lives in the settings. If you are already signed in and open the site's home page, you are taken into the app.

Links shared from the app, of the form kitazo.app/series/… or kitazo.app/movie/…, are site pages with the title's preview: anyone opening them without the app sees the page and can sign up; anyone with the app installed on their phone is taken straight to the title.

If something is off

A page that looks stale is fixed by reloading; a sign-in that doesn't stick is almost always a browser that clears site data on close, or a private window. For everything else there is support, from FAQ in the settings or by writing to support@kitazo.app.