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Webassembly is a runtime not a feature like location services, that would make as much sense as prompting the user for whether JS should be enabled every time a

Webassembly is a runtime not a feature like location services, that would make as much sense as prompting the user for whether JS should be enabled every time a page loads. Webassembly is relatively new, but expect many websites to start implementing newer client front-ends in wasm as opposed to JS in the nearish future, at least partially. Disabling it would only make sense if you also intend to disable JS, which is your choice but just makes your life harder =P

TomMarius 8y ago
It could be phrased as a feature. "Enable high-performance computing for this website?"* or something like that. * I'm aware it's incorrect. It's just an illustrative example.
- skissane 8y ago
  The average user has no idea of the implications of answering "Yes" or "No", or the respective pros and cons of each option. One shouldn't ask people questions they have no hope of sensibly answering. Some highly technical users will have some idea of what the implications of each answer are, but for them you are better to use the proper name ("WebAssembly"), since then it will be much clearer what the question actually is asking about.
  - enzanki_ars 8y ago
    Browsers, except Chrome recently [1], will ask the user if they want to run Flash. I do not believe that most people even understand the risks Flash brings. [1]: Chrome stopped asking and won’t run Flash until they click though a couple menus to enable it. --- Edit: I just remembered that WebAssembly has JavaScript based polyfills. Disabling WebAssembly does not do me much good, as it will still run. No dialog can really stop that...
- geofft 8y ago
  Why would anyone ever say no to that, though? In order for a permission prompt to be meaningful, the tradeoff must be immediately obvious. For instance, "Allow this website/app to use your camera?" is a meaningful prompt. You might want it to use features involving taking photos; you might not want the site or app to see where you are. But what is the downside of high-performance computing? And how am I supposed to meaningfully evaluate (even as a security nerd!) "Allow high performance computing that might steal secrets from your machine?" Why would I ever say yes to that?
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    Everyone knows that anything high performance kills battery, or they will the effect right after they enable it and choose accordingly next time. If they're on laptops or mobile and a simple news page asks them that to mine crypto (assuming that it's not going to be usual at least for a few next years), it's fishy and they're not going to allow it.
    - geofft 8y ago
      > Everyone knows that anything high performance kills battery Not everyone is on a battery-powered device, and also, it's often true that "high performance" means "it completes faster and therefore spends less energy." Certainly if saying no often triggers a polyfill in actual web apps, people will quickly learn that high performance means less battery. Agree about news pages but I wish we'd prevent them from using any serious amount of CPU, whether in wasm or JS.

TomMarius 8y ago

It could be phrased as a feature. "Enable high-performance computing for this website?"* or something like that. * I'm aware it's incorrect. It's just an illustrative example.

skissane 8y ago
The average user has no idea of the implications of answering "Yes" or "No", or the respective pros and cons of each option. One shouldn't ask people questions they have no hope of sensibly answering. Some highly technical users will have some idea of what the implications of each answer are, but for them you are better to use the proper name ("WebAssembly"), since then it will be much clearer what the question actually is asking about.
- enzanki_ars 8y ago
  Browsers, except Chrome recently [1], will ask the user if they want to run Flash. I do not believe that most people even understand the risks Flash brings. [1]: Chrome stopped asking and won’t run Flash until they click though a couple menus to enable it. --- Edit: I just remembered that WebAssembly has JavaScript based polyfills. Disabling WebAssembly does not do me much good, as it will still run. No dialog can really stop that...
geofft 8y ago
Why would anyone ever say no to that, though? In order for a permission prompt to be meaningful, the tradeoff must be immediately obvious. For instance, "Allow this website/app to use your camera?" is a meaningful prompt. You might want it to use features involving taking photos; you might not want the site or app to see where you are. But what is the downside of high-performance computing? And how am I supposed to meaningfully evaluate (even as a security nerd!) "Allow high performance computing that might steal secrets from your machine?" Why would I ever say yes to that?
- TomMarius 8y ago
  Everyone knows that anything high performance kills battery, or they will the effect right after they enable it and choose accordingly next time. If they're on laptops or mobile and a simple news page asks them that to mine crypto (assuming that it's not going to be usual at least for a few next years), it's fishy and they're not going to allow it.
  - geofft 8y ago
    > Everyone knows that anything high performance kills battery Not everyone is on a battery-powered device, and also, it's often true that "high performance" means "it completes faster and therefore spends less energy." Certainly if saying no often triggers a polyfill in actual web apps, people will quickly learn that high performance means less battery. Agree about news pages but I wish we'd prevent them from using any serious amount of CPU, whether in wasm or JS.