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Web browsers today have “everything but the kitchen sink” capabilities built-in and are becoming more and more complex each year. They are turning into whole pl

by _wldu 5y ago

Web browsers today have “everything but the kitchen sink” capabilities built-in and are becoming more and more complex each year. They are turning into whole platforms that have browser plug-ins and extensions for every possible need known to humankind. While many of these add-ons are handy and useful, we should not trust them with password management. Browsers are just too complex and have far too much going on. Full article: https://www.go350.com/posts/the-design-flaws-of-password-managers/ https://www.go350.com/posts/the-design-flaws-of-password-man...

i80and 5y ago
> Web browsers today have “everything but the kitchen sink” capabilities built-in and are becoming more and more complex each year. Thinking back to the Netscape Suite and Mozilla, this is a fun cycle
- dotancohen 5y ago
  Actually, Chrome today is a great Javascript IDE and application runtime. There's Chrome extensions for everything from calculators to full CRMs. I'm just waiting for it to get a decent web browser.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  Yes, but that was application capabilities, not platform capabilities: back with Netscape Communicator there was no insanely-capable JavaScript features like WebUSB, WebRTC, TypedArray buffers, and so on. This is what we're referring to when we say web-browsers are like operating-systems: because of the capabilities afforded to JavaScript programs, not because the browser is bundled with a built-in mail client (like Emacs...) or because of non-web-platform feature bloat like Seamonkey. --------- I imagine eventually Thunderbird will come back as a 100% JS application (no more XUL?) in a normal Firefox (or Chrome, or Edge, or Safari, but not iOS Safari, because reasons) window - making use of a hypothetical-but-easily-imaginable WebIMAP, WebPOP, or just after raw TCP sockets become a thing in JS: https://wicg.github.io/raw-sockets/docs/explainer.html https://wicg.github.io/raw-sockets/docs/explainer.html

by _wldu 5y ago

i80and 5y ago

> Web browsers today have “everything but the kitchen sink” capabilities built-in and are becoming more and more complex each year. Thinking back to the Netscape Suite and Mozilla, this is a fun cycle

dotancohen 5y ago
Actually, Chrome today is a great Javascript IDE and application runtime. There's Chrome extensions for everything from calculators to full CRMs. I'm just waiting for it to get a decent web browser.
DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
Yes, but that was application capabilities, not platform capabilities: back with Netscape Communicator there was no insanely-capable JavaScript features like WebUSB, WebRTC, TypedArray buffers, and so on. This is what we're referring to when we say web-browsers are like operating-systems: because of the capabilities afforded to JavaScript programs, not because the browser is bundled with a built-in mail client (like Emacs...) or because of non-web-platform feature bloat like Seamonkey. --------- I imagine eventually Thunderbird will come back as a 100% JS application (no more XUL?) in a normal Firefox (or Chrome, or Edge, or Safari, but not iOS Safari, because reasons) window - making use of a hypothetical-but-easily-imaginable WebIMAP, WebPOP, or just after raw TCP sockets become a thing in JS: https://wicg.github.io/raw-sockets/docs/explainer.html https://wicg.github.io/raw-sockets/docs/explainer.html