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> > browsers are almost unrecognizable in featureset to the point they resemble an OS unto themselves > No one asked for this. My personal opinion is that ever

by Andrex 4y ago

> > browsers are almost unrecognizable in featureset to the point they resemble an OS unto themselves > No one asked for this. My personal opinion is that everything app-like about browsers needs to be undone, yesterday, and they should again become the hypertext document viewers they were meant to be. Even JS is too much, but I guess it does have to stay. People did ask for this, because it made them a lot of money. You should recognize your opinion is a minority one outside of tech (and possibly, there too). To wit, virtually no one is jumping to Gopher or Gemini.

josephg 4y ago
> No one asked for this. What people want is a way to run amazon.com (and gmail and slack and so on), on any of their devices, securely, and without the fuss of installing anything. Ideally the first-time use of amazon.com should involve nothing more than typing "amazon" and hitting enter. It should to show content almost instantly. Satisfying that user need doesn't require a web browser. If OS vendors provided a way to do that today, we'd be using it. But they don't. OS vendors still don't understand that. They assume people forever want to install software via a package manager. They assume software developers care about their platform's special features enough to bother learning Kotlin / Swift / GTK / C# / whatever. And they assume all software users run should be trusted with all of my local files. Why is docker popular? Because it lets you type the name of some software. The software is downloaded from the internet. The software runs on linux/mac/windows. And it runs in a sandbox. Just like the web. The web - for all its flaws - is still the only platform which delivers that experience to end users. I'd throw out javascript and the DOM and all that rubbish in a heartbeat if we had any better option.
- bufferoverflow 4y ago
  > What people want is a way to run amazon.com (and gmail and slack and so on) Guess what, both GMail and Slack have video calls. They use WebRTC. The browser has to support it. So the WebRTC code is a part of it. > Ideally the first-time use of amazon.com should involve nothing more than typing "amazon" and hitting enter. It should to show content almost instantly. And it does. Open an incognito tab, type amazon.com, it's pretty crazy how fast it loads, with all the images.
  - josephg 4y ago
    > Open an incognito tab, type amazon.com, it's pretty crazy how fast it loads, with all the images. Yes; that's my point. That's the bar native apps need to reach to be competitive with the web.
    - tsimionescu 4y ago
      You're just proposing to move all the complexity of the browser into some other VM that would have to be shipped by default by all OS platforms before it could become useful. Java tried exactly this, and it never took off in the desktop OS world. It wasn't significantly slimmer than browsers either, so it wouldn't have addressed any of your concerns. Also, hyperlinking deep into and out of apps is still something that would be very very hard to achieve if the apps weren't web native - especially given the need to share data along with the links, but in a way that doesn't break security. I would predict that if you tried to recreate a platform with similar capabilities, you would end up reinventing 90% of web tech (though hopefully with a saner GUI model than the awfulness of HTML+CSS+JS).
      - josephg 4y ago
        > You're just proposing to move all the complexity of the browser into some other VM that would have to be shipped by default by all OS platforms before it could become useful. I'm not proposing that. I didn't propose any solution to this in my comment. For what its worth, I agree with you - another java swing style approach would be a terrible idea. And I have an irrational hate for docker. If I were in solution mode, what I think we need is all the browser features to be added to desktop operating systems. And those features being: - Cross platform apps of some kind - The app should be able to run "directly" from the internet in a lightweight way like web pages do. I shouldn't need to install apps to run them. - Fierce browser tab style sandboxing. If the goal was to compete with the browser, apps would need to use mostly platform-native controls like browsers do. WASM would be my tool of choice at this point, since then people can make apps in any language. Unfortunately, executing this well would probably cost 7-10 figures. And it'd probably need buy in from Apple, Google, Microsoft and maybe GTK and KDE people. (Since we'd want linux, macos, ios, android and windows versions of the UI libraries). Ideally this would all get embedded in the respective operating systems so users don't have to install anything special, otherwise the core appeal would be gone. Who knows if it'll ever happen, or if we'll just be stuck with the web forever. But a man can dream.
- pjerem 4y ago
  While I agree with you, I don’t think the people really wanted this. I mean, life wasn’t miserable when web apps didn’t existed. We could have lived in an alternative universe where we succeeded to teach people the basics of how to use the computer as a powerful tool for themselves. Instead, corporations rushed to make most of the things super easy to make billions on the way. I’d even say that this wasn’t really a problem until they realized that closed computers allowed them more control and more money. So yeah, now we are stuck with web apps on closed systems and most people are happy with it, that’s true. And, as the time passes, we are loosing the universal access to "the computer". Instead of a great tool for enabling power to the people, it’s being transformed to a prison to control what the people can do, see and even think. ps : When I say "computer" I include PC, phones, tablets, voice assistants … everything with a processor running arbitrary programs.
  - mixermachine 4y ago
    I disagree. When I want to deliver a piece of software to my parents I first think about a web solution (they are a symbol for me for >80% of PC users). I just uninstalled a browser tool bar from my step father's pc last weekend. There are simply to many bad actors out there. The browser sandbox works pretty well against them. My parents have become very hesitant to install anything, even iOS updates, because they don't like change and fear that they might do something wrong. I agree that JS is not a gold standard. Still it works most of the time and with typescript stapled on top it is acceptable. Time has proven again and again (not only in tech) that the simple solutions will prevail. Want to change it? Build a simpler and better solution. I don't like that too but that's human nature at work.
pdntspa 4y ago
I'm so sick of people shutting down valid opinions because they have a "minority opinion" about tech. That tech slobbers so messily over the majority -- and, seemingly, ONLY the majority -- is a massive disservice to all of the nerds and power users that put these people where they are today. Maybe, instead of shutting those opinions down, you should reflect on how you, in whatever capacity you serve our awful tech overlords, can work to make these voices more heard and included in software/feature design
- Andrex 4y ago
  If OP had written their comment differently, I would have approached it differently is all I can say. I think my comment history would bear that out. Fwiw: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34226798 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34226798
- simlevesque 4y ago
  I hear you, but OP said 'no one asked for this' but people did ask for this. The whole argument was about popularity of the idea to add features to browsers.

by Andrex 4y ago

josephg 4y ago

> No one asked for this. What people want is a way to run amazon.com (and gmail and slack and so on), on any of their devices, securely, and without the fuss of installing anything. Ideally the first-time use of amazon.com should involve nothing more than typing "amazon" and hitting enter. It should to show content almost instantly. Satisfying that user need doesn't require a web browser. If OS vendors provided a way to do that today, we'd be using it. But they don't. OS vendors still don't understand that. They assume people forever want to install software via a package manager. They assume software developers care about their platform's special features enough to bother learning Kotlin / Swift / GTK / C# / whatever. And they assume all software users run should be trusted with all of my local files. Why is docker popular? Because it lets you type the name of some software. The software is downloaded from the internet. The software runs on linux/mac/windows. And it runs in a sandbox. Just like the web. The web - for all its flaws - is still the only platform which delivers that experience to end users. I'd throw out javascript and the DOM and all that rubbish in a heartbeat if we had any better option.

bufferoverflow 4y ago
> What people want is a way to run amazon.com (and gmail and slack and so on) Guess what, both GMail and Slack have video calls. They use WebRTC. The browser has to support it. So the WebRTC code is a part of it. > Ideally the first-time use of amazon.com should involve nothing more than typing "amazon" and hitting enter. It should to show content almost instantly. And it does. Open an incognito tab, type amazon.com, it's pretty crazy how fast it loads, with all the images.
- josephg 4y ago
  > Open an incognito tab, type amazon.com, it's pretty crazy how fast it loads, with all the images. Yes; that's my point. That's the bar native apps need to reach to be competitive with the web.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    You're just proposing to move all the complexity of the browser into some other VM that would have to be shipped by default by all OS platforms before it could become useful. Java tried exactly this, and it never took off in the desktop OS world. It wasn't significantly slimmer than browsers either, so it wouldn't have addressed any of your concerns. Also, hyperlinking deep into and out of apps is still something that would be very very hard to achieve if the apps weren't web native - especially given the need to share data along with the links, but in a way that doesn't break security. I would predict that if you tried to recreate a platform with similar capabilities, you would end up reinventing 90% of web tech (though hopefully with a saner GUI model than the awfulness of HTML+CSS+JS).
    - josephg 4y ago
      > You're just proposing to move all the complexity of the browser into some other VM that would have to be shipped by default by all OS platforms before it could become useful. I'm not proposing that. I didn't propose any solution to this in my comment. For what its worth, I agree with you - another java swing style approach would be a terrible idea. And I have an irrational hate for docker. If I were in solution mode, what I think we need is all the browser features to be added to desktop operating systems. And those features being: - Cross platform apps of some kind - The app should be able to run "directly" from the internet in a lightweight way like web pages do. I shouldn't need to install apps to run them. - Fierce browser tab style sandboxing. If the goal was to compete with the browser, apps would need to use mostly platform-native controls like browsers do. WASM would be my tool of choice at this point, since then people can make apps in any language. Unfortunately, executing this well would probably cost 7-10 figures. And it'd probably need buy in from Apple, Google, Microsoft and maybe GTK and KDE people. (Since we'd want linux, macos, ios, android and windows versions of the UI libraries). Ideally this would all get embedded in the respective operating systems so users don't have to install anything special, otherwise the core appeal would be gone. Who knows if it'll ever happen, or if we'll just be stuck with the web forever. But a man can dream.
pjerem 4y ago
While I agree with you, I don’t think the people really wanted this. I mean, life wasn’t miserable when web apps didn’t existed. We could have lived in an alternative universe where we succeeded to teach people the basics of how to use the computer as a powerful tool for themselves. Instead, corporations rushed to make most of the things super easy to make billions on the way. I’d even say that this wasn’t really a problem until they realized that closed computers allowed them more control and more money. So yeah, now we are stuck with web apps on closed systems and most people are happy with it, that’s true. And, as the time passes, we are loosing the universal access to "the computer". Instead of a great tool for enabling power to the people, it’s being transformed to a prison to control what the people can do, see and even think. ps : When I say "computer" I include PC, phones, tablets, voice assistants … everything with a processor running arbitrary programs.
- mixermachine 4y ago
  I disagree. When I want to deliver a piece of software to my parents I first think about a web solution (they are a symbol for me for >80% of PC users). I just uninstalled a browser tool bar from my step father's pc last weekend. There are simply to many bad actors out there. The browser sandbox works pretty well against them. My parents have become very hesitant to install anything, even iOS updates, because they don't like change and fear that they might do something wrong. I agree that JS is not a gold standard. Still it works most of the time and with typescript stapled on top it is acceptable. Time has proven again and again (not only in tech) that the simple solutions will prevail. Want to change it? Build a simpler and better solution. I don't like that too but that's human nature at work.

pdntspa 4y ago

I'm so sick of people shutting down valid opinions because they have a "minority opinion" about tech. That tech slobbers so messily over the majority -- and, seemingly, ONLY the majority -- is a massive disservice to all of the nerds and power users that put these people where they are today. Maybe, instead of shutting those opinions down, you should reflect on how you, in whatever capacity you serve our awful tech overlords, can work to make these voices more heard and included in software/feature design

Andrex 4y ago
If OP had written their comment differently, I would have approached it differently is all I can say. I think my comment history would bear that out. Fwiw: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34226798 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34226798
simlevesque 4y ago
I hear you, but OP said 'no one asked for this' but people did ask for this. The whole argument was about popularity of the idea to add features to browsers.