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>The browser is essentially the operating system for most computing today so access to peripherals is reasonable. Sure, but the fact that browsers became opera

by sznio 3y ago

>The browser is essentially the operating system for most computing today so access to peripherals is reasonable. Sure, but the fact that browsers became operating systems is unreasonable in the first place.

realusername 3y ago
Seeing where the mobile world goes, I still prefer my browsers, at least I can modify the websites as I want. Sure it's not great, but the alternatives are worse.
- toastal 3y ago
  If it’s proprietary, it can stay in they browser sandbox.
- didntcheck 3y ago
  Not to mention the sandboxing. I'm glad a lot of the "apps" I use are just "webapps", so that I can trust them less. A user process on a desktop OS is given an insane amount of permissions by default, though this is being fixed, slowly
  - realusername 3y ago
    That's also a good point yes, the browser sandbox is the strongest that we know of.
_ea1k 3y ago
IDK, that seemed to be the vision even back in the Netscape days.
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
That was always the end goal.
shawnz 3y ago
Why? Isn't the web basically the perfect fully virtualized and sandboxed environment with a highly standardized and open API and a sophisticated, accessible UI toolkit, with elaborate development tools built right in, like we always dreamed of? Isn't the web basically the perfect OS?
- jjoonathan 3y ago
  Yes, and most importantly: nobody owns it. Sure, we all complain about Chrome and its outsized influence, but at the end of the day the standards are more open than not and Safari and Firefox mostly work most of the time on most of the pages. That's a stark contrast to, say, .NET vs Cocoa or Android vs Apple app stores.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    >mostly work most of the time on most of the pages well, that sounds perfectly reasonable that only some pages are not standards compliant. :facepalm:
    - jjoonathan 3y ago
      "Comply or we will break your shit" works better in closed ecosystems. I'll take a little mess over a 30% tax and heavy-handed tempramental moderation any day of the week.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > Isn't the web basically the perfect OS? I don't think so at all. Web-based applications tend to suck, and it seems to me that much of the reason is because the browser is very imperfect as an OS.
  - nolist_policy 3y ago
    And yet you are posting this on HN, which one could argue is a Web application. And don't forget shopping online, there are a few small web shops out there with great UX. And you can use 20 year old websites just fine, the web has great backwards compatibility too. Web apps don't have to suck.

by sznio 3y ago

realusername 3y ago

Seeing where the mobile world goes, I still prefer my browsers, at least I can modify the websites as I want. Sure it's not great, but the alternatives are worse.

toastal 3y ago
If it’s proprietary, it can stay in they browser sandbox.
didntcheck 3y ago
Not to mention the sandboxing. I'm glad a lot of the "apps" I use are just "webapps", so that I can trust them less. A user process on a desktop OS is given an insane amount of permissions by default, though this is being fixed, slowly
- realusername 3y ago
  That's also a good point yes, the browser sandbox is the strongest that we know of.

_ea1k 3y ago

IDK, that seemed to be the vision even back in the Netscape days.

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

That was always the end goal.

shawnz 3y ago

Why? Isn't the web basically the perfect fully virtualized and sandboxed environment with a highly standardized and open API and a sophisticated, accessible UI toolkit, with elaborate development tools built right in, like we always dreamed of? Isn't the web basically the perfect OS?

jjoonathan 3y ago
Yes, and most importantly: nobody owns it. Sure, we all complain about Chrome and its outsized influence, but at the end of the day the standards are more open than not and Safari and Firefox mostly work most of the time on most of the pages. That's a stark contrast to, say, .NET vs Cocoa or Android vs Apple app stores.
- dylan604 3y ago
  >mostly work most of the time on most of the pages well, that sounds perfectly reasonable that only some pages are not standards compliant. :facepalm:
  - jjoonathan 3y ago
    "Comply or we will break your shit" works better in closed ecosystems. I'll take a little mess over a 30% tax and heavy-handed tempramental moderation any day of the week.
JohnFen 3y ago
> Isn't the web basically the perfect OS? I don't think so at all. Web-based applications tend to suck, and it seems to me that much of the reason is because the browser is very imperfect as an OS.
- nolist_policy 3y ago
  And yet you are posting this on HN, which one could argue is a Web application. And don't forget shopping online, there are a few small web shops out there with great UX. And you can use 20 year old websites just fine, the web has great backwards compatibility too. Web apps don't have to suck.