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The reality is that in disabling WebGL, you have an incredibly unusual configuration and the author didn’t test for it. Stop making this a philosophical argumen

The reality is that in disabling WebGL, you have an incredibly unusual configuration and the author didn’t test for it. Stop making this a philosophical argument. Why does the documentation need WebGL? It doesn’t, but the web has moved beyond just addressing “needs”. Why do you need to be on HN? You don’t. Yet here you are. I’m not arguing that the juice is worth the squeeze here, but your argument has a false premise that you’re exploiting to make the situation sound more absurd than it is.

cess11 2y ago
I don't think it's incredibly unusual. On sensitive machines in corporate settings you commonly disable pretty much everything on every page that isn't in the 'trusted zone' or whatever. Personally, by default I shut down all the browser crap that might needlessly allocate RAM or allow memory leaks or slurp cycles without giving me some kind of value. I think this allows me to hold at least a few hundred extra tabs open. For technical documentation I expect text, hypertext and static images, if you're going to require JS and WebGL and whatnot I'm going to assume you aren't entirely honest with me about the information we're about to share and I'll probably sandbox a scrape of the documentation if I really need it.
- auxfil 2y ago
  [dead]
- postalrat 2y ago
  If you mean block all network traffic that isn't in the trusted zone then sure. But disabling features you personally don't like isn't a good security practice.
  - cess11 2y ago
    Maybe I wasn't clear. First I described a somewhat common practice in corporate settings, which is ostensibly motivated by security policies. Then I described my personal preference, which I motivated with resource consumption and performance factors. I did not say that the corporate practice is a good one, I just brought it up as an example to refute the suggestion that limited web browsers are incredibly unusual.
  - ecef9-8c0f-4374 2y ago
    Disabling features less attack surface

cess11 2y ago

I don't think it's incredibly unusual. On sensitive machines in corporate settings you commonly disable pretty much everything on every page that isn't in the 'trusted zone' or whatever. Personally, by default I shut down all the browser crap that might needlessly allocate RAM or allow memory leaks or slurp cycles without giving me some kind of value. I think this allows me to hold at least a few hundred extra tabs open. For technical documentation I expect text, hypertext and static images, if you're going to require JS and WebGL and whatnot I'm going to assume you aren't entirely honest with me about the information we're about to share and I'll probably sandbox a scrape of the documentation if I really need it.

auxfil 2y ago
[dead]
postalrat 2y ago
If you mean block all network traffic that isn't in the trusted zone then sure. But disabling features you personally don't like isn't a good security practice.
- cess11 2y ago
  Maybe I wasn't clear. First I described a somewhat common practice in corporate settings, which is ostensibly motivated by security policies. Then I described my personal preference, which I motivated with resource consumption and performance factors. I did not say that the corporate practice is a good one, I just brought it up as an example to refute the suggestion that limited web browsers are incredibly unusual.
- ecef9-8c0f-4374 2y ago
  Disabling features less attack surface