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And when it's normalised for firmware updates to happen via WebHID and WebUSB? Saying no will seem as fringe as browsing the web with NoScript. It's already the

• leptons 7mo ago
  >Mozilla/Firefox is also deeply opposed to these anti-features. Mozilla is irrelevant, and they don't have a hardware platform where they forbid all other browser engines from it like Apple does. If Apple weren't total assholes and didn't forbid Chrome from actually being Chrome on iOS, then I wouldn't care, I'd simply tell users to install Chrome. But Apple forces all browsers on iOS to use Safari, which they have intentionally crippled and refuse to let other browsers use their own engine. If you don't think that's abusive business practices and deserves the DOJ lawsuit, then you're just another Apple shill.
  • troad 7mo ago
    >> Mozilla is irrelevant, and they don't have a hardware platform where they forbid all other browser engines from it like Apple does. >> If Apple weren't total assholes >> Apple forces all browsers on iOS to use Safari >> you're just another Apple shill. I've still not even mentioned Apple once. You seem extremely fixated on Apple. I'm not aware of any major corporation, group, standards body, or OSS project that would agree with Google's attempts to extend the browser so deeply beyond the web. The general consensus is that it is deeply reckless. Google failed to get stuff like WebHID into the standard - because everyone thinks it's a terrible idea - so they've just rolled it out on their own anyway, using their browser monopoly to force facts on the ground. Facts favourable to Google, unsurprisingly. When Microsoft did this sort of thing, we used to call them out on it. I have no idea why you seem so adamant to defend this. I can only suspect that you've let yourself become completely partisan in some grand Google-Apple war that you've imagined, which is why you keep bringing up Apple out of nowhere?
    • lyu07282 7mo ago
      You are missing the initial point here, the accusation is that apple doesn't want the web as a viable platform to develop fully fledged cross platform applications that circumvent its own moat. You just repeat the maximalist position that the web shouldn't "extend the browser so deeply beyond the web". Many people disagree with that, its the best shot we have for true cross platform applications that would force Apple to open their platform, we say the reason apple doesn't want that is for purely profit driven reasons. Also doesn't this argument apply to WebAssembly and other standards (like WebGPU) as well? Why should I be able to render a video game in the browser but have no way to manage input devices (like multiple controllers) to make it a suitable platform for fully-fledged video games in the future? Like I understand why Apple (OR Microsoft for that matter) doesn't want Stadia-like services to suddenly run on all their devices without any cut in monetization, so naturally they sabotage such efforts in Safari... Like here is my own reason to support that effort: I use Linux, and there are a ton of proprietary applications that if there were developed on the web platform would become accessible to me. I understand the privacy concerns with some of those APIs, but the argument isn't that the user shouldn't have agency over those features, do you see how that's a separate conversation? So now: Why are you against it?
      • troad 7mo ago
        > Many people disagree with that, its the best shot we have for true cross platform applications that would force Apple to open their platform, we say the reason apple doesn't want that is for purely profit driven reasons. And equally, Google wants their platform to replace OSes for purely profit-driven reasons of their own. I'm not saying this as some terrible indictment. They're all corporations, I don't expect anything else from them. > Also doesn't this argument apply to WebAssembly and other standards (like WebGPU) as well? This is a fairly consistent strain of criticism on WASM posts here on HN. The death of software as we know it; all of computing as a service, forever. > Like here is my own reason to support that effort: I use Linux, and there are a ton of proprietary applications that if there were developed on the web platform would become accessible to me. What makes you think future thin-client 'PC's will even be able to run anything other than a browser shell? The current requirements for Windows/iPhone/Android will just be replaced by a requirement to run an approved, TPM-clad Chromebook, cryptographically certified to be running no software other than Chrome. The ultimate in Secure Boot. But of course this will provide no actual security to end users, in a world where websites can write to your keyboard firmware. Security for corporate IP, maybe. I genuinely think you're letting your dislike of Apple - on which I hear you, Apple's no angel - cloud your judgment here. The future Google's building is pretty dark.