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I wouldn't describe it as "conservative" but as "pro-native-apps and anti-web-apps", which seems irrational in this day and age where "native apps" means platfo

I wouldn't describe it as "conservative" but as "pro-native-apps and anti-web-apps", which seems irrational in this day and age where "native apps" means platform lock-in by monopolies, less sandboxing and user-control than on the web, much more gatekeeping and control over published binaries, and these days the web app is usually a more private/secure alternative to the native app (which also bundles a marketing SDK, now, and fingerprints you invisibly via iCloud Keychain, tracks you with various identifiers, and more). If native platforms removed USB or Bluetooth, the "control over my own hardware" crowd would flip a table. I just wish they also understood the benefits of the web compared to native. The Chrome/Project Fugu team's dream of making the web platform as powerful as native platforms is the correct one from a user freedom standpoint, or at bare minimum a "user choice" standpoint.

dylan604 6mo ago
I'm not saying pro-native-apps outright even if that might be what it gets boiled down as. I'm saying I do not trust anything that runs in a browser. I actively block as much nonsense as possible. I do not trust devs that write code to run in browsers. There's a lot of devs getting taken out in the blast radius, but the only way to be sure is to take off and nuke it from orbit. There are devs out there hell bent on writing malicious code. I am willing to take a stand and refuse to use things when the net result is negative. I do not use social media. I do not shop at Walmart. These are the decisions I'm willing to live with even if it makes life slightly less "easy" because I've made a moral decision to not open myself up to nonsense just to later ask "what happened...".
- lxgr 6mo ago
  Sure, you do what works for you. But why advocate for even more limits to how other people use their computers? One person's nonsense is another person's treasured hobby. Yes, bad actors exist, but why concede every single nice thing to them?
  - dylan604 6mo ago
    again, net negative is being glossed over. whatever good and nice things there might be, if it is being used more for negative purposes, you need to consider is it worth it at all or was it rushed and needing more thought before the PoC was pushed to prod
    - lxgr 6mo ago
      How can you tell that the negatives were glossed over? Just by WebUSB's eventual launch? Have you considered that different people might have different value preferences than you?
      - albuic 6mo ago
        It bas been and that's why Firefox refused to implement it. It's good that this is done with a plugin as it is not on by default as mist people do not understand the risks. Making it more difficult offers a bit more protection for most people. Google is known for launching stuff in the webbrowser without thought from a security and privacy standpoint. They are business oriented, not privacy oriented.
dwaite 6mo ago
The web and native app platforms have very different security models. Nobody is vetting websites for you. There is no guarantee the same company operates a website today that did yesterday. There is no obvious distribution or regulatory authority instituting penalties for illegal actions (and often is no legal presence in a country when illegal actions take place). That means for the web, every consent prompt has a large, sometimes even unbounded amount of harm behind it if the user picks incorrectly, and browsers have limited capacity to help them pick correctly outside of reactive block lists once substantial harm has been done and recognized. This is why, for example, the major browsers have all moved to restricting web extensions behind their own review processes/stores, and put restrictions that make unaudited web extensions difficult to install outside of development workflows. The risk is just too great. Chrome pushed many of these API early in the Chromebook product cycle, because their idea was that you would only build apps using web technologies. I somewhat doubt they would have pushed for WebUSB themselves if Chromebook started in its current state, where it primarily runs android apps and is about to transition to be android-based.
- lxgr 6mo ago
  > The web and native app platforms have very different security models. Yes, and as a result, the web is much more sandboxed than native app stores (which are mostly based on the illusion that vetting apps can somehow achieve better security than minimizing what resources apps can access in the first place and making access more fine grained). This is exactly why I'd rather run e.g. shady USB aftermarket firmware flashing apps in my browser (where I know they can at most compromise the device I'm flashing) than as a native app (where USB access is the default and requires zero permissions to be approved). > This is why, for example, the major browsers have all moved to restricting web extensions behind their own review processes/stores, and put restrictions that make unaudited web extensions difficult to install outside of development workflows. The risk is just too great. Web extensions very often have access to your complete browsing data, including all cookies. That's orders of magnitude more risky than access to an explicitly selected USB device, in my view. > I somewhat doubt they would have pushed for WebUSB themselves if Chromebook started in its current state, where it primarily runs android apps and is about to transition to be android-based. Android has an USB API as well, and if Google only wanted "apps" to have USB access, nothing was stopping them from making Web USB "Chrome App Store" only.
skydhash 6mo ago
> where "native apps" means platform lock-in by monopolies, less sandboxing and user-control than on the web, much more gatekeeping and control over published binaries, and these days the web app is usually a more private/secure alternative to the native app Please add “mobile and/or proprietary” before “native apps”. Linux and BSD on PC are still very much free. The web as a platform is just a NIH effort.
albuic 6mo ago
No, native app is not platform lock-in... You just need to choose the OS correctly and also the app. The SDK for advertising can be present in both. The sandboxing does exist in OS. And you clearly loose control over the App when the website is taken down while you can still use the native app. If native platform remove support for USB or BLE, your web browser cannot use it either so no USB/BLE at all. Users can choose but native is a lot better for privacy and security if the OS and the app are chosen correctly.

dylan604 6mo ago

I'm not saying pro-native-apps outright even if that might be what it gets boiled down as. I'm saying I do not trust anything that runs in a browser. I actively block as much nonsense as possible. I do not trust devs that write code to run in browsers. There's a lot of devs getting taken out in the blast radius, but the only way to be sure is to take off and nuke it from orbit. There are devs out there hell bent on writing malicious code. I am willing to take a stand and refuse to use things when the net result is negative. I do not use social media. I do not shop at Walmart. These are the decisions I'm willing to live with even if it makes life slightly less "easy" because I've made a moral decision to not open myself up to nonsense just to later ask "what happened...".

lxgr 6mo ago
Sure, you do what works for you. But why advocate for even more limits to how other people use their computers? One person's nonsense is another person's treasured hobby. Yes, bad actors exist, but why concede every single nice thing to them?
- dylan604 6mo ago
  again, net negative is being glossed over. whatever good and nice things there might be, if it is being used more for negative purposes, you need to consider is it worth it at all or was it rushed and needing more thought before the PoC was pushed to prod
  - lxgr 6mo ago
    How can you tell that the negatives were glossed over? Just by WebUSB's eventual launch? Have you considered that different people might have different value preferences than you?
    - albuic 6mo ago
      It bas been and that's why Firefox refused to implement it. It's good that this is done with a plugin as it is not on by default as mist people do not understand the risks. Making it more difficult offers a bit more protection for most people. Google is known for launching stuff in the webbrowser without thought from a security and privacy standpoint. They are business oriented, not privacy oriented.

dwaite 6mo ago

The web and native app platforms have very different security models. Nobody is vetting websites for you. There is no guarantee the same company operates a website today that did yesterday. There is no obvious distribution or regulatory authority instituting penalties for illegal actions (and often is no legal presence in a country when illegal actions take place). That means for the web, every consent prompt has a large, sometimes even unbounded amount of harm behind it if the user picks incorrectly, and browsers have limited capacity to help them pick correctly outside of reactive block lists once substantial harm has been done and recognized. This is why, for example, the major browsers have all moved to restricting web extensions behind their own review processes/stores, and put restrictions that make unaudited web extensions difficult to install outside of development workflows. The risk is just too great. Chrome pushed many of these API early in the Chromebook product cycle, because their idea was that you would only build apps using web technologies. I somewhat doubt they would have pushed for WebUSB themselves if Chromebook started in its current state, where it primarily runs android apps and is about to transition to be android-based.

lxgr 6mo ago
> The web and native app platforms have very different security models. Yes, and as a result, the web is much more sandboxed than native app stores (which are mostly based on the illusion that vetting apps can somehow achieve better security than minimizing what resources apps can access in the first place and making access more fine grained). This is exactly why I'd rather run e.g. shady USB aftermarket firmware flashing apps in my browser (where I know they can at most compromise the device I'm flashing) than as a native app (where USB access is the default and requires zero permissions to be approved). > This is why, for example, the major browsers have all moved to restricting web extensions behind their own review processes/stores, and put restrictions that make unaudited web extensions difficult to install outside of development workflows. The risk is just too great. Web extensions very often have access to your complete browsing data, including all cookies. That's orders of magnitude more risky than access to an explicitly selected USB device, in my view. > I somewhat doubt they would have pushed for WebUSB themselves if Chromebook started in its current state, where it primarily runs android apps and is about to transition to be android-based. Android has an USB API as well, and if Google only wanted "apps" to have USB access, nothing was stopping them from making Web USB "Chrome App Store" only.

skydhash 6mo ago

> where "native apps" means platform lock-in by monopolies, less sandboxing and user-control than on the web, much more gatekeeping and control over published binaries, and these days the web app is usually a more private/secure alternative to the native app Please add “mobile and/or proprietary” before “native apps”. Linux and BSD on PC are still very much free. The web as a platform is just a NIH effort.

albuic 6mo ago

No, native app is not platform lock-in... You just need to choose the OS correctly and also the app. The SDK for advertising can be present in both. The sandboxing does exist in OS. And you clearly loose control over the App when the website is taken down while you can still use the native app. If native platform remove support for USB or BLE, your web browser cannot use it either so no USB/BLE at all. Users can choose but native is a lot better for privacy and security if the OS and the app are chosen correctly.