Goodbye PNaCl, Hello WebAssembly • Hacker News Board

Re: Goodbye PNaCl, Hello WebAssembly

#21

Post by eeZi » Tue, May 30, 2017, 9:51 PM UTC

This one I'm fine with since WebAssembly is a worthy replacement, but I'm still annoyed at Google discontinuing Chrome Apps.

Some examples of specialized apps I use all the time that would require a native app otherwise:

- Signal Desktop

- TeamViewer

- Postman

- SSH client

- Cleanflight drone configuration tool

It was one of the best things that happened to Linux desktops in a long time and removing it hurts users and makes them less secure.

Now everyone is moving to Electron and instead of one Chrome instance, I'm now running five which use more than one GB of RAM each. Much less secure, too, since each has its own auto-updater or repository and instead of being sandboxed by Chrome's sandbox, they're all running with full permissions.

It also means I cannot longer use Signal Desktop on my work device since installing native apps is forbidden for good reasons, while Chrome Apps are okay.

It also hurts Chrome OS users since Chrome Apps are being abandoned in favor of Electron. It also makes it less useful for developers to create Chrome Apps since the market is much smaller.

Since Chrome Apps continue to be available on Chrome OS, I'm considering separating that functionality into a stand-alone runtime or making a custom build for Linux. Anyone wants to help with that?

Re: Goodbye PNaCl, Hello WebAssembly

#22

Post by spiderfarmer » Tue, May 30, 2017, 9:52 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #9

lwlml wrote: post #2

At this point, I really loathe adopting any facet of web-browser technology: there are too many broken APIs in too many browsers to maintain on both sides of the system: the browser developers have an insane number of combinations of features that need to be useful, secured and made reliable and developers for browsers are always at some weird disadvantage where they can spend months or years maintaining an applicati…

Yeah, we were looking at browser stats for our website today and during the last 30 days 20% of our distinct users were using IE 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11. Of course most were on IE 11, but when you still have a significant number of people still using ancient versions of IE, I despair at ever being able to use modern web technologies.

The only way to move forward is to ignore them. Put up a message that advises to install Chrome or Firefox and get rid of all the cruft that supports browsers older than 5 years. Most probably already have a modern browser installed but use IE out of habit. I see it at large corporations all the time. I even heard "I wish it would remind me to just use Chrome"

Re: Goodbye PNaCl, Hello WebAssembly

#23

Post by skybrian » Tue, May 30, 2017, 9:52 PM UTC

coolmitch wrote: post #11

As a web developer working primarily in JS, what should I be learning now to stay relevant/up-to-date once WebAssembly is more common? Are we going to see more web stuff built with c++, like the dsp example in this blog post?

It seems too soon to worry about it, unless you like to work on compilers in which case have fun! If you don't, you have to guess what compile-to-WebAssembly language will become popular. So maybe just learn new languages if you enjoy that?

If a popular web library uses it for something real, they will probably provide a JavaScript API to call into it.

Re: Goodbye PNaCl, Hello WebAssembly

#24

Post by Crontab » Tue, May 30, 2017, 9:53 PM UTC

Is WebAssembley going to turn into yet another web technology that can be used by websites in order to track us or to annoy us with advertising?

I'm asking because every time something new is introduced, it feels like it ends up being used to abuse users (Javascript, XSS, Cookies, HTML5 Video).

Re: Goodbye PNaCl, Hello WebAssembly

#25

Post by _wmd » Tue, May 30, 2017, 9:54 PM UTC

The most material result of this is that Chromebooks won't have a working SSH client starting sometime next year, because WebAssembly can't do real sockets without an external proxy.

Re: Goodbye PNaCl, Hello WebAssembly

#26

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, May 30, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

_wmd wrote: post #25

The most material result of this is that Chromebooks won't have a working SSH client starting sometime next year, because WebAssembly can't do real sockets without an external proxy.

No, FTFA: “We will remove support for PNaCl in the first quarter of 2018 everywhere except inside Chrome Apps and Extensions.”

Chrome Apps (and extensions) using PNaCl will continue to work.

Re: Goodbye PNaCl, Hello WebAssembly

#27

Post by iends » Tue, May 30, 2017, 10:00 PM UTC

_wmd wrote: post #25

The most material result of this is that Chromebooks won't have a working SSH client starting sometime next year, because WebAssembly can't do real sockets without an external proxy.

Yeah, between this and npapi removal the chromebook has lost a lot of functionality I used :(

Re: Goodbye PNaCl, Hello WebAssembly

#28

Post by AsyncAwait » Tue, May 30, 2017, 10:01 PM UTC

Crontab wrote: post #24

Is WebAssembley going to turn into yet another web technology that can be used by websites in order to track us or to annoy us with advertising? I'm asking because every time something new is introduced, it feels like it ends up being used to abuse users (Javascript, XSS, Cookies, HTML5 Video).

Every piece of technology can be abused, that doesn't mean the technology itself is bad and shouldn't be adopted.

Re: Goodbye PNaCl, Hello WebAssembly

#29

Post by xyzzy_plugh » Tue, May 30, 2017, 10:01 PM UTC

eeZi wrote: post #21

This one I'm fine with since WebAssembly is a worthy replacement, but I'm still annoyed at Google discontinuing Chrome Apps. Some examples of specialized apps I use all the time that would require a native app otherwise: - Signal Desktop - TeamViewer - Postman - SSH client - Cleanflight drone configuration tool It was one of the best things that happened to Linux desktops in a long time and removing it hurts users an…

Your comment scared me, but TFA doesn't say that:

> We will remove support for PNaCl in the first quarter of 2018 everywhere except inside Chrome Apps and Extensions.

Where do you see that chrome apps are being discontinued? Otherwise this is FUD.

Re: Goodbye PNaCl, Hello WebAssembly

#30

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 30, 2017, 10:02 PM UTC

_wmd wrote: post #25

The most material result of this is that Chromebooks won't have a working SSH client starting sometime next year, because WebAssembly can't do real sockets without an external proxy.

[deleted]