Earlier quoted context omitted.
The title of the post is amazing, the content is not. Truly HN
The title and content of my post?
I think they were confused by the nature of my link blog.
The browser is the sandbox
151–160 of 202 posts
Re: The browser is the sandbox
#152What are the limits of this? Could you replicate Gemini CLI in the browser but with better ux to support non Agentic coding use cases? Could this be used with arbitrary local tools as well? I could be missing something but I don't see how you could use a non remote MCP server with this setup.
I don't want to say Yes... but... given all of these tools are mostly built with JS and wrapped in a TUI we could probably go some way to having it run in the browser. There are fewer and fewer Node based APIs that haven't got a way to run in the browser.
Re: The browser is the sandbox
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was also leaking memory, which made it very unsuitable for anything long running (like long-running screen displays, ask me how I know).
This is a misconception. AS3 actually had great garbage collection, and solidly written AS3 code did not leak.
Flex player leaked memory like a sieve. After one day or so it would hang the computer. Maybe it was wrongly written, but leak it did. I have experienced it first hand.
Maybe it was the standalone flex player instead of the web Flash player?
Re: The browser is the sandbox
#154Wrong title, if it's "File System Access API (still Chrome-only as far as I can tell)" then it should read "A browser is the sandbox". At the risk of sounding obvious : - Chrome (and Chromium) is a product made and driven by one of the largest advertising company (Alphabet, formally Google) as a strategical tool for its business model - Chrome is one browser among many, it is not a de facto "standard" just because it…
I stand by a policy that if a feature in one of my projects can only be implemented in Chrome, it's better not to add the feature at all; the same is true for features which would be exclusive to Firefox. Giving users of a specific browser a superior experience encourages a dangerous browser monoculture.
I say the following as a firefox+ubo user:
There are many useful things that can only be implemented for Chromium: things like the filesystem API mentioned in this post, the USB devices API used to implement various microcontroller flashing tools, etc. Users can have multiple browsers installed, and I often use Chromium as essentially a sandboxed program runtime.
Re: The browser is the sandbox
#155I've found it interesting that systemd and Linux user permissions/groups never come into the sandboxing discussions. They're both quite robust, offer a good deal of customization in concert,and by their nature, are fairly low cost.
It shouldn’t come up because it’s not sufficient. How would systemd prevent local JavaScript code from sending DNS, http, webrtc network requests when it’s opened in the users browser?
Re: The browser is the sandbox
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a misconception. AS3 actually had great garbage collection, and solidly written AS3 code did not leak.
Flex player leaked memory like a sieve. After one day or so it would hang the computer. Maybe it was wrongly written, but leak it did. I have experienced it first hand. Maybe it was the standalone flex player instead of the web Flash player?
My memory is a bit fuzzy, do not remember flex player, did you mean AIR?
(Flash for desktop, with file access)
Re: The browser is the sandbox
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
I stand by a policy that if a feature in one of my projects can only be implemented in Chrome, it's better not to add the feature at all; the same is true for features which would be exclusive to Firefox. Giving users of a specific browser a superior experience encourages a dangerous browser monoculture.
I say the following as a firefox+ubo user: There are many useful things that can only be implemented for Chromium: things like the filesystem API mentioned in this post, the USB devices API used to implement various microcontroller flashing tools, etc. Users can have multiple browsers installed, and I often use Chromium as essentially a sandboxed program runtime.
SOME users can have multiple browsers installed. Some can absolutely not. In fact, 1.6 billion users can only have one installed and it's not Chrome or Chromium based.
Re: The browser is the sandbox
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I say the following as a firefox+ubo user: There are many useful things that can only be implemented for Chromium: things like the filesystem API mentioned in this post, the USB devices API used to implement various microcontroller flashing tools, etc. Users can have multiple browsers installed, and I often use Chromium as essentially a sandboxed program runtime.
SOME users can have multiple browsers installed. Some can absolutely not. In fact, 1.6 billion users can only have one installed and it's not Chrome or Chromium based.
Assuming you're talking about iOS: and their OS won't let them install your app to manage files or flash microcontrollers anyway. It's not your problem when they choose an actively hostile platform.
Re: The browser is the sandbox
#159We never say that it isn't. There is a reason Google developed NaCl in the first place that inspired WebAssembly to become the ultimate sandbox standard. Not only that, DOM, JS and CSS also serves as a sandbox of rendering standard, and the capability based design is also seen throughout many browsers even starting with the Netscape Navigator. Locking down features to have a unified experience is what a browser shoul…
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Re: The browser is the sandbox
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did you got that impression? There is the universal hate for flash because it was used for ads and had shitty security, but anyone I know who actually used AS3 loved it. At its peak, with flex builder, we also had a full blown UI Editor, where you could just add your own custom elements designed directly with flash ... and then it was all killed because Apple did not dare to open source it, or put serious efforts…
> There is the universal hate for flash because it was used for ads and had shitty security That's only one side of it. Flash was the precursor to the indie/mobile gamedev industry we have today (Newgrounds, Miniclip, Armor Games), before smartphones become ubiquitous. Not to mention some rather creative websites, albeit at the cost of accessibility . Flash's only fault was it's creators were gobbled up by Adobe, who…
It was by design very difficult to secure.