Some fat apps have a bootstrap that caches the core application in localstorage or some other facility. It may not be a solved problem for gigabyte sized apps.. but it is in concept a problem with a solution.

If that were the case, obviously it wouldn't work without some infrastructure changes.

But imagine an app where each function (like, say, the levels filter) was downloaded as needed and cached. That might be possible sooner rather than later.

I'm sure there are plenty of reasons why that's a non-starter. But I don't think that it's impossible to have an application of whatever complexity running in a browser... I mean, I remember when doom came out and I had a hard time running it on my machine without tweaking the configuration. And now...

Js and WebAssembly are both quite compact, I don't think many apps will be more than 10-100 MB. Of course they may contain extra data such as images for the ui or translations in text files but those can be downloaded on the side and cached.

the thing is, these apps are already multi-GB when compiled for x86/x64 platforms.

and please, please whoever is doing it - the performance will be crap compared to instant desktop. you can't get around it. it doesn't matter how powerful PC or how fast internet connection will be. I see it on gmail with my 100 mbs connection all the time, PC being quite performant one. when it was 800 mbs nothing changed.

I can accept it in gmail/facebook/whateva where expectations are low, but for anybody doing serious work in these tools, it will be frustrating, annoying experience for foreseeable future. As an complement to desktop app (say on the roads), why not. But nothing more

I'm more concerned about being able to use things like GreaseMonkey to strip junk out of the page.

WASM is designed to implement stuff that are computationally expensive. The typical junk you want to remove is not. If somehow WASM is used to protect this junk from you filtering it, this is probably done deliberately. WebDesigners can always find ways to bother you, but you can always punish them by not visiting their website anymore.

If I am the only one punishing them out of millions of views it won't have any effect. I haven't bought an IPhone but it hasn't forced Apple to make a device I want to buy.

> I haven't bought an IPhone but it hasn't forced Apple to make a device I want to buy.

"Punish them" was not quite appropriate an expression indeed. Anyway, why should it bother you that Apple exists and continues to sell phones?

See figma.com

Also https://blog.figma.com/webassembly-cut-figmas-load-time-by-3...

Browsers usually maintain a cache of compiled bytecode.

At a guess there could be an initial download of the base app with the most common functions that's ~50-100MB that you can cache and then functions/plugins can be streamed in as a when you use them.