> I wonder if there's a market for an alternative "browser" that loads "native" code (or as close as practically possible) and runs it in a sandbox.

This is probably not what you had in mind, and I'm not sure how good it would be at sandboxing, but REBOL Reblets imho come close to this <http://www.rebol.com/reblets.html>

The question is what "browser" means. If viewing data connected by hyperlinks is the goal, that's pretty easy. Rebol's approach to X-Net (Executable Internet) apps is very different, with the goal of being a way to share both data and active content. You can do both, the web we know just wasn't designed for that.

> I wonder if there's a market for an alternative "browser" that loads "native" code (or as close as practically possible) and runs it in a sandbox.

Electron comes close, but many don’t like it at all. (I have somewhat mixed experiences, I love VS Code but I’m not too fond of Slack.)

Electron isn't native in any sense of the word. I meant something more like OS-specific binary executables that get loaded and executed in a sandbox.

Mike Acton once said something about having created a browser plugin his team used that loaded and ran binary exe tools on demand, but that it was also wildly insecure. At least I think he said something like that. My memory could be wrong about that.

We had this 20 years ago with Java (not native obviously) and ActiveX (Windows x86 only.)

> most people would rather use an SPA than have to download an app and have to keep it up to date themselves

Citation?

> Citation?

No.

Hah, you mean Java applets? Everything old is new again.

I meant something more like OS-specific binary executables that get loaded and executed in a sandbox.