Re:Show HN: CLI tool for saving web pages as a single file
by wongarsu on Friday August 23, 2019 @12:18PM
(#20779106)
> I imagine something like "applications" folder where every subfolder automatically becomes an isolated "container"
Snap [1] goes pretty far in this direction. Apps are isolated against each other, and with AppArmor isolated from the system (at least on Ubuntu, your distro might vary). Android does much of the same.
A big problem is that most software exists to manipulate data on the user's machine, so isolating the software from the User folder is impractical. At the same time this data is usually the most valuable thing about the entire computer. That makes it fundamentally very hard to design a system where you can trust arbitrary apps. Android tried to solve this with a "file open" dialog that's controlled by the OS so that there's an easy way to give apps temporary access to single files, but that leads to weird UX.
Snap [1] goes pretty far in this direction. Apps are isolated against each other, and with AppArmor isolated from the system (at least on Ubuntu, your distro might vary). Android does much of the same.
A big problem is that most software exists to manipulate data on the user's machine, so isolating the software from the User folder is impractical. At the same time this data is usually the most valuable thing about the entire computer. That makes it fundamentally very hard to design a system where you can trust arbitrary apps. Android tried to solve this with a "file open" dialog that's controlled by the OS so that there's an easy way to give apps temporary access to single files, but that leads to weird UX.
1: https://snapcraft.io/