Re:Stop building databases
by maclockard on Friday December 01, 2023 @02:44PM
(#38491268)
Not just delivery, but also security. Browsers offer a level of isolation and safety that you generally don't get with native desktop apps. Things like iOS do bridge the gap a bit more though
Re:Stop building databases
by DaiPlusPlus on Friday December 01, 2023 @03:11PM
(#38491642)
> Browsers offer a level of isolation and safety that you generally don't get with native desktop apps.
They didn't originally: Java <applets> and ActiveX <objects> originally weren't sandboxed and had free run of the visitor's computer.
All major OSes today now have built-in support for process/app sandboxing. I suppose if the "rich client" frontend model (WPF, etc) was more popular then I expect desktop OS application isolation to have been introduced much sooner.
Security development happens where the market demands it, and rarely does it happen where it's actually needed.
I can't speak for ActiveX since I avoided IE like the plague, but Java applets were sandboxed. Just that the sandbox had a lot of holes.
Re:Stop building databases
by DaiPlusPlus on Friday December 01, 2023 @05:56PM
(#38493722)
Huh - you're right: http://www.securingjava.com/chapter-two/
Re:Stop building databases
by throwaway892238 on Saturday December 02, 2023 @12:14AM
(#38496109)
They don't, though. Browsers are almost trivial to exploit.
There have been seven (7) 0day exploits in Chrome this year (that we know of). I can't imagine another application that has that many 0days in one year.
But consider how WASM is now turning the browser into an app delivery client. Not a “html and json bodged into an app”, but a real honest to god app.
This project happens to be browser based because that’s convenient place to put a WASM app, and it has a decent presentation layer. But it doesn’t have to be!