[baghira]

1. Yes, you have higlighted a source of frustration: currently to limit certain features one must either install half a dozen extensions on chromium or firefox, or stick to ESR versions of firefox, or gtkwebkit browsers (which I'm afraid do lag behind the apple upstream when it comes to security fixes). Hopefully with CEF and servo swapping out an engine for another will be easier, so the situation may improve a bit.

In an ideal world, this would be the purpose standards are: all the browsers agree on a set of minimum features, and security conscious users or administrators can decide to stick to that (I have no clue on whether other browser vendors would be interested). This would break websites in a predictable manner. After all sooner or later browser vendors will probably decide to break all tls-less websites. Some websites would be broken, but for people using a screen reader the web is already broken, and at least the would have a clear metric to point at when dealing with banks/news sites/institutions: if it breaks firefox/chrome/safari/edge safe mode, the webdesigner is doing something wrong. Similarly the limit imposed by organizations would help: if you are an entrerprise website you must render correcly in this mode. I'm convinced that administrators enforcing a "no IE policy" on the workplace did help move us away from a world in which frontpage's HTML was acceptable. My parents and users of entreprise workstation don't have browser choice anyway: they cannot install software.

2. Sure, the problem with modes is the problem with the UAC: you end up asking permission so often that you devalue the role of permssions, or you require the user to constantly check the current status of the application (e.g. the lock icon for SSL), which most users won't do. Polaris probably suffers from similar problems, as all "restrictive" extensions do. I'll admit that my solution is squarely aimed at users that cannot switch browser (or cannot switch browser mode), similarly to the gatekeeper role of apple on iphone, only giving the power to switch to administators/technically advanced users, which apple does not.