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by schemescape 1279 days ago
Could it just be hidden behind a prompt to enable it on a given site?

I feel like they’re just using fingerprinting as an excuse to not implement functionality that people want. Of course, I don’t really understand the problem space, so it’s likely I’m missing something.
2 comments
notatoad 1279 days ago
most of the APIs listed there are already gated behind an explicit per-site opt-in in the browsers that implement them, and at least some in the spec defining them

i don't understand how this is a fingerprinting risk either, and i'm pretty sure i'm not missing anything.

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throwntoday 1279 days ago
> I feel like they’re just using fingerprinting as an excuse to not implement functionality that people want.

Do you actually believe this? Do you not default to more practical explinations like, maybe they don't consider it worthwhile to support because of engineering cost vs people that actually use it?

For example, I'd say 9/10 people I know who aren't tech literate have no idea the Health app exists on their iPhone. This includes people with Apple watches. Similarly it should be obvious that basically nobody ever knew about or used that one feature you liked.

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schemescape 1279 days ago
I think engineering/support cost might be an excellent argument against implementing MIDI support in a browser, but the claim I responded to was that MIDI support wasn't on the table due to fingerprinting concerns (which are not obviously well-founded, from my outsider's perspective).

When I said "functionality that people want", I didn't mean to imply that there was a critical mass of people that made MIDI support in a browser obviously worthwhile, I just meant that some people want it and they're being told it won't happen because of fingerprinting.

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zarzavat 1279 days ago
When you make a web browser engine, you don't get to choose whether a use case is marginal or not (FWIW I use WebMIDI frequently in Chrome). You implement the standards or you perish.

Nobody wants a web browser that "chooses" not to work on some % of websites. Users choose, browsers implement. They are welcome to gate this feature behind a per-site permission prompt if they think it's insecure.

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