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by deepspace 995 days ago
The existence of the Web Serial API is a godsend for working with many embedded devices. The ability to flash a device directly from the web instead of futzing around with a commandline tool feels like magic.

Unfortunately, Mozilla decided that this (and other related functionality) is "harmful". https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#webserial

It is a shame, because the overlap between people who use Firefox as their main browser, and people who tinker with microcontrollers is likely pretty large.
1 comments
jeroenhd 995 days ago
Serial ports are everywhere and these APIs can provide quite a lot of fingerprinting capabilities.

I understand why Mozilla is hesitant. "Why does a browser need to give access to a serial port" is a good question. Certain web tools have definitely proven useful (especially when using an Android device to flash microcontrollers!) but if you asked the average internet user 20 years ago if their browser should provide websites with access to their serial ports, you'd get laughed at.

I hope Mozilla reconsiders their positions on this, because this is just one of those reasons I keep Chrome installed. I need it very rarely, but when I do, it's often because Mozilla made a choice I disagreed with (like their decision to remove anything resembling PWAs on desktop Firefox, which is why I have a bunch of Chrome shortcuts in my application launcher now).

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markdog12 995 days ago
> "Why does a browser need to give access to a serial port"

Why does a program need to give access to a serial port?

> if you asked the average internet user 20 years ago if their browser should provide websites with access to their serial ports, you'd get laughed at

What if you included "Only if you allow it"?

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jeroenhd 995 days ago
Web browsers used to be about websites, not applications. That's my point. It took years even after Gmail discovered the XmlHttpRequest for in-browser HTML applications to even become a thing people would just use.

> What if you included "Only if you allow it"?

You'd probably hear something like "IE/Opera is bloated enough already", I just want my downloads to finish faster.

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