[KennyBlanken]

Mozilla won't even allow WebSerial to be implemented because it was deemed "too dangerous" - with all sorts of absurd whinging about the devastation that could be unleashed by unsuspecting users allowing a malicious site to access USB serial devices.

When someone pointed out that Chrome has had this functionality for years and the world has not imploded...and has enabled many open source projects and web-based microcontroller IDEs to provide enormous user convenience...the response was a condescending sneer along the lines of "well we actually care about user privacy."

(If Chrome is such a user privacy dumpsterfire, why not implement WebSerial so that people don't have to run Chrome in order to communicate with and program microcontrollers?)

Given they claimed that people's pacemakers and blood glucose monitors would be tampered with if WebSerial were implemented, I'd be shocked if they allowed such low level access to a GPU...

[squigz]

> (If Chrome is such a user privacy dumpsterfire, why not implement WebSerial so that people don't have to run Chrome in order to communicate with and program microcontrollers?)

This doesn't seem like a logical comparison. Is there no other way to program microcontrollers outside of Chrome?

[creesch]

Well sure, downloadable executables. Which I feel like isn't much better and in a lot of ways worse.

[squigz]

Can you elaborate on why you think that? I feel like not everything has to be shoved into the browser, as that is in a lot of ways worse

[nolist_policy]

Besides flashing your microcontroller, a downloadable executable can (by default) upload all your files to god-knows-where then proceed to encrypt them and hold them for ransom. Also only a .exe for Windows will be provided, good luck running that on your platform.

[paulmd]

Massive FUD/off-topic whining considering it’s already in nightly.

Yes, not everyone is as thrilled about the browser becoming an OS and both of the other players have pretty much declined to implement the standards chrome forced through.

Like yes if you let yourself be tied to proprietary chrome features you will probably be tied to chrome. It’s weird how the HN set embraces the internet explorer/activeX combo of the modern era so openly, to the extent of whining that others don’t implement it/are behind on compatibility - like yes, that’s the point of embrace/extend/extinguish and a quasi-proprietary standard, to provoke exactly your reaction.

I wonder if there is some equivalent to this on the social media of the time, was there some subset of users who really really loved activeX and would only use browsers that supported it? it’s what I need to do my banking, how could I use anything else!?

[gordinmitya]

already allow by default in nightly builds