| Yes. I too am dismayed. There used to be something called MIME. There used to be separate specialised applications for different tasks. Guess what? There still are. Browsers have long had the ability to decode image formats. That much we expect from the browser. But audio? Video? "Web sockets"? There are better applications to handle these formats and tasks than a web browser. When I want to listen to audio, I use an application that is designed for that. When I want to watch video, I use an application that is designed for that. When I want to open sockets for peer-to-peer communication, I use an application that is designed for that. Everyone knows browsers suck for downloading. So why are we using them to download content (whether to a file or to a buffered cache)? Download the content using a program that is designed for downloading. View/play the content with applications designed for those tasks. Anyone who would criticise this approach is criticising the "UNIX way". Do one thing well. But watch how people will criticise it. Yes, it is insanity. These browsers are always going to have performance issues. If you want the best audio, video, peer-to-peer, etc., use applications that were designed for those purposes. As simple as possible. Simple applications. That is how you achieve performance, reliability and security. "Do-everything" browsers and Javascript are not not worth the risks they present. |
Personally, I can fully understand your points, and I actually take exactly that approach (using youtube-dl + mplayer for Youtube, extracting the streaming URLs from online radios and plugging them in MPD, etc).
But, as a Linux user, I'm all too accustomed to be left out from many applications because this platform isn't profitable enough to develop to.
Browser applications break with the monoculture of Windows (or, on mobile, iOS+Android) because they're portable and open by default. And I think that has some value.