[chneu]

I would like to point out that your perception of what a browser can/should be is based on what Google has turned browsers into.

What a browser is in 2025 is vastly different from what anyone thought they would ever be. There are major, major issues with the way web engines/web browsers function today and much of those issues stem from Google's near monopoly on browsers.

There was a lot of very interesting and good discussion around this in some of the Mozilla/Firefox threads recently. Mostly about how browsers turned into something they were never meant to be, which has changed the way the internet works and how we interact with it.

[amrocha]

What do browsers do that they weren’t meant to?

The only thing that comes to mind is password management. But I would also argue that’s a boon for normal users and trust in the web.

[light_hue_1]

Restrict extensions for "security" reasons. Which just killed most ad blockers in Chrome.

Speed up the web with AMP that gives one company control over everything.

[amrocha]

I think security is within the purview of a browser. Even if I disagree with the implementation.

And AMP is not a browser feature.

[darkwater]

> What do browsers do that they weren’t meant to?

For example, asking you straight on first launch to log into your Google account, for your "benefit".

[amrocha]

In a multi device world that makes sense though. If you save your passwords on your phone, you don’t want to lose them all if that phone breaks.

[chneu]

They're basically sandboxed OSes now. This was discussed at length in the recent Mozilla threads, especially in relation to waterfox and other forks of gecko.