[ChuckMcM]

Where are you going with this? A "browser" is a delivery agent, sort of like the paper and binding in a book. The content of the book can be innovative but who cares if the paper is?

Perhaps you are asking "Can you deliver the experience you want to deliver in Today's browsers?" "If not, why not?" which might inform the question of missing features, but such surveys tend to collect dreams rather than requirements ("if only the browser could read aloud the page, I'd make a kids book..." kind of thing where the thing holding back the requester is not the browser but their own inability to write a kids book)

[digitalcreate]

So your feeling is that the browser is more of an invisible delivery mechanism, and not intended to provide anything other than taking you to your chosen web experience. Is that correct?

[TuringTest]

I think that's a pretty common expectation nowadays.

Back in the day we already tried the monster do-everythin-and-the-kitchen-sink[1][2] bundle with the original Netscape/Mozilla suite (currently known as SeaMonkey), and it sucked. It's only with Phoenix/Firefox lean-and-streamlined approach that a serious alternative to IE6 took shape.

The expectation of flexibility is covered by the idea of having specific tools provided in the form of web applications, not part of the browser itself. The browser should have all the features required to support those "innovative" experiences, but those should be available as development platform APIs, not in the browser's user interface.

[1] http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=2919

[2] http://www-archive.mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/samples/ki...

[ChuckMcM]

Yes, exactly that.

At some point I expect a "browser" to be a piece of fixed hardware that renders the current Markup standards into a combination of screen and audio outputs. Perhaps with the option to 'spool to archival'.

We're going to get there because "innovations" in the browser space have increasingly put our personal information, and financial lives at risk. Nobody ever had to worry that answering the phone might suddenly drain their bank account, or install a surveillance device surreptitiously. And yet we have those issues now with "browsing a web site". As Pwn2Own has shown its a really hard problem to make a secure browser and the logical conclusion (for me at least) is to air gap the browser feature from everything else.