Why the hard requirement on Google Chrome?
This was a bad idea when Microsoft did it and it's still a horrible idea now.
Regardless, it's pretty much already been killed. Too bad it's taken 8 years for a web standard (WebAssembly) to match it.
Yeah, there has never been a case of software breaking out of a sandbox or VM.
Fact is it allows running native x86 code downloaded from the internet, it's orders of magnitude more dangerous than e.g. Javascript running inside a sandboxed runtime.
For the record: I think that JS is a horrible idea too. What happened to the old rule of thumb that once you let someone else run their own code on your machine you should consider it compromised ?
People realized it's a stupid and impractical rule and ignored it.
If by "people" you mean developers, and by "stupid and impractical" you mean inconvenient.
Developers realized that their rule was stupid and impractical (not just inconvenient, but actively impractical: async interaction is faster and requires js), and so ignored it.
It's not so different than downloading a Windows application that requires JVM or some .NET distributable, or a Linux package with additional dependencies, IMHO.
They have a Google Earth desktop client if you want a desktop application. As this is sitting on the open web it should use open standards.
There is nothing even sorta objectionable about Google software on Google servers requesting you use a Google browser to access them because it uses Google-developed browser features that aren't even part of web standards, and wouldn't be for years even if that was the goal.
The alternative would be a moral stance that "no non-RFC stuff on port 80", and that makes zero sense to me. What, they're not allowed to innovate unless they run through the bureaucracy first?
I'd love it if you clarified what you're asking for here, because as stated, it seems alien to me.
I have no issue with Google putting things over the wire via HTTP but if it only works with a specific client it isn't, to me, a web site but an internet-based application akin to Microsoft ActiveX-based sites which were awful for the web.
The whole point of the web is that it was developed as an open platform and we had to fight with Microsoft to stop them turning it into an Internet Explorer only platform. I don't want the same thing to happen with Google/Chrome.
I want an open web where I don't have to use one particular browser for certain services.
I should also say I do think Google do a lot of good though. They do work with the web standards committee and they do a pretty good job of making their innovations open so I am not quite as worried as I was about Microsoft but, to me, it is better to stop it before it happens than fight to get it back.
With that in mind, I have a real hard time getting worked up over Google putting a draft feature they're working on in their own browser. I suppose if Mozilla and Microsoft really want to implement a moving target, there's nothing stopping them from doing so.
If Chrome doesn't restrict it, then they start getting negative press about how this new thing they created doesn't work.