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Comment by jeroenhd | Hacker News Reader

"StackBlitz v2 Beta currently works in Chrome and Chromium-based browsers. We’re hoping to add support for more browsers as they implement the necessary Web Platform features."

Pretty useless, then. What features are missing? As far as I know Firefox was one of the major contributors to pushing WebASM to the web and has a superior WASM engine in many aspects.

I'd be more interested in a post about what WebASM features are missing than an announcement that someone hacked Javascript into a browser.

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Copy+pasting my answer from existing comment:

It works in Firefox today (minor issues keeping it feature flagged for now) and Safari is close to shipping WASM Threads, so this will likely work on all major browsers by EOY.

It looks like the problem isn't WASM features, but web I/O APIs, like the File System Access API.

Many of the more "advanced APIs" are unlikely to be shipped in either Firefox or Safari because of security and privacy concerns.

For example, Chrome released File System Access by defaul tin Chrome 86, on October 6, 2020.

And yet, as late as August 2020 they were saying that they'd just got the spec in shape: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/154#is.... And there are still unresolved issues around actual security of the thing (that Chrome happily ignores).

The "spec" itself lists 13 issues: https://wicg.github.io/file-system-access/

And Safari won't implement it: https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2020-August/03...

If business PCs are running Microsoft Teams + Outlook PWAs on Edge (Chromium based), personal PCs as a majority are running Chrome/Chromium...I can't see why Apple wouldn't come to a compromise to treat PWAs with respect.

It's not just about privacy of web APIs...it's about Apple's chokehold on iPhone users.

> It's not just about privacy of web APIs...it's about Apple's chokehold on iPhone users.

Funny how you fully ignore Firefox's position

They're unable to keep anything close to security parity with Chromium — even with hundreds of millions of dollars.

You're right — frankly, I don't look to Mozilla as the leader or voice of web development anymore.

> They're unable to keep anything close to security parity with Chromium

Funny how you went from "Apple's chokehold on iPhone users" to "unable to keep anything close to security parity".

I wonder in which respects Safari "can't keep up"?

> I don't look to Mozilla as the leader or voice of web development anymore.

- There are only two other independent browser engines of any importance, and their input is increasingly ignored by Chrome

- Who cares, go Chrome

This is not as good a take as you think it is.

> 13 issues

These are mostly a to-do list...which makes sense at this stage?

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Do you think that Apple or Mozilla can stop webapps from taking their rightful place?

> These are mostly a to-do list...which makes sense at this stage

Which stage is it? Chrome is already shipping this, enabled by default.

And the "todo list" covers important issues around permissions, restricting file system access we etc.

> Do you think that Apple or Mozilla can stop webapps from taking their rightful place?

I think that Chrome plays fast and loose with web standards, and has essentially replaced web standards with Chrome-designed and Chrome-specific APIs, while fully ignoring any concerns from other browsers.

> Which stage is it?

The stage where a majority of professional web devs (y'know, the people who aren't here!) still haven't even heard, or fully assimilated, the term "PWA" yet.

> the "todo list" covers important issues around permissions, restricting file system access we etc.

They've proven very capable of managing this in AOSP.

> I think that Chrome plays fast and loose with web standards, and has essentially replaced web standards with Chrome-designed and Chrome-specific APIs, while fully ignoring any concerns from other browsers.

"Chrome-specific" implies DRM etc which I don't find fair here, as a very regular Google critic.

If the concerns are always "We can't keep up", I don't blame Chromium team for pushing on ahead, and letting other browsers catch up.

Frankly: Mozilla isn't leading the way on web standards anymore. (And they're not doing as good a job with security+privacy, really, either, compared to properly configured Chromium.)

Can you give a few examples to backup your claim that chrome is head of Firefox in terms of security and privacy?

https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.ht...

> compared to properly configured Chromium.

Ah yes. Because that's exactly what you want from a browser: spend time properly configuring it to make it secure.

The configuration is for privacy.

The security is inherent.

So, FF doesn't need configuration to provide privacy, Chrome has to be "properly configured".

Chrome is more secure.

So, not so simple as a blanket statement you provided.

Yes.

Which is why I recommend Ungoogled Chromium.

Or just Chromium.

> If the concerns are always "We can't keep up"

Safari and Mozilla: here are the security concerns, here are privacy concerns, here are concerns that the "specs" reflect internal APIs and are not actual specs.

HN: nah, concerns are always "we can't keep up"

No, those are not "we can't keep up".

> (And they're [Mozilla] not doing as good a job with security+privacy, really, either, compared to properly configured Chromium.)

Anecdotally, I feel that the quickly growing number of websites that complain that Firefox is an "ad blocker" with an unconfigured, out of the box default install seems to imply Mozilla is doing a great job with respect to security+privacy.

> Mozilla isn't leading the way on web standards anymore.

All the way back to the IE3-6 era, Mozilla has never been about "leading" web standards. IE3-6 lead web standards. Mozilla's role in web standard has almost always largely been about curtailing the excesses of whoever is currently leading, and keeping standards fair, safe, "quality" over quantity.

It's not Mozilla's job to keep up with ~IE6~ Chromium, it's their job to keep Google from spinning web standards out of control. To keep Chromium from being IE6 2.0. To keep Google from just defining all the standards in ways that make Google happy but maybe aren't great long term for the health/safety of the web. It's Mozilla's job to slow Chromium down, and the fact that people are complaining "Firefox isn't keeping up" with Chrome's non-standards and in general that they are losing that battle in mainstream browser usage isn't at all great for the web. (The last time something like this happened was IE6. Whether or not Chromium is the "New IE6" will take a while to play out, but we're deep into the IE6 playbook at this point and anyone not seeing parallels either doesn't remember the early years of IE6 well or has too high of an opinion of Google.)

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