webusb
webhid
webbluetooth
webserial
webmidi
webgl
webgpu
please make it stop

document formats weren't meant to access arbitrary and complex pieces of hardware

@novenary webHRT

@novenary webneuralink

@makura no fuck off

@novenary webweb
web web.0

@novenary webblt

@novenary why tf did they make webserial when webusb could very much act as a serial connection 😭

@novenary like this is probably a hot take, but something like webusb to allow websites direct access to devices isnt bad
but do we deadass need them split up like that, cant it just be one “webdev” and the browser handles the abstraction

@r0se idk specialized APIs can make sense in this case like, webhid is the same (hid can be a bluetooth or usb device)
for the same reason why the kernel has usb-serial drivers and hidraw
i still object to letting web pages do any of this though

@halva as in the sandwich?

@novenary oh yeah fair
i think its pretty nice to have a web page do that, like for example the graphene os or pixel web flasher is imo MUCH better than having to use some weird native app that probably brings a ton of security risks with it

@r0se yeah for sure it's pretty neat, but I am extremely conflicted by the state of the web in general and all of these APIs contribute to browsers being bloated monoliths and impossibly difficult to implement
on top of the potential security nightmare because gating it behind a permission prompt is absolutely not enough to protect users who are conditioned to accept everything without reading

@novenary web pee

@xarvos ofc

@novenary oh yeah absolutely, some proper seperation from these “web” APIs and just websites would be nice to have, though i cant really think of any way to do that in any good way

and the permission prompt thing is like, you can usually get gullible users to run a random executable just as easily, i think device security in general is just fucked

@r0se i kinda like the way firefox has done it for webmidi, where they require a site-specific extension to be installed
apparently they're also neutral about webserial and wouldn't be opposed to a similar scheme there?
they still (rightfully imo) refuse to implement webusb/hid/bluetooth though
i think at least for usb devices some sort of opt-in metadata in the descriptor tables would make it more acceptable, of course restricted to specific origins, kinda like how WCID is an opt in for winusb (the native userspace USB driver)

@novenary how does the site specific extension thing work? is it like a browser extension?

@r0se https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_MIDI_API#browser_compatibility
API access is gated by installation of a site permission add-on (user prompt), secure context, and Permission Policy: midi.

@novenary ohh i see.. interesting
does the site permission link work for you? im getting a 429 error lmao

@r0se yeah it's fine for me, weird

@novenary lmao it loads in firefox but not on helium
crazy work

@r0se is that another chromium fork

@novenary yeah https://helium.computer/
its.. okayish tbh and i actually dont remember why i switched to it but im too lazy to go back to firefox now

@r0se fair lol, personally i can't live without tree-style tab so switching is not an option for me

@novenary webring0

@novenary correct

@novenary and then there's WebSCSI: https://chaos.social/users/manawyrm/statuses/115972624969985915

@mikoto @novenary SCSI, the universal protocol for storage devices

@koakuma @novenary soon to be NVMe once we get spinning rust speaking that protocol (may or may not happen)

@mikoto @koakuma I think nvme might potentially be too tied up with pcie semantics? either way USB MSC is primarily SCSI and UASP is SCSI-only, so it'd have to be ported over there too
although I suppose USB4/thunderbolt should allow it via PCIe tunneling anyway lol

@novenary @koakuma there is nvme over fabrics (NVMeOF), one version of which works over TCP.

@novenary @koakuma so in theory that same scsi over websocket trick that was mentioned earlier could also tunnel nvme commands...

@novenary @mikoto @koakuma WebPCIe would be wild

@makura @novenary webmakuralink

@novenary webstop