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Yeah, but

I imagine a future where an "operating system" is just a OpenGL + Networking + JS API, and you just load in HTML5.exe. The benefit of something like this is that it puts the power back in the hands of the people. You don't have to worry about Google and Apple restricting what you can do, you just load in the HTML5.exe that you know works. Want a new feature? Fork Firefox on GitHub.

(I don't want to belittle the technical achievement here - it sounds pretty cool! But I can't help but wonder wheter using the CLR or the Java VM wouldn't be better for many use cases, or even plain x86 machine code with virtualization.)



i really hope i'm not just part of a distinct few, that think html, and js are not the future at all, but some old junk, that is unnecessarily being blown up out of proportions, just because at the time the wasn't anything better as an alternative.


seconded. this stuff is my bread and butter yet I often think, this is the best we can do?


Yes


Arbitrarily running x86 machine code fetched over the net? Pass.


This is different than Chrome or whatever autoupdating how exactly?


It isn't that different, and I don't trust proprietary auto updating software either.


Chrome's updates are signed with a reasonably trustworthy certificate.


No fan of NaCl?


I'm posting this comment from a ChromeBook Pixel...

I think this future is mega interesting, and I hope it comes to pass.


Isn't that sort of what Google did with ChromeOS inside Windows 8?


True, but, deployment.


An operating system that has more fundamental concept of "URI access" than "file system"; and which does zero-install of any application you type in the URL of, temporarily for as long as you visit the site, isn't really not a web browser, is it?




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