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0 pointsnox1011y ago0 comments

yes you're missing something. Java applets and flash outside of any security and they ran the users code in that insecure environment

WASM, in broswers, runs entirely inside a secure environment with no access to the system.

    js->browser->os
     |
     +--Flash/java-->os

    wasm->browser->os

further. WASM and Js are in their own process with no os acesss. they can't access the os except by rpc to the broswer

flash/java tho, ran all user code in the same process with full access to the os

0 comments

kaba01y ago

Seems like a trivial thing to fix though, it was a lack of will over an explicit design tradeoff. At Applet’s time there was simply no such API surface to attach to and make useful programs.

nox101OP1y ago

it's not a trivial thing to fix. It took apple, Mozilla, and google years to refsctor their broswers to isolate user code in its own process and then effiently ipc all services to other processes.

chrome started with that but also started without GPU based graphics and spent 2-3 years adding yet another process make it possible. mozilla and safari took almost 10 years to catch up.

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