Banking websites for example don't need to be Applications and added protection for cross-site scripting etc. would be beneficial. Restrict things further and you default to supporting screen readers etc.
IMO it's a simple question 'can you do the same thing with a sheet of printed paper.' I can fill out paper forms and hand them to someone just fine. Don't forget a Check is really just a piece of paper with a form on it.
I'm not trying to be overly pedantic or combative here but making a distinction between client-side and server-side code seems arbitrary. I understand it in terms of managing privilege - you can't control what someone does on a remote server, and that code isn't running on your machine, but it seems like the meaningful distinction here isn't between documents and applications but between local and remote applications.
Just because I type in yourdomain.com does not mean I want you to be able to start playing death metal from my speakers. What about typing yourdomain.com means I want you to break my back button? Show a popup rather than close the browser? Churn CPU cycles crypto mining or do just about anything beyond hand me a document? Display a flashing GIF?
The current model is basically handing complete control over my machine to a third party that may be compromised by anyone any time I click a random link.
The single greatest web innovation in the last 30 years was readability mode.
For you. From what I see, everyone else seems to be enjoying the dancing and singing monkeys online.
[1] web application pushers
edit: hn "syntax"
Given the way HTTP works, I think it kind of does. It means you want the server at yourdomain.com to send you whatever content that URL points to, if anything. Which, granted, given the complexity of the web now, does seem fraught with danger, but what alternative would there be? Profiling each site for embedded content, size and complexity and whitelisting the elements before rendering? Browsers already let you block scripts, disable images and autoplay, overwrite or disable stylesheets and mute tabs, that would seem to be sufficient.
>The current model is basically handing complete control over my machine to a third party that may be compromised by anyone any time I click a random link.
That's a good point, but separating "applications" from "documents" wouldn't solve that problem, since that's presumably the model the applications would still be using. Sure, static pages that aren't running client side code would be safe, but those pages already are safe.
Anything that could be done to make a separate application space run safely could be done to make them run safely on the existing web, couldn't it?
Yes, but you could tighten things down and treat the modern web as a transient application delivery system. Where users have to explicitly grant access to each application, and grant it whichever specific permissions it needs. I also wouldn't be against having two browsers, one for running applications and one to browse the web.
>Given the way HTTP works, I think it kind of does. It means you want the server at yourdomain.com to send you whatever content that URL points to, if anything.
I think the issue is really that the client (web browser) shouldn't try to interpret whatever was sent back if it isn't considered safe. In other words, there should be limits of what the browser will do with whatever is send back over HTTP.