> It's fine to run code written by other people, but that code should be run in a safe, completely sandboxed environment.
… which is what browsers do with JavaScript and have done since Netscape shipped the first Navigator beta with LiveScript. The problem is that no containment system is perfect because people want rich functionality which can be abused without significant care - your $.99 game certainly isn't supposed to be able to install a keylogger but in practice it's almost always been possible to do so because that operating system doesn't have magic security pixie dust, either, and mistakes are made.
The only reason browsers have a bad reputation for security is because Microsoft exposed a ton of native code, ignoring advice from security experts, and completely neglected their responsibility as a platform maintainer for almost a decade.
Firefox and Chrome are a different story, both having a better security track record than, say, a Microsoft operating system despite having a full rich experience. Chrome's better than your mobile operating system because it actually gets updated quickly whereas your mobile OS gets updated on a timescale of months (iOS, Android developer phones) to never (most Android phones and almost all others).
> The concept of a "web app" is fundamentally broken, but despite users largely rejecting it (see: popularity of native apps vs safari apps on iPhone), nerds keep pushing it because it seems like a cool plot to a sci-fi novel.
You have an uncommon and counter-factual understanding of the web and users. Please back up your claim that users don't actually want Gmail, Facebook, Flickr, Google Maps, etc. or that mobile users only want native applications despite mobile users showing heavy web activity.
> This is security after the fact. If they actually cared about security, they'd disable Javascript, disable Flash, disable WebGL, and turn Chrome back into a web browser.
Back into a 1995 web browser which wouldn't do anything which users expect. If you're so uncomfortable trusting a browser with a better security track record than most operating systems, you can easily disable all of those features but since the Chrome team both cares about and actually understands security they've focused on defense in depth and and rapid response rather than trying to convince users they don't actually want the things they ask for.
… which is what browsers do with JavaScript and have done since Netscape shipped the first Navigator beta with LiveScript. The problem is that no containment system is perfect because people want rich functionality which can be abused without significant care - your $.99 game certainly isn't supposed to be able to install a keylogger but in practice it's almost always been possible to do so because that operating system doesn't have magic security pixie dust, either, and mistakes are made.
The only reason browsers have a bad reputation for security is because Microsoft exposed a ton of native code, ignoring advice from security experts, and completely neglected their responsibility as a platform maintainer for almost a decade.
Firefox and Chrome are a different story, both having a better security track record than, say, a Microsoft operating system despite having a full rich experience. Chrome's better than your mobile operating system because it actually gets updated quickly whereas your mobile OS gets updated on a timescale of months (iOS, Android developer phones) to never (most Android phones and almost all others).
> The concept of a "web app" is fundamentally broken, but despite users largely rejecting it (see: popularity of native apps vs safari apps on iPhone), nerds keep pushing it because it seems like a cool plot to a sci-fi novel.
You have an uncommon and counter-factual understanding of the web and users. Please back up your claim that users don't actually want Gmail, Facebook, Flickr, Google Maps, etc. or that mobile users only want native applications despite mobile users showing heavy web activity.
> This is security after the fact. If they actually cared about security, they'd disable Javascript, disable Flash, disable WebGL, and turn Chrome back into a web browser.
Back into a 1995 web browser which wouldn't do anything which users expect. If you're so uncomfortable trusting a browser with a better security track record than most operating systems, you can easily disable all of those features but since the Chrome team both cares about and actually understands security they've focused on defense in depth and and rapid response rather than trying to convince users they don't actually want the things they ask for.