[Discuss] Hoggish software was: Linux Kernel Building

[Bill Bogstad]

On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 3:36 PM Rich Pieri <richard.pieri at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 25 May 2023 14:58:10 -0400
> Bill Bogstad <bogstad at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> > I think most of that is more of a web site issue though.   SO MANY
> > sites have autoplaying
> > videos, timer based updates, etc.   Firefox, at least, lets you
>
> Yes... but not really. I'd mentioned that browsers are effectively
> operating systems unto themselves these days. That's not hyperbole. A
> browser tab is much like a Linux container running whatever site that
> tab has open. Even if that site is static HTML, the tab needs to render
> and display that site's HTML, and it has to run whatever relevant
> browser add-ons apply to that tab.

I think there are at least three categories to consider: rendering the
page, running any scripting language components (which might never
stop), and (as you suggest) browser add ons.
I'm not sure how that is much different from what modern office suites
do.   Any particular web page/office document can either have lots of
scripting or none.   I'm not sure it would be appropriate
to blame a word processor for the piggy nature of a document that
someone sent me any more than it is to blame a web browser for what a
web site sent.  I suppose you could blame the browser for having the
features
that a web site/page can exploit poorly.   I don't know if browser
add-ons (extensions?) have a good analogy in an office suite, but it
could be argued that it is the users fault for installing a bad
extension.

Bill Bogstad