Not just delivery, but also security. Browsers offer a level of isolation and safety that you generally don't get with native desktop apps. Things like iOS do bridge the gap a bit more though
> Browsers offer a level of isolation and safety that you generally don't get with native desktop apps.
They didn't originally: Java <applets> and ActiveX <objects> originally weren't sandboxed and had free run of the visitor's computer.
All major OSes today now have built-in support for process/app sandboxing. I suppose if the "rich client" frontend model (WPF, etc) was more popular then I expect desktop OS application isolation to have been introduced much sooner.
Security development happens where the market demands it, and rarely does it happen where it's actually needed.
They don't, though. Browsers are almost trivial to exploit.
There have been seven (7) 0day exploits in Chrome this year (that we know of). Know how many CVEs there were for Chrome in total in 2023? Two-hundred and forty (240). That's impressive. And this is the browser people brag about as being secure.
