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WebUSB is not a web standard. It’s a Blink-only API cooked up by Google and rejected by both Mozilla and Apple on privacy and security grounds. It cannot become a web standard without two independent implementations, and Google have failed to convince anybody outside of Google to implement it. Nevertheless, it pops up on various websites as things Firefox and Safari are “failing” to support.

> This specification was published by the Web Platform Incubator Community Group. It is not a W3C Standard nor is it on the W3C Standards Track.

https://wicg.github.io/webusb/

> WebKit declined to implement several APIs, including WebUSB, due to concerns over fingerprinting

> We have previously stated privacy concerns, thus the concerns: privacy label. We agree with Mozilla's security concerns raised in their standards position issue, thus the concerns: security label.

https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/68

> Because many USB devices are not designed to handle potentially-malicious interactions over the USB protocols and because those devices can have significant effects on the computer they're connected to, we believe that the security risks of exposing USB devices to the Web are too broad to risk exposing users to them or to explain properly to end users to obtain meaningful informed consent. It also poses risks that sites could use USB device identity or data stored on USB devices as tracking identifiers.

https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#webusb



[flagged]


Real adults use lynx & curl, so I’m not sure what adults you’re talking about.


You are not losing functionality if it was never implemented in the first place. WebUSB and WebSerial are not standards, so your rage is misdirected. Keep using your security cheese of a browser if you need that feature. Otherwise others (like myself) are okay with having fewer security risks in their browsers.




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