The web browser is much more standards-based than any desktop application any of us normally uses, which makes it a compelling platform for developing personal web apps -- certainly much more compelling than something like Eclipse, say (which is theoretically an "anything platform"). But there are still quite a few things browsers don't do well -- and/or don't do in standardized fashion, or do in a just plain irritating fashion. One is data persistence. Another is file I/O. Another is cross-domain AJAX. If you try to do certain types of supposedly "insecure" things in a browser app, you're pretty much hosed at the outset.
I'd like to be able to open an XML file on disk, read Twitter user IDs from it, and then make AJAX calls to Twitter to either follow or unfollow those user IDs. I actually do this now using Greasemonkey scripts -- but the scripts complain about the "file://" URL scheme of the XML, unless you set a particular config value (greasemonkey.fileIsGreaseable) to true in the about:config screen of Firefox, as I wrote previously here.
But what I'd really like to be able to do is run the same Greasemonkey script in Chrome instead of Firefox. But Chrome doesn't have a greasemonkey.fileIsGreaseable security setting that I can override. Basically I can't trigger a script to fire off of opening a file. I have to serve myself the file over HTTP. Which means I have to install and run an instance of Apache (or another web server) just to serve myself these XML files so they'll trigger the script properly. Which is a lot of nonsense.
Sometimes I wish Chrome and Firefox and all the rest had a master security setting -- call it userAgreesToHoldTheEntireUniverseHarmlessWhileHeKillsHimself -- that would, with the flip of a bit, let me disable all the ridiculous child-proof bottle caps of the browser world. I want to pull the mattress tags off, ignore the Surgeon General warnings, and run wild-eyed down the hallway with scissors in both hands. Let me test the "no user-serviceable parts" hypothesis. Let me decide if my browser should do "file://" I/O in an AJAX call, let me decide if a script will fire when I manually Open a file, yes let me decide if one of my own scripts should be able to slurp the cache using about:cache or persist a bit of user data in an insecure way. Folks, I want to drive over the speed limit. I want to have unsafe-file-I/O sex. (Cover your ears. I am going to shout now.) Hear me O Browser Thought Police, whoever you are, wherever you are, and let me knowingly flip the sanity bit. I'm tired of being treated like a retarded child. Stand the fuck back and let me cram the Mentos in the goddam bottle already.
