The issue of the Web's lack of distinction between document viewing features and being an application platform (with access to system resources and private data) is decades old. Unfortunately, the question has been academic for decades as well: before the advent of HTML5, proprietary browser plugins gave Web sites the same abilities (ActiveX and Flash being notable, as were their security vulnerabilities). Flash was ubiquitous circa 1998-2008; your typical user would always have it installed. Nor did the typical (non-techie) user know that the Web was not originally intended to be an application platform, or the implications of it being used as such.