I was rather hostile towards WebUSB/Bluetooth for ideological reasons, until I came across some cool apps like a climbing board control app (Bluetooth) or a netMD (to transfer to minidisks, via USB), which I would have found overkill to install a "hard App" for. I'm glad that there's an option for Firefox at last.

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QuantumNomad_ 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Same here, was skeptical at first but then I used a web app that supports WebUSB to configure my mechanical keyboard and it lets you flash the firmware right there from the browser and that’s pretty nice and convenient.

https://www.zsa.io/flash

Even before WebUSB, I was using ZSA Oryx to create my keyboard layout for my first ZSA keyboard. But back then I had to download the file and then flash it using a dedicated program on the computer. Now with WebUSB I could both create the layout for my new ZSA keyboard there, and flash it from there without any additional software other than a Chromium based desktop web browser.

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saghm an hour ago | parent | next [-]

That's the exact scenario I first found it useful as well, earlier this month. It's especially nice as someone used to there not being Linux options for stuff like this.

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crote 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The whole dance has been made significantly easier by the adoption of UF2 flashing by large parts of the custom keyboard hobby: the device temporarily pretends to be a USB storage device, so you can now download the file and drag&drop it to your device.

Still not quite WebUSB-easy, but a massive improvement over needing dedicated programming software!

	▲	tredre3 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Firmware updates with UF2 over the emulated mass storage aren't bad, I agree. But config updates that way still suck. The best implementation I've seen will present you with an empty drive with a README explaining how to drop a uf2 + an editable config file that contains all options with comments. That's definitely workable for us tech people, but it absolutely sucks for the vast majority of users (including us tech people). Just think about having to learn the syntax, or simple things like picking a color or mapping keys on a keyboard. IMHO Mozilla should have at least adopted WebSerial. It wouldn't give the entire USB freedom, but it has fewer privacy and security concerns and devices would have make it work. But now it's too late, WebUSB has been adopted widely and Mozilla will eventually have to adopt it or perish.

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Gander5739 34 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

WebUSB is the main way to flash GrapheneOS onto a phone.

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traderj0e 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's fine as an extension, not so much as a default-enabled feature. We got the best outcome here.

Edit: Wait, no we didn't. Chrome added WebUSB support after all. Wtf I'm disabling that

	▲	flexagoon an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> not so much as a default-enabled feature. The browser opens a popup asking you if you want to grant access to a specific device for a specific website, it's not like random websites can just run adb commands on your phone
	▲	koolala 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Well it's a stand-alone program too, not just an extension. I kinda wish extensions could act as full programs too but computers need better sandboxing.

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vishalontheline 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Another possible use-case: allowing your peripherals to talk to cloud gaming computers - like, a nice HOTAS setup for flight simulator on GeforceNow.

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koolala 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I used it to side-load Android apps onto my Quest 3 so I could try Chromium on it