this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2026
74 points (100.0% liked)
Firefox
22650 readers
1 users here now
/c/firefox
A place to discuss the news and latest developments on the open-source browser Firefox.
Rules
1. Adhere to the instance rules
2. Be kind to one another
3. Communicate in a civil manner
Reporting
If you would like to bring an issue to the moderators attention, please use the "Create Report" feature on the offending comment or post and it will be reviewed as time allows.
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
IMO it's fine since you need to explicitly grant permission for the site to use it, and also explicitly choose a device to allow it to communicate with. You can also configure your browser to always reject requests to use the API, if you never want to use it.
WebSerial is useful for the developer as they can build their webapp once and it'll work consistently across platforms, and it's useful for the user since the same interface will work across all OSes.
I prefer it over the other common approach for communicating with serial devices, which is often to only make a Windows app and to have some convoluted setup process involving sketchy-looking drivers, which then breaks when you have different devices that require different versions of the flashing software or drivers.
i agree with you, but the exploits are gonna be wild.
Chrome's had it for five years, and I don't recall any Webserial-specific vulnerabilities in it (but I could be wrong!)
i'd bet on webusb being compromised first, when/if that takes off for more mundane tasks.