For this inaugural issue of Browsertech Digest, I want to talk about what we mean by browsertech, and why it matters.
Web browsers have grown in scope from humble hypertext renders to a runtime for full-fledged applications (see: Google Maps; Figma).
Along with this evolution, the term “web application” has expanded in scope to include not just webmail clients and social media sites, but anything that happens to run in the browser, from video editors to 3D games.
When we talk about browsertech, we’re talking about that latter emerging subset of web development, which consists of writing desktop-like applications on top of browser APIs like WebAssembly, WebGPU, and WebRTC.