Drive-by

Sometimes people refer to the web that you surf in your browser as the drive-by web, to contrast it with software that uses web technology but in which the SOP or the rest of the web’s security model either don’t apply, or only apply in some weakened form (IWAs, say, or MiniApps). Putting aside the obvious issue that this terminology evokes drive-by shootings, my primary issue with it is that it others the web. The use of a modifier in the phrase implies that the unmarked case is some other thing. But it’s not. The "drive-by" web is just the web. As usual, Henri was right: I don’t like it when Googlers say “the drive-by Web” when they mean “the Web”. Feels like an attempt to re-define “the Web”. #soloparking, San Francisco, November 2015.