FWIW, Service Workers allow content to be downloaded in the background and to be made offline.
Mainstream gaming will never catch on the Web. But Mozilla is working on WebVR to create an open and distributed platform for VR (https://mozvr.com). You'll be able to publish VR content in seconds and traverse from world to world. WebGL2 is exciting for that space.
Service Workers allow content to be downloaded in the background and to be made offline.
In practice, service workers seem to mostly be drive-by installs of forms of hostile code. Look at "about:serviceworkers" in Firefox to see what's running. Did you ask for any of those? I have, excluding sites where I have a login:
* https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net - No idea what this is. Going there returns XML with "<Message>Access denied.</Message><Details>Anonymous users does not have storage.objects.list access to bucket itchio.</Details>".
* https://fee.org - "Foundation for Economic Education", a right-wing think tank. Does a drive-by install for any home page access.
what is the downside? There doesn't seem to be any permissioning other than completely turning them off, and these could be used to implement another form of supercookie.
Mainstream gaming will never catch on the Web. But Mozilla is working on WebVR to create an open and distributed platform for VR (https://mozvr.com). You'll be able to publish VR content in seconds and traverse from world to world. WebGL2 is exciting for that space.