It will help you improve your skills and understand how to start this journey!
In 2015, I wrote about WebSerial on a website in the context of Firefox OS, and around the same time, I tested WebSerial on Firefox.
For years, I was deeply involved with Mozilla as a volunteer, contributing to various projects, I’m even one of the names on the monument, just to give you an idea. But in recent years, I’ve stepped back from the community because, in my opinion, Mozilla has made too many wrong moves, destroying the community and focusing more on redesigning their logo or brand every three years instead of better marketing Firefox. If others don’t do that and still grow, maybe that’s not the real issue.
Enough with the rant, let’s get back to WebSerial.
WebSerial is an API available in Chrome since 2015 that allows JavaScript to communicate with devices via serial ports, such as various Arduino boards or musical instruments (there’s also WebMIDI, which Firefox already supports). The security concern with WebSerial is that it could potentially allow a webpage to modify devices just by being opened in the browser, so a whole permission system needs to be studied, along with cross-operating system support.
In 2015, there was (and still that I have followed for 11 years) a bug ticket with a patch, and using Mozilla’s various build systems, you can download a version of Firefox with the patch applied (which is exactly what I did to test it).
You might say, “I don’t believe you, you’re just making it up!”
But I have a tweet from that time documenting it, with a screenshot of an Arduino Yun and a Gist with the JavaScript code I used, which are still online.
Tweet: https://x.com/Mte90Net/status/555329447969443841
The problem is that today, I’m no longer interested in these projects, not even from a development perspective. But at least knowing it’s possible might be useful for the future…
