Bringing Browsers up to speed

It's 2008 (I think, my wall calendar hasn't been flipped since March) and while browsers are getting slicker, faster, and trendier code names. They're still working on the same basic premise as Mosaic did the same time I used the web. We've moved past basic HTML, it's high time our browsers noticed this and caught up.

1. Re-empower the Stop button
When pages were static HTML, maybe a few images, the back button was great! You hit stop, and by gosh stuff stopped. It stopped loading, you browser stopped having seizures every-time a new image was downloaded, all was well.

That was then, this is now. The stop button does the same thing it did back then (halt page load), the problem is there's tones more going on in the browser, things like ajax, silverlight, flash, etc. None of these things are really stopped when you hit that button, they continue forging on. I need a way to actually stop all the crap that's happening in my browser that isn't relying on some application to play nice.

2. Let me control CPU usage
Sure, all these new technologies empower some really nifty features, and some great ads, but they have a tendency to run away with themselves. I'm tired of noticing that $browser is consuming some insane amount of cpu then clicking through tabs trying to figure out which flash app (generally some ad) has gone nuts then closing the tab.

By default, when a tab loses focus I'd like all activity on that app to be frozen, or capped at some minimal level of CPU activity. Give me access to empower pages to continue functioning normally on a tab by tab basis, and possibly program in given URLs and domains as being permanently allowed (think pandora, or our training application).

3. Notify on break-out events
My browser is a contained space, it has four borders. Anything that exits that space by: popping up a window, initiating a sound, dropping a file onto my hard drive, etc. should be made clear. I'm tired of playing whack-a-mole when an advertisement in one of the 30 tabs I have open across three browsers starts whispering to me.

When a web application initiates a break out event I'd like it to get some sort of an icon on the tab level. A little speaker for sounds, a box for a pop-up, etc. That way when something happens I can track down why and where it came from.