If you just want to display pages of mixed text and images, it would be much easier. However, browsers are closer operating systems, capable of supporting rich desktop apps, without the antiquated desktop APIs. Browsers have more sophisticated security than desktop systems, and provide direct access to hardware resources like cameras, microphones and GPUs. In fact, webGPU would probably be considered a much better interface for GPUs than the desktop APIs like DirectX, WebGL, though maybe Vulkan is just as good. Browsers are also forming the basis for WASM development, though there are other deployment platforms, browsers are the biggest.
