Is it possible to infect a machine purely by opening a link to a website?

Question

Information Security

After a while, after searching for information on this issue, there was a feeling of dissatisfaction (which is harmful for a person living in the IT world) and rising anger.
Some argue that it is easy to get infected by reading an article on a regular website, others write that it is difficult to get infected, but do not exclude this possibility - by exploiting some ancient vulnerabilities.
I myself believe that this is impossible, since browser-based JavaScript is practically isolated from direct access to external applications. Try to convince me with concrete facts.