Destructive actions are easy to trigger by accident. A one-second hold is a lighter alternative to an "Are you sure?" dialog: it's quick when you mean it and nearly impossible to do by mistake.
Progress is driven by requestAnimationFrame and measured against performance.now(), so it's accurate even if a frame is dropped. The bar is a transform: scaleX(), which animates smoothly without layout work.
Touch: touch-action: none, -webkit-touch-callout: none and a blocked contextmenu stop the phone from scrolling, zooming or opening a long-press menu while you hold. Keyboard: hold Space or Enter; releasing the key cancels, just like lifting a finger.