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Another issue I have with browsing in general is that it's such a complex eco-system, there is simply no real secure webbrowser around that meets standards comp
by slasaus 11y ago
Another issue I have with browsing in general is that it's such a complex eco-system, there is simply no real secure webbrowser around that meets standards comparable with other secure software like RedPhone [1], Dovecot, Postfix, OpenBSD etc. All JavaScript engines are huge complex beasts (yes, V8 too), the new EcmaScript spec is 566 pages long[2], WebRTC and all it's required dependencies, xml, WebGL, etc. etc.
Even in order to be "only" compliant with modern specs, there is no escape from creating an extremely complex piece of software. This hurts real world security for everybody to the point where it might be better not to browse at all on machines with which you can access private servers or your private mail or conversations. It would be nice if there were some smaller browsers that didn't focus so much on backwards compatibility, but on leveraging the most important features so that most of the web could be browsed, still without sacrificing end-user security by implementing each and every feature and performance tweak. In the end, the OS and the browser should be trustworthy by the user.
[1] "Overall code quality: After reading Moxie's RedPhone code the first time, I literally discovered a line of drool running down my face. It's really nice." http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/03/here-come-encryption-apps.html http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/03/here-come-en...
[2] http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Ecma-262.pdf http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST...
- pcwalton 11y ago> It would be nice if there were some smaller browsers that didn't focus so much on backwards compatibility There are lots of those. > but on leveraging the most important features so that most of the web could be browsed, still without sacrificing end-user security by implementing each and every feature and performance tweak. That's simply not possible. Even if you restrict yourself to the Alexa Top 100, browsing is impossible without implementing most of HTML5, JS, CSS3 (media queries + gradients + borders + flexbox + ...), SVG, etc. Even if you restrict yourself to just Wikipedia, most of the Web platform gets used (including some uncommon stuff like multicol). If you want this to be viable, you need to convince Web authors to stop using the features you don't like.
- slasaus 11y ago> If you want this to be viable, you need to convince Web authors to stop using the features you don't like. Interesting point :) I guess what I'm talking about would be a niche browser. The one that currently comes closest to this is Xombrero[1], still delivering a lot of highly complex code because that's all we got nowadays. [1] https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero