3 ms·

The opposite is the case - web applications are one of the best things to happen, security-wise, in a long time. Web applications are fully isolated and sandbo

by lima 7y ago

The opposite is the case - web applications are one of the best things to happen, security-wise, in a long time. Web applications are fully isolated and sandboxed, have fine-grained permissions, are easy to inspect, and the runtime is built with a modern threat model. ChromeOS is probably the most secure desktop OS for this reason. I want my browser to expose more functionality to web apps, because it means that I have to run less random unsandboxed code on my underlying OS.

ticviking 7y ago
I'd like it more if my underlying OS provided these features instead of running an OS on my OS.
- lima 7y ago
  We need both - some kinds of applications need direct hardware access. But the kernel attack surface is huge, even with seccomp and friends. An app on my smartphone or - much worse - an Electron app "sandboxed" in a flatpak on my desktop has access to far wider range of dangerous APIs than a web application. What's wrong with a browser as a high-level OS?
  - ticviking 7y ago
    It's mostly the layering that bothers me. I don't mind Chrome OS and love my chromebook. Some of this is aesthetic so I don't really expect to change minds, but if we lived in the world of "Life and Death of Javascript" and booted to some kind of Web OS I'd be annoyed at the loss of low level hackibility and get over it. Booting to Linux, then booting a browser to get to a normal app that doesn't need network connectivity "feels" wrong.
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      Booting to Linux is just because Google did not want to start from scratch. If they took a Xerox approach, ChromeOS would have a tiny mikrokernel, hypervisor type 1 style, and jump directly into Chrome.
- rictic 7y ago
  I agree, I'd like it if all app platforms were portable, secure, and linkable by default. Given that they aren't, my allegiance is with the web.
  - ticviking 7y ago
    A reasonable view. I value discoverability and comprehensibility of the underlying platform a bit more, and have recognized that isn't likely to happen any time soon.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    We had Java....
tlbsofware 7y ago
Sandboxes are security features that have to implemented though, and if implemented incorrectly will create vulnerabilities. I’m sure google is on top of these but these random unheard of browsers need more scrutiny
- eropple 7y ago
  The thing that kills me is that they forked a pretty bad (at the time) browser core to make Goanna, then the parent of the fork got way better and left them in the dust. I would actively block Pale Moon if I thought I worked with people silly enough to use a slow single-process browser in 2020. (Instead of a moderately slow multi-process browser. But I digress.)
the8472 7y ago
> are easy to inspect Until they're delivery vehicles for obfuscated wasm to canvas rendering applications. Then nothing of the "web as graph of hypertext documents" will be left.
- floatboth 7y ago
  There's been a lot of ridiculous FUD about "DRM will be used even for text!!1" (wrt. EME especially) and nothing of that sort has materialized. (also, wasm changes nothing here, you could always obfuscate js just as much)
  - the8472 7y ago
    > wasm changes nothing here, you could always obfuscate js just as much It is a significant change because it lowers the bar to create a blackbox. wasm offers the performance, canvas provides an opaque, flexible render target. Without either you're limited to obfuscating your JS (which indeed already happens) and obfuscating your DOM (also happening). But the DOM still leaves enough surface for adblockers and other extensions to intervene. Perhaps throw in a websocket/webrtc to channel all your data over a single connection and you basically have created a single intransparent blob which extensions cannot interact with on the behalf of the user. You turned the user agent into the site's agent. > "DRM will be used even for text!!1" (wrt. EME especially) I am not aware of EME offering a data path to bring encrypted text to the screen. Without such a path these claims have no merit, wasm + canvas on the other hand offer a clear path.
  - basch 7y ago
    Flipboard made react canvas to render directly to canvas instead of the dom. https://github.com/Flipboard/react-canvas https://github.com/Flipboard/react-canvas
  - superkuh 7y ago
    Go to nasa.gov with javascript off. Tell me how much text you can read. It doesn't have to be DRM. It just has to be ever more complex JS standards and engine implementations that only a handful of companies can actually make. Once it's an application instead of a document the text just isn't there.
superkuh 7y ago
Websites are at least supposedly are sandboxed so they are not as much of a risk as running native binaries. But this is getting worse and worse though as browsers expose more and more of their host operating system's functionality. The benefits of using a website instead of a native app are quickly disappearing, while the drawbacks have only been somewhat mitigated. We're getting to the point where browsers are worthy of the decades old criticism Emacs has received. They have eventually become an OS with many fine features - simply lacking a good web browser. For the privacy (and security) conscious user, modern web technologies will undermine you every step of the way, or simply break if you choose to stand your ground.

by lima 7y ago

ticviking 7y ago

I'd like it more if my underlying OS provided these features instead of running an OS on my OS.

lima 7y ago
We need both - some kinds of applications need direct hardware access. But the kernel attack surface is huge, even with seccomp and friends. An app on my smartphone or - much worse - an Electron app "sandboxed" in a flatpak on my desktop has access to far wider range of dangerous APIs than a web application. What's wrong with a browser as a high-level OS?
- ticviking 7y ago
  It's mostly the layering that bothers me. I don't mind Chrome OS and love my chromebook. Some of this is aesthetic so I don't really expect to change minds, but if we lived in the world of "Life and Death of Javascript" and booted to some kind of Web OS I'd be annoyed at the loss of low level hackibility and get over it. Booting to Linux, then booting a browser to get to a normal app that doesn't need network connectivity "feels" wrong.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Booting to Linux is just because Google did not want to start from scratch. If they took a Xerox approach, ChromeOS would have a tiny mikrokernel, hypervisor type 1 style, and jump directly into Chrome.
rictic 7y ago
I agree, I'd like it if all app platforms were portable, secure, and linkable by default. Given that they aren't, my allegiance is with the web.
- ticviking 7y ago
  A reasonable view. I value discoverability and comprehensibility of the underlying platform a bit more, and have recognized that isn't likely to happen any time soon.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  We had Java....

tlbsofware 7y ago

Sandboxes are security features that have to implemented though, and if implemented incorrectly will create vulnerabilities. I’m sure google is on top of these but these random unheard of browsers need more scrutiny

eropple 7y ago
The thing that kills me is that they forked a pretty bad (at the time) browser core to make Goanna, then the parent of the fork got way better and left them in the dust. I would actively block Pale Moon if I thought I worked with people silly enough to use a slow single-process browser in 2020. (Instead of a moderately slow multi-process browser. But I digress.)

the8472 7y ago

> are easy to inspect Until they're delivery vehicles for obfuscated wasm to canvas rendering applications. Then nothing of the "web as graph of hypertext documents" will be left.

floatboth 7y ago
There's been a lot of ridiculous FUD about "DRM will be used even for text!!1" (wrt. EME especially) and nothing of that sort has materialized. (also, wasm changes nothing here, you could always obfuscate js just as much)
- the8472 7y ago
  > wasm changes nothing here, you could always obfuscate js just as much It is a significant change because it lowers the bar to create a blackbox. wasm offers the performance, canvas provides an opaque, flexible render target. Without either you're limited to obfuscating your JS (which indeed already happens) and obfuscating your DOM (also happening). But the DOM still leaves enough surface for adblockers and other extensions to intervene. Perhaps throw in a websocket/webrtc to channel all your data over a single connection and you basically have created a single intransparent blob which extensions cannot interact with on the behalf of the user. You turned the user agent into the site's agent. > "DRM will be used even for text!!1" (wrt. EME especially) I am not aware of EME offering a data path to bring encrypted text to the screen. Without such a path these claims have no merit, wasm + canvas on the other hand offer a clear path.
- basch 7y ago
  Flipboard made react canvas to render directly to canvas instead of the dom. https://github.com/Flipboard/react-canvas https://github.com/Flipboard/react-canvas
- superkuh 7y ago
  Go to nasa.gov with javascript off. Tell me how much text you can read. It doesn't have to be DRM. It just has to be ever more complex JS standards and engine implementations that only a handful of companies can actually make. Once it's an application instead of a document the text just isn't there.

superkuh 7y ago

Websites are at least supposedly are sandboxed so they are not as much of a risk as running native binaries. But this is getting worse and worse though as browsers expose more and more of their host operating system's functionality. The benefits of using a website instead of a native app are quickly disappearing, while the drawbacks have only been somewhat mitigated. We're getting to the point where browsers are worthy of the decades old criticism Emacs has received. They have eventually become an OS with many fine features - simply lacking a good web browser. For the privacy (and security) conscious user, modern web technologies will undermine you every step of the way, or simply break if you choose to stand your ground.