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> better privacy/security than a webapp Is this true? Desktop apps have far more power to create privacy or security concerns that web apps do. The web sandbox

> better privacy/security than a webapp Is this true? Desktop apps have far more power to create privacy or security concerns that web apps do. The web sandbox isn't perfect by any means, but it's very good and far stricter than anything else on desktop. We all get annoyed by websites that set tracking cookies and send telemetry on the web for example, but there's a lot more of telemetry & tracking in most desktop apps that simply gets ignored - Firefox's DLTOKEN id for each download being just one recent example: https://www.ghacks.net/2022/03/17/each-firefox-download-has-a-unique-identifier/ https://www.ghacks.net/2022/03/17/each-firefox-download-has-....

nicce 5y ago
For this same reason you see a mobile app for so many websites when there is no point. And so much pushing for using them. Because browsers don’t allow that much data collection.
mike_hearn 5y ago
Desktop apps can be worse for privacy if they're unsandboxed. But if the app isn't actually malware then they are better, because they process data locally instead of uploading it to a server to process. Even with the best intentions in the world, those SaaS services are getting hacked left right and centre these days and that's before you take national borders/sovereignty issues and spying into account. What's needed is to go beyond the browser - we should be able to execute many kinds of apps inside portable sandboxes, not just HTML.
- root_axis 5y ago
  > Desktop apps can be worse for privacy if they're unsandboxed. Sure, but the point is that you have no idea if a binary is sandboxed before you execute it. > because they process data locally instead of uploading it to a server to process No, they do whatever they want, which includes regularly transmitting all sorts of data over the internet, with far less restrictions and visibility compared to a browser. > these SaaS services are getting hacked left right and centre these days and that's before you take national borders/sovereignty issues and spying into account. And individual users get hacked far more often, primarily by being tricked into downloading and executing an arbitrary binary.
  - mike_hearn 5y ago
    With app stores you do (or can) know that. But yes a default non-store distributed app must be trusted. In many cases that's fine because there are lots of ways to get trust other than sandboxes. MS Word or first party Apple apps don't really need to be sandboxed other than as defence-in-depth because they're from trusted brands, for example. Steam doesn't sandbox games as far as I'm aware and in reality nobody cares because Valve keeps scams and malware off the store. "No, they do whatever they want, which includes regularly transmitting all sorts of data over the internet, with far less restrictions and visibility compared to a browser." The browser transmits every detail of every interaction by design. Meanwhile it's not actually true that desktop apps constantly upload data. Many don't. The norms are totally different: not only can they operate telemetry free by their nature, even when companies do collect this they almost always let you opt-in or out. That's why telemetry in Windows is a constant source of controversy whereas for websites everyone has given up caring a long time ago - even the "best" privacy approaches on the web still generate detailed server logs of every button press and page navigation. "And individual users get hacked far more often, primarily by being tricked into downloading and executing an arbitrary binary." No, not any more. Maybe in 2003 but even many years ago this "tricking" was mostly about piracy. Nowadays? I don't even remember the last time I was asked to clean someone's computer of viruses. The average user has been impacted far worse by data leaks, hacked email and social media accounts, bank phishing etc in the past decade and that's not because desktop apps went away (they did not - games alone are an industry bigger than Hollywood). I'm not arguing against sandboxes. We should have a great cross platform mechanism for sandboxing non-web apps. But the web vs non-web privacy discussion is way, way more complex than just "web=good".
nobodyandproud 5y ago
> Is this true? Desktop apps have far more power to create privacy or security concerns that web apps do. The web sandbox isn't perfect by any means, but it's very good and far stricter than anything else on desktop This isn’t inherent. If every program could run in in its own container then this wouldn’t matter. There’s zero interest by anyone in doing so in yhe desktop, since the money is in selling services. But virtualization approximates this.

nicce 5y ago

For this same reason you see a mobile app for so many websites when there is no point. And so much pushing for using them. Because browsers don’t allow that much data collection.

mike_hearn 5y ago

Desktop apps can be worse for privacy if they're unsandboxed. But if the app isn't actually malware then they are better, because they process data locally instead of uploading it to a server to process. Even with the best intentions in the world, those SaaS services are getting hacked left right and centre these days and that's before you take national borders/sovereignty issues and spying into account. What's needed is to go beyond the browser - we should be able to execute many kinds of apps inside portable sandboxes, not just HTML.

root_axis 5y ago
> Desktop apps can be worse for privacy if they're unsandboxed. Sure, but the point is that you have no idea if a binary is sandboxed before you execute it. > because they process data locally instead of uploading it to a server to process No, they do whatever they want, which includes regularly transmitting all sorts of data over the internet, with far less restrictions and visibility compared to a browser. > these SaaS services are getting hacked left right and centre these days and that's before you take national borders/sovereignty issues and spying into account. And individual users get hacked far more often, primarily by being tricked into downloading and executing an arbitrary binary.
- mike_hearn 5y ago
  With app stores you do (or can) know that. But yes a default non-store distributed app must be trusted. In many cases that's fine because there are lots of ways to get trust other than sandboxes. MS Word or first party Apple apps don't really need to be sandboxed other than as defence-in-depth because they're from trusted brands, for example. Steam doesn't sandbox games as far as I'm aware and in reality nobody cares because Valve keeps scams and malware off the store. "No, they do whatever they want, which includes regularly transmitting all sorts of data over the internet, with far less restrictions and visibility compared to a browser." The browser transmits every detail of every interaction by design. Meanwhile it's not actually true that desktop apps constantly upload data. Many don't. The norms are totally different: not only can they operate telemetry free by their nature, even when companies do collect this they almost always let you opt-in or out. That's why telemetry in Windows is a constant source of controversy whereas for websites everyone has given up caring a long time ago - even the "best" privacy approaches on the web still generate detailed server logs of every button press and page navigation. "And individual users get hacked far more often, primarily by being tricked into downloading and executing an arbitrary binary." No, not any more. Maybe in 2003 but even many years ago this "tricking" was mostly about piracy. Nowadays? I don't even remember the last time I was asked to clean someone's computer of viruses. The average user has been impacted far worse by data leaks, hacked email and social media accounts, bank phishing etc in the past decade and that's not because desktop apps went away (they did not - games alone are an industry bigger than Hollywood). I'm not arguing against sandboxes. We should have a great cross platform mechanism for sandboxing non-web apps. But the web vs non-web privacy discussion is way, way more complex than just "web=good".

nobodyandproud 5y ago

> Is this true? Desktop apps have far more power to create privacy or security concerns that web apps do. The web sandbox isn't perfect by any means, but it's very good and far stricter than anything else on desktop This isn’t inherent. If every program could run in in its own container then this wouldn’t matter. There’s zero interest by anyone in doing so in yhe desktop, since the money is in selling services. But virtualization approximates this.