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> Edit: I hope they bring this to Android also! "Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they're currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherent
by handedness 4y ago
> Edit: I hope they bring this to Android also!
"Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they're currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn't have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one. Firefox / Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS hardening work for apps. Worst of all, Firefox does not have internal sandboxing on Android. This is despite the fact that Chromium semantic sandbox layer on Android is implemented via the OS isolatedProcess feature, which is a very easy to use boolean property for app service processes to provide strong isolation with only the ability to communicate with the app running them via the standard service API. Even in the desktop version, Firefox's sandbox is still substantially weaker (especially on Linux) and lacks full support for isolating sites from each other rather than only containing content as a whole. The sandbox has been gradually improving on the desktop but it isn't happening for their Android browser yet."
Source: https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing
- fulafel 4y agoYour quoted part seems to refer to people using the OS browser component in some contexts (eg app embedded web content) and the actual browser app in others. It's good to be aware of but claiming the resulting attack surface is the union is only technically correct. The resulting risk is not increased correspondingly as you are not accessing most content through 2 browsers.
- mcsniff 4y agoThis is good reminder, thank you. I am an advocate and user of GrapheneOS, but often find myself using Firefox because of Sync, and because of the bottom toolbar -- which is ridiculous to think about. I understand the want to stay close to upstream and requests for such "usability" tweaks this should go to Chromium. Alas the rigidity of the GrapheneOS project is a double edged sword.