A Closer Look At Chromium and Browser Security

GhostX9 writes "Tom's Hardware's continuing series on computing security has an interview with Adam Barth and Collin Jackson, members of Stanford University's Web Security Group and members of the team that developed Chromium, the open-source core behind Google Chrome. The interview goes into detail regarding the sandboxing approach unique to Chromium, comparisons between the browser and its competition, and web security in general."

Comments

Adblock for Chrome -- Use SwWare Iron "Chrome"

[blahbooboo]

Srware Iron is Chrome compiled without all the Google spyware crap and it has adblock built in.

I LOVE IT! Firefox (all versions) is sooooo slow compared to Chrome/Iron.

http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php

Re:Adblock for Chrome -- Use SwWare Iron "Chrome"

[sortius_nod]

So what about its adblock, the thing doesn't render pages correctly. From what I can tell it is a badly compiled version of chrome.

When they get it right, then I might think about using it... uninstall time.

Re:Adblock for Chrome -- Use SwWare Iron "Chrome"

[blahbooboo]

So what about its adblock, the thing doesn't render pages correctly. From what I can tell it is a badly compiled version of chrome.

When they get it right, then I might think about using it... uninstall time.

I get some weird font smoothing occassionally on Slashdot, otherwise works perfectly for me. It's so blazing fast when I go back to Firefox I am shocked how agonizingly slow the browser is to render pages...

Re:Adblock for Chrome -- Use SwWare Iron "Chrome"

[blahbooboo]

Thanks for the link man. I'm sick of firefox cause of its slowness, but I was also getting sick of Chrome, so this should be a good alternative.

Does anyone have the following problems I have with Chrome?

(1) It freezes up continually, and when it does freeze up, it effects the entire computer.

(2) When accidently clicking on a PDF link the entire thing crashes, and computer freezes up.

I love chrome cause of its speed, but goddamn. The amount of restarts of my computer I've had with it I'm seriously looking for another browser (NOT firefox).

Are you using Adobe Acrobat for PDFs? That's likely your problem and not the browser.

Uninstall that crap and use Foxit PDF Reader instead.

Google Main Page Says To Use Chrome Only In IE

[Anonymous Coward]

When I go to the main google page in IE 8, it has this huge icon telling me to use Chrome in the top right corner. When I go there in FF, its not there. Is google singling out IE users?

Re:Google Main Page Says To Use Chrome Only In IE

[Bert64]

IE8 may be a significant improvement from 7, but it is still massively behind other browsers... It has no SVG support, it's javascript engine is still massively behind the other browsers (javascript is very important for google) and it's css support while a big improvement is still behind other browsers...
Also, doesn't IE8 require you to insert a non standard tag into your site in order to make it attempt to follow standards?

Re:Good

[PopeRatzo]

Maybe instead of complaining about a browser that displays ads, you might want to stop visiting websites that have intrusive and overwhelming ads.

I use Slashdot and Chrome and don't see any ads because I'm a subscriber, but even if I wasn't, the low number of ads here is one reason I like it.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always felt that the OS/2 UI was far superior to the Windows versions of the time (3.x/95). Heck, it makes more sense to me then Windows Vista/7 does.

Re:Good

[similar_name]

My biggest complaint about the interface is it unnecessarily creates its own window/title bar. As such I can't use RBtray on it to keep Chrome windows 'always on top'. Which I like to do so I can stick a hulu window in the corner of my screen while I'm browsing.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

For the majority of browser security as of late, JavaScript seems to be the culprit of causing malware to even professional IT people due to browsing habits and such. Chrome will and had made this far worse by not allowing a user to pick web scripts to run. I use Firefox with NoScript addon, which gives options to enable JavaScript individually on page or by an icon that reveals all sites with scripts. Since this has eliminated virtually all browser vulnerabilities (except for user stupidity), I dislike all or nothing browsers.

This is the easiest reason to explain to switch to the Firefox browser with NoScript addon. Yeah, it becomes easy to get people away from Chrome too.

Note: You can pry IT admins away from Chrome if you mention how many additional services google uses when not using Chrome and how it wants to call home often.

Re:Good

[Bert64]

I used to run a browser in a chroot on linux, partly because i had a 64bit system but needed some 32bit plugins (java, flash) and partly for the security benefit...
In terms of user files, you simply leave them in the sandbox, the host system can access the sandbox but the sandbox can't access the host which is how it should be.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 2 features of chrome that have annoyed me to the point of recently switching back to Firefox.

1. When you scroll it scrolls like half a page at a time, rather than 3 lines at a time like every other browser. There is a setting in windows for how many lines an app should scroll when you scroll the mouse - why doesn't chrome follow this?

2. Also have you noticed that when you close chrome, any downloads get cancelled and there's no way to resume them without restarting the download. And the only way to restart them is to right click, copy the link, then paste that link back in the address bar.

Firefox is a little slower (but not much) but it works. Please fix these things Google/chromium team!