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Browser extensions are underrated: the promise of hackable software

geoffreylitt.com

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Re: Browser extensions are underrated: the promise of hackable software

#181

Post by aswan »

wutbrodo wrote: post #90
scarface74 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides having to do it on every restart, that’s a good thing. It should be convoluted to do unsafe operations to protect the average user but allow the advanced user flexibility.

I feel like having a big scary warning would be sufficient instead of making it inconvenient. It's easy for a competent user to ignore a warning that they fully understand while it scares off those that are clueless.

The issue isn't about having a sufficiently scary warning. It is that the browser has to store the fact that the user has agreed to this warning somewhere (ie, presumably in the user's profile). That means any other software running on the computer with regular user permissions can make the same modification to the profile and then install an unsigned extension without the user's consent.

Typically, when Mozilla finds out about software installing extensions without user consent, the extension is added to the blocklist, but if the extension is unsigned it can just claim that it is ublock origin or adblock plus or some popular extension, leaving no practical way to block it.

This is described in greater detail at https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/04/15/the-case-for-exte...

(in full disclosure, I am a Mozilla employee)

Re: Browser extensions are underrated: the promise of hackable software

#182

Post by roryokane »

dbandstra wrote: post #58
idoubtit wrote: post #4

I believe many people should attempt to create their own web extension, even if they don't publish it. In my younger years, I used to crack and hack software just for fun. Those were my Softice years. Later, when Opera was not Chromium based, I also had several site customisations, since it was very easy to add my own JS and CSS to any web site. Nowadays, I have 4 extensions created and tailored for my needs. One tha…

I think this is a great idea. I maintain a personal extension as well. I've experimented with a few ideas for augmenting browser experience, but so far I'm mostly just hiding obtrusive elements on various websites (mostly by CSS, with some JS where sites obfuscate class names). Even that would have taken multiple thirdparty extensions to accomplish - and probably would have required giving very broad permissions to t…

Though Stylish was compromised, you can safely use the fork Stylus that was created in response: https://github.com/openstyles/stylus

I use Stylus to add custom CSS to sites and Violentmonkey (https://violentmonkey.github.io/) to add custom JS. They both make it fairly easy to start writing code for a new site. However, there is no easy way to set up both custom CSS and custom JS for a single site – a custom browser extension like you made could potentially support that better.

Re: Browser extensions are underrated: the promise of hackable software

#183

Post by lbatx »

jackfraser wrote: post #155
lbatx wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Extensions should be able to have their permissions limited by domain (e.g. to customize YouTube or Reddit) at a minimum. This seems like a good idea until you realize that the behavior you might want to modify is coming from a different domain loaded by the page and you have no control over how they set that up.

So the app should ask for a permission to a reasonable set of domains, and when you're installing it, you should get a clearly laid out permissions / privacy risk management worksheet to look at and agree to.

Many sites use dozens of domains. Some (probably most) are ads, tracking, and the like. But much of it is stuff needed to run the site. I don't think there is a reasonable set of defaults other than things not on an ad blocker blacklist. And asking the user to approve each domain on a page is too much -- how would they decide, and how would they know which one prevented the site from working properly?

Re: Browser extensions are underrated: the promise of hackable software

#184

Post by jackfraser »

lbatx wrote: post #183
jackfraser wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the app should ask for a permission to a reasonable set of domains, and when you're installing it, you should get a clearly laid out permissions / privacy risk management worksheet to look at and agree to.

Many sites use dozens of domains. Some (probably most) are ads, tracking, and the like. But much of it is stuff needed to run the site. I don't think there is a reasonable set of defaults other than things not on an ad blocker blacklist. And asking the user to approve each domain on a page is too much -- how would they decide, and how would they know which one prevented the site from working properly?

What if that's fundamentally a flawed way of building things? Maybe your site should provide all of the assets it needs...

Re: Browser extensions are underrated: the promise of hackable software

#185

Post by Endy »

weaksauce wrote: post #179
pessimizer wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Memory usage and speeding up firefox have nothing to do with keeping the browser patched. Plenty of people thought it was fast enough and fine with memory for their use case, but very few people will be fine with gaping security holes.

> Memory usage and speeding up firefox have nothing to do with keeping the browser patched yeah? they are tangential goals but that's the problem. in moving away from browser extensions to webextensions you have a completely diverging codebase that's almost impossible to keep patched because the architecture is fundamentally incompatible and the patches will not be able to be applied in all but the most trivial of ca…

You're pointing out one of the main complaints that's led to PM use. The codebase of electrolysis-Firefox & XUL-Firefox have diverged to that degree. And some of us have found that single-process function and customization features are what we want, not Chrome-lite. For my part, PM loads faster and works longer without crashing my PC than any of the multiprocess browsers.

Re: Browser extensions are underrated: the promise of hackable software

#186

Post by lbatx »

jackfraser wrote: post #184
lbatx wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many sites use dozens of domains. Some (probably most) are ads, tracking, and the like. But much of it is stuff needed to run the site. I don't think there is a reasonable set of defaults other than things not on an ad blocker blacklist. And asking the user to approve each domain on a page is too much -- how would they decide, and how would they know which one prevented the site from working properly?

What if that's fundamentally a flawed way of building things? Maybe your site should provide all of the assets it needs...

It's certainly flawed, but providing all of the assets creates a different class of problems. Both approaches have pros and cons, plus the original comment I replied to passed it off as a solution to the problem at hand, which it's not.

Re: Browser extensions are underrated: the promise of hackable software

#187

Post by wutbrodo »

aswan wrote: post #181
wutbrodo wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like having a big scary warning would be sufficient instead of making it inconvenient. It's easy for a competent user to ignore a warning that they fully understand while it scares off those that are clueless.

The issue isn't about having a sufficiently scary warning. It is that the browser has to store the fact that the user has agreed to this warning somewhere (ie, presumably in the user's profile). That means any other software running on the computer with regular user permissions can make the same modification to the profile and then install an unsigned extension without the user's consent. Typically, when Mozilla find…

Ah thanks, that's useful context. I was responding primarily to the claim that convolutedness is necessary to protect unsophisticated users, which I interpreted as meaning that the complexity of the UI scares users off. But this is a separate technical limitation that makes a lot of sense.

Re: Browser extensions are underrated: the promise of hackable software

#188

Post by wutbrodo »

scarface74 wrote: post #100
wutbrodo wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like having a big scary warning would be sufficient instead of making it inconvenient. It's easy for a competent user to ignore a warning that they fully understand while it scares off those that are clueless.

People ignore warnings - they have since the dawn of personal computers. You remember Vista UAC? Why optimize for the 1% instead of the 99%?

UAC was simultaneously seemingly ubiquitous and not a particularly "scary" warning. It just sounded like bland computer jargon to the uninformed. I was envisioning something like the https warnings that Chrome gives: a clear warning sign that uses emotionally loaded terms like "go back to safety" and hides the proceed link under the fold.

That being said, it's entirely possible that I'm overestimating the intelligence of the average user and that many of them wouldn't blink even in the face of a warning made up to look scary.

Re: Browser extensions are underrated: the promise of hackable software

#189

Post by ignoramous »

on_and_off wrote: post #180
ignoramous wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honest question : Can you expand on how this would work please? Such a thing is already possible today. Some require root, some require breaking PlayStore's terms of use. One such example is: XPrivacyLua [0] by the creator of NetGuard. It helps fake location data, hide contacts and calendar, fake device-id, IMEI, MAC addresses etc on a per-app basis. Another example is how VPN in Android [1][2] is widely used to bl…

None of these answer my question though. Repackaging, leveraging a security flaw to use xposed, etc, all of these add more vectors that can compromise your data. You need to have complete trust in the person that wrote these, way more trust than just in the creators of an app that can just use the permissions you give them :/

I agree. My point was the security risk is worth it if extensibility is achieved. I cited the example of browsers and content blockers.

There are many intrusive permissions that already are major privacy and security risks-- Launchers, SMS apps, VPNs, and even alarm clocks that mine location data. The playing ground isn't level, right now, to counter this intrusion.

One way to affect what other apps do, without root, is to route the traffic via VPN and firewall as appropriate. That's possible only when a user enables a VPN to do so. Similarly, the plugins could also require a user to explicitly grant or deny permission for them to work. This is enough of a security measure as its on par with the current system in Android (regardless of its notoriety).

> None of these answer my question though.

May be I understood you wrong. I hope I made my point clear to you above?

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