Browser extensions are underrated: the promise of hackable software

Post by saagarjha » Mon, Jul 29, 2019, 11:38 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #116

bradknowles wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect, Google is not Apple, and Apple is not Google. I think a lot of people would say that Google is a pretty evil company in many respects, whereas Apple isn't exactly 100% saintly, but at least their profit and business goals align more closely with what is generally considered to be good for customers.

I’m definitely an Apple customer - our cell phone plan has 6 devices and we have two AppleTVs. But playing devil’s advocate, Apple’s business model only allows a small percentage of upper income people globally to be able to afford their products. Android and Google have done a lot more to bring computing to the masses than Apple. The cheapest iPhone that you can buy is $475 over $200 more than the average selling pr…

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Jul 29, 2019, 11:45 PM UTC

hnaccy wrote: post #118

scarface74 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how many consumers would know if uBlock did something bad? Should we optimize security for the minority or the majority?

Why is better to fix adblocking capabilities at model that is borderline insufficient now let alone in 10 years. There is arms race and you want adblockers (good guys) to give up any improvements in perpetuity, that is a recipe for losing. Me installing uBlock for parents has improved their browser experience and security. I'd rather risk uBlock being compromised and having to phone them to uninstall it than have the…

Post by kevingadd » Mon, Jul 29, 2019, 11:56 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #44

kevingadd wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse still, the design of the most popular extension API is intrinsically poor at protecting users from malicious extension developers (or extension resale to malicious developers). Until Google and Mozilla fix the design people shouldn't be installing more than a handful of extensions, because they end up usually having complete access to all your data for convenience reasons.

Extensions have a similar model to phone apps. They have a basic set of APIs available, and beyond that they have to ask for permission before they can use more. E.g. I have a Firefox addon called "t.co unmangler" that only has permission to access my data for twitter.com and can't read anything else. If an extension is compromised and tries to access more that it was allowed before, the browser will block it until I…

Post by Quarrel » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 12:01 AM UTC

bradknowles wrote: post #96

dnate wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has been the reality for the Apple AppStore for many years. Seems to not have hurt them. And Chrome has a much larger market share (or browser share) than iOS has. As long as you have that, you can pretty much do whatever you like to the devs as long as you don't piss off the users

Oh? How many billions of users are on Chrome?

Post by megous » Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 12:20 AM UTC

miguelmota wrote: post #8

Sometimes popular abandoned browser extensions get bought up by malicious actors that inject malware into your browser without you ever knowing because extensions get automatically updated.