211–220 of 264 posts
I recently flashed GrapheneOS on a Pixel for a friend. I was very surprised that you can do this entire process from the browser using WebUSB - the only downside being that it required me to launch Chromium.
I was rather hostile towards WebUSB/Bluetooth for ideological reasons, until I came across some cool apps like a climbing board control app (Bluetooth) or a netMD (to transfer to minidisks, via USB), which I would have found overkill to install a "hard App" for. I'm glad that there's an option for Firefox at last.
So, basically, you got seduced to loosen up your ideology a bit. You’re not alone. I likely would, too. What I would like to see instead of WebUSB is something akin to SOAP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAP), but for USB, where device manufacturers provide a downloadable file that describes the interface of their device, and tools, including third party ones, can generate apps from those descriptions.
I think that would give us an easy way to talk to USB devices without having to rely on the forever presence and good intentions of a third party web service.
One thing that it wouldn’t allow is for a remote server to talk to a local USB device. That may be unfortunate for a few use cases, but I think overall that’s for the better.
WebUSB is so great. I can ship a cross-platform application that accesses a hardware device without having to deal with all the platform specifics, and with decent sandboxing of my driver. I think one way to make it more "secure" against unwitting users would be to only support WebUSB for devices that have a WebUSB descriptor - would allow "origin" checking.
> I can ship a cross-platform application And you can also un-ship it whenever you want, leaving users with unusable devices they paid money for.
WebUSB as an extension is the right approach. The security concern isn't the API itself — it's the default-on expectation that Chrome created. Firefox's model of "opt-in via extension" gives power users what they need without expanding the attack surface for everyone else. I've used WebUSB for flashing keyboard firmware and it's genuinely better than downloading random executables from GitHub. The permission model is…
If I need to install a program, browser extension, just to work with a given tool, I probably would just prefer an ordinary program without browser at all.
Chrome approach is correct. It allows user to work with USB devices without exposing computer to the risks of installing a host software.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can flash GrapheneOS on a Pixel from another pixel , no pc required at all. I've done it several times, this is what sold me on the utility of WebUSB. You can use GOS' own distribution of chromium, Vanadium, if you have a GOS device and you want to avoid Chrome.
Is there something specific in that process that required Web USB vs just normal USB? Sounds like phone makers could have done this since forever if they wanted to, what makes WebUSB particularly useful for this?
It also convenient for developer, as distributing apps nowadays is a lot of hoops to jump over. Website is just a website.
Also website is cross-platform by definition, as long as API is supported across platforms and WebUSB API is supported on all platforms except iOS.
People are starting to ship even local apps only in the form of some html & js that only works on Chrome because only Chrome has webusb. Whether we like the idea of the browser having access to usb or not, I at least like even less the idea of being forced to install and use Chrome for the same reasons as the bad old days of being forced to use IE.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s how most operating systems have worked for over two decades. Most OSes support USB devices that present themselves as HID, mass storage, audio, etc. without any dedicated drivers needed. It’s only specialized devices or functionality that tends to need additional drivers.
It's not even just USB classes that the OS provides a native driver for. I believe that on both iOS and macOS (not sure about newer Windows versions), you can essentially access USB as a byte streaming device. If your app is the only one expected to communicate with a given device, you can then just directly embed the logic speaking that protocol in it. A driver is only needed if you want to provide a shared high-lev…
Well, this seems like a terrible idea. I really don't want websites to be able to access hardware. I am already uncomfortable with the webcam access.
With WebUSB implemented in major browser, you can be sure that they took extraordinary attention to all security implications.
With some random application from tiny developer, can you be sure about that?
I know for sure, that I prefer a webpage isolated in the browser for anything that could be done in a browser. I'm very hesitant to install anything locally.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see this slightly differently. Before, if I wanted to be able to do something like flash firmware onto some device I would have to download some random C++ application and install and run it on my local machine. As well as having access to all of my USB devices, it also had access to everything else on my system's user context. I didn't have a way of running that code and only giving it access to a single USB devic…
ok, let me expand on why I don't like it... It's making a niche rarely done use case safer at the cost of making the common case (browsing the web) less safe. And yes, I am fully aware that I can not press the button that give random sites access... But the issue is it increases the attack surface and is yet another thing that I could get tricked by on a bad day. The OS should really be able to run code like a firmwa…
That's what I do and that's what I suggest for any security-conscious user to do. Just explore Chromium settings, there are dozens of various APIs that could be disabled. Do you need Web MIDI? I don't. Disable.
Won't work as a default setting for average user for sure, but if you consider yourself an advanced user, do that.
And Web Serial reached mainline Firefox last week. I hope Mozilla can eventually stop playing their silly role in the security theater of “but what if our users are dumb” and actually deliver those "power-user" features that would allow me to uninstall Chrome for good. Oh, and also, --app= flag please.