Re:Firefox Focus – a free, fast and easy to use private brow...
by st3fan on Thursday November 17, 2016 @02:14PM
(#12980468)
There is a sandbox, but to be a competitive third-party browser you also need something else:
Safari has a special permission (entitlement) that allows it to compile JavaScript to native code. This is what their JIT does.
This is something that no third-party app has ever gotten. No JIT means slow JavaScript. No ASM.js, no WebAssembly.
I have mixed feelings about giving third-party applications (browsers) this permission. Bugs can lead to remote code execution, can lead to sandbox escapes, can lead to compromised devices.
This is a really tough one. Specially for apps that load random content from the web.
Safari has a special permission (entitlement) that allows it to compile JavaScript to native code. This is what their JIT does.
This is something that no third-party app has ever gotten. No JIT means slow JavaScript. No ASM.js, no WebAssembly.
I have mixed feelings about giving third-party applications (browsers) this permission. Bugs can lead to remote code execution, can lead to sandbox escapes, can lead to compromised devices.
This is a really tough one. Specially for apps that load random content from the web.