I don't even know why this needs to be said, because it's fairly obvious nobody on Earth actually does risk analysis this way. I mean, unless you're a programmer with some sort of brain worm infestation, who cannot read between the lines, and have an inability to understand how people in the real world do (and must) operate, clearly.
I realize that some software is more secure than others, and that changes can be made to make it more secure. My point is that you can't simply say "therefore these changes are necessarily good", because there is more to software than security, and those changes often involve tradeoffs in other areas, which have to be weighted. For some of us, in this case, those tradeoffs aren't worth it.
> In the most recent Pwn2Own hacking competition, Chrome came out ahead of every other browser with only one exploit being successfully executed.
0: https://tiptopsecurity.com/what-is-the-most-secure-web-brows...
* Chrome/Chromium is more secure against attacks by governments or criminals (i.e., attacks against the integrity of the system; I can't think of the right word).
* Firefox may be more secure against advertising and corporate confidentiality attacks.
* Firefox with certain add-ons, too technical for most users, may be as secure as Chrome/Chromium.
Firefox, as this announcement shows, is just getting around to freeing itself from design decisions which may have made sense over a decade ago when Mozilla had 'software suite' ambitions but we now know are a liability for something with the security demands of a browser.
It doesn't change your overall point, but I think this part is incorrect. AFAIK abandoning those ambitions was the reason they left Seamonkey behind and developed Firefox.
https://gilbane.com/2000/03/netscape-announces-gecko-adoptee...
Support for XUL addons is being dropped now. That's a long echo.
I'm not sure how that applies. Firefox wasn't magic; Mozilla rewrote their browser intentionally and put a lot of resources into it.
> Firefox started well before Seamonkey was spun out
My understanding of that statement is that they didn't drop the old product until the new one was succeeding in the marketplace. I'm not sure how that impacts what I said.
No no, they didn't. Firefox and Mozilla (and even later versions of Netscape) share the same architectural underpinnings. That's sort of the intent and cleverness of it, it's really an entire system for writing cross-platform apps, with its own 'language independent' component model, gui layer, etc. The things that made Firefox possible also made all-powerful Firefox extensions possible. Much of that architecture is still around. In the intervening years, it's become obvious this is not necessarily a good way to build a browser. Which is why they are dropping XUL/XPCOM extensions. If they'd 'rewritten' it, they wouldn't need to do that.
My understanding of that statement is that they didn't drop the old product until the new one was succeeding in the marketplace.
I'm talking about common architecture, not products. If you're unfamiliar with it, just scroll through this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPCOM
If you are familiar with it, I guess I don't understand what your objection is.
Just compare the amount of code execution CVEs found on a yearly basis and the level of severity of each. Then think of how Firefox has much less marketshare than Chrome (FF sits around 8% and its share keeps going down year by year), so Chrome should be a more interesting target for hacking.
Then come back and tell us which browser has the lesser amount, and when some are found, which is most likely to have the more severely exploitable vuln.
It may be Jesus on a popsicle, but I'm not going to trust something distributed via drive-by-installers, marketed through SPAM and made by the world's biggest data-hoarder and privacy-invader no matter what.
It's adware/malware short and simple.
Make it 100% FOSS. Remove any technical connection to Google. Don't require Google-logon to sync. Only distribute it to users who actually asked to have it installed. Etc etc.
At that point I might consider starting trusting it. Not before.
Personally, I'd at definitely consider using Jesus on a popsicle, if the opportunity arose, just to see what it's like. Not that it has so far, sadly.
Definitely not an option.
I don't want to give those to google. Is that unreasonable?