this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
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    [–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    There's always a risk of JavaScript breaking out of the sandbox and crap like that. Browser vendors do their best to protect against things like that but security is often a trade-off for speed and people like fast software, not to mention browsers are huge and complex and they're going to have vulnerabilities. A browser's whole job is to execute remote untrusted code, do you trust it that much to be flawless?

    ...... I mean, I don't but I use it anyway so ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

    Linux security noob here but can't you just run the browser in a chroot with everything isolated?

    [–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

    Yeah, that should work too... but you don't get to see any of your local files...

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

    Made a Nix library for this. For a simple setup you can just build this (untested) and run the result:

    import ./encase.nix {
      name = "firefox";
      rw.home.nathan = /home/nathan/home-for/firefox;
      # other dependencies it might need...
      tmp = /tmp; # fresh tmpfs for this sandbox
      network = true;
      command = pkgs.firefox;
    }
    

    It doesn't have user isolation yet, so if it escapes the browser and the chroot (which doesn't have a /proc unless you set proc = /proc;, and runs in a PID namespace either way) your files are still at risk. However, this is still pretty secure, and you can run the script itself as a different user (it creates a new UID namespace so chrooting can be done without root).

    [–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

    I mean, yeah, sure. But at this point, if that’s really a worry, one should not trust any sandbox. OSes are huge and complex and will have vulnerabilities too. Hell, there could be a xz level backdoor currently in the wild and nobody knows any better lol

    [–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    Right, that's where OP comes in - most malware will be made for Windows, so if you visit such a malicious website, it'll likely be inert under Linux!

    .... I'm not saying this is a great reason to use Linux, but there's at least a little bit of merit to it.