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Introducing WhiteHat Aviator – A Safer Web Browser
- TruthSHIFT 13y ago“If you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.” I was hoping that this was something I could pay for. It's still a free web browser.
- CrankyPants 13y agoNoticed the same thing. I hope they're more careful with their software design and monetization plan than they were with that announcement. And at some point they should probably address that it's still an advertisement–for their services.
- pyalot2 13y agoProprietary "safer" web browser. Yeah right.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- tptacek 13y agoThis is a browser built on Chromium. Where is its source code? Is this a closed-source wrapper around Chromium? Later: Answer: Yes. https://twitter.com/jeremiahg/status/392335814048247808 https://twitter.com/jeremiahg/status/392335814048247808
- themechanic 13y agoMy thoughts exactly. Why haven't they made the source public.
- reginaldjcooper 13y agoI am doing a double-take as well. It seems like closed-source is antithesis to "designed for the every day person who really values their online security and privacy."
- true_religion 13y agoI think the key word there is 'every day person', which for most non-technical people means that they trust someone has looked after the problem, and may actually feel safer by paying someone to do so.
- jessaustin 13y agoUnfortunately the aforementioned persons are unlikely to realize they could pay someone to look after security in an open, communicative fashion.
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoThe placebo effect does not really apply to software, though.
- recursive 13y agoHow can you be so sure?
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoAt least for one, it is so much easier to break the placebo.
- pyalot2 13y agoOh there's no problem paying somebody to do a job. But somehow you'll need to be able to check that the job is done. Or at least read the opinion of somebody who has no stake in the matter to attest to the job being done. So "the job" here involving making a browser not do things, which you can't see. How often pray tell do you pay somebody to perform a job you can't verify the outcome of, but take him by his word that he did it?
- nextstep 13y agoHow? Seems to me like an "every day person" wouldn't dive into the source code of their browser.
- beaker52 13y agoIf I got an email from george@avoid416scam.com claiming to protect my bank account from 416 scams for free if I give him access to my bank account, I'd be suspicious. Instead I got a website from whitehatsec.com claiming to provide me a more secure web browser for free, claiming it's perfectly safe to put in my bank account info into it. Won't touch it with a barge pole. My spidey sense is tingling for one reason or another.
- saejox 13y agoTotally downloading because a wordpress page with binary download link is the safest/private thing i can think of.
- rada 13y agoRegistered through GoDaddy, no less: http://whois.net/whois/whitehatsec.com http://whois.net/whois/whitehatsec.com
- webjunkie 13y agoOh yeah, really long text and then an inviting "click here" at the end. That is neither the best usability nor SEO-friendly in any way.
- webwanderings 13y agoNever heard of this company before, not sure what to think of their blog post announcing the availability of this browser. If I'm not mistaken, one can pretty much configure any browser to do what they have identified done in their browser, unless there's more.
- fnbr 13y agoI find it incredible that someone would publish a web browser claiming to be safer: a) without publishing the source code, and b) acting surprised when people don't trust it. Seriously, what was @jeremiahg thinking?
- glomph 13y agoSomething actually interesting in the space of a safer web browser: http://goto.ucsd.edu/quark/ http://goto.ucsd.edu/quark/
- officialjunk 13y agoDo you use this?
- glomph 13y agoNo. It is interesting as a concept though.
- cmiles74 13y agoI would imagine the target market consists solely of those who have already contracted with this company.
- everettForth 13y agoHow does this make any sense? " As the adage goes, “If you’re not paying for something, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.” Browsers are no different, ... WhiteHat Security has no interest or stake in the online advertising industry, so we can offer a browser free of ulterior motives. What you see is what you get. We aren’t interested in tracking you or your browsing history, or in letting anyone else have that information either."
- Mikeb85 13y agoAnd with Chromium or Firefox we can see the source code and know for sure....
- shuzchen 13y ago"And yet not a single browser vendor offers ad blocking, instead relying on optional third-party plugins, because this breaks their business model and how they make money.". I'm actually happy when browsers keep their core features as lean as possible and instead do the work that enable plugin creators to create functionality. More true for ad-blocking, where you want the plugin to be updated more often than the browser itself (e.g., for newer lists, new techniques for detecting ads).
- throwaway9101 13y agoAdblock plugins slurp down new lists without updating the plugin code itself. Newer techniques, sure, but I don't think ABP's release cycle is substantially faster than Firefox's.
- Ralith 13y agoIt could still make sense to ship an ad blocking plugin with the browser distribution.
- 0x0 13y agoI wonder how diligently updates will be handled. Do the authors have access to all the restricted/confidential security chromium bug reports, and will they be able to push out updated binaries the same second chrome does? Otherwise this could quickly end up leaving users visibly exposed to otherwise-well-known future vulns.
- davidgerard 13y agoBest comment: "Closed Source: Check Potential GPL license violation: Check Random “whitehate” company using wordpress to host website: Check. Maybe it’s just me, but unless I see the source, I wouldn’t touch this with even a virtual machine."
- clienthunter 13y agoAm I only the only one who worries what the repercussions of an ad-blocking-by-default browser getting market share might be? "Facebook, sign up now for only $4 a month..." "You have 12 tweets left. Why not top up now?"
- grncdr 13y agoI personally would love to see both of those changes, as they'd force people to place some value on such distractions. - a confessed twitter addict
- clienthunter 13y agoGive me your twitter password and I'll lock you out, then write you an app that only lets you tweet after solving a soduku.
- lloyddobbler 13y ago"We strip out referring URLs across domains to protect your privacy" Which makes it even more interesting that they're using Google Analytics to track visitors and sources on their site.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jeremiahg 13y agoWhat’s the Difference between Aviator and Chromium / Google Chrome? https://blog.whitehatsec.com/whats-the-difference-between-aviator-and-chromium-google-chrome/ https://blog.whitehatsec.com/whats-the-difference-between-av...
- tosbourn 13y agoI have been using this for a short while and wrote them thoughts down: http://tosbourn.com/2013/10/development/review-whitehat-aviator/ http://tosbourn.com/2013/10/development/review-whitehat-avia...
- drill_sarge 13y agoJust Install Firefox (or Chromium, not Chrome) and install some extension and you have the same from a much more trustworthy source.