Samsung teams with Mozilla on next-gen browser engine The Mozilla Foundations is bringing its experimental, next-generation web browser engine to ARM chips and the Android platform, thanks to a partnership with South Korean mobe-maker Samsung. For the last few years, Mozilla has been working on a new browser engine called Servo, which is being written from the ground up to take …
You forgot Timmy. But then the interpreter would probably be evil.
I do really miss MST3K. Cinematic Titanic and RiffTrax just aren't the same. Funny, but not the same. You don't get gems like Cavedwellers, Manos, Santa Claus conquers the Martians, Kitten with a Whip, and Pod People every day.
"Push the Button, Frank!"
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Mozilla finally tackles "exploit by C and C++ artefact". About 50% of exploits in the CVE database are due to "buffer overrun", "use after free/delete", "pointer not initialized" and the like. There is more stuff waiting to happen in the "exploits race condition" department, as soon as multi-threading becomes popular.
Before you tell me that "programmers are using C++ incorrectly, that's the only problem", please explain how HP-UX had the "ping of death" (buffer overrun) and Windows NT has issues like "improper refcounting, use after free" in the kernel on a regular basis. The guys who work on HPUX and the Windows NT kernel clearly are highly experienced. Dave Cutler was once a big man on VMS, he is now the WNT lead.
Still, these people can't make programs without these C and C++ style exploits in them. In my opinion, it is the language, not the Fallible Humans.
So what can we do ? We can try to build a Safe C++. Here it is:
http://sourceforge.net/p/sappeurcompiler/code-0/2/tree/trunk/doc/SAPPEUR.pdf
http://sourceforge.net/p/sappeurcompiler/code-0/2/tree/trunk/
And yeah, it feels good to see your own (general) ideas validated. Nothing to do with righteousness, but with a symbolic reward for a lot of (unpaid) (sometimes)hard work.
Frank
Why are so many resources devoted to browser development? They are all more or less the same to the average user and that's the market all the handset manufacturers focus on. The overwhelming majority of users don't know or care if their browser is based on WebKit, Blink, etc. They just want to see a web page.
"Why are so many resources devoted to browser development? ... The overwhelming majority of users... just want to see a web page."
They want to see it fast. They don't want to wait 30s, or even 10s, for it to load (even if it is just a picture of a cat).
They want to see it correctly. They don't want to be unable to see the cat because their browser doesn't support this or that.
That is why there is so much work going on. They have to keep up to the newer technologies as they appear, while improving efficiency of existing components.
Because most people spend most of their time in the browser, whether we like it or not. Personally, I hate webmail and prefer a separate client -- that puts me in a minority though. Similarly thing like Google Docs and other "cloud" stuff (again that I don't like/trust) is being used more and more. Heck, Chrome OS is just a browser and whilst it's not mainstream yet many are raving at how good it is.
Mind you, even I appreciate being able to play a multi-player FPS in my browser (See Banana Bread) even if it is mainly for the sheer "what, the, hell!?" of it.
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