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)_/¯
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).
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
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)_/¯
Linux security noob here but can’t you just run the browser in a chroot with everything isolated?
Yeah, that should work too… but you don’t get to see any of your local files…
Made a Nix library for this. For a simple setup you can just build this (untested) and run the result:
It doesn’t have user isolation yet, so if it escapes the browser and the chroot (which doesn’t have a
/procunless you setproc = /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).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
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.