t0m5k1

Chromite/Bromite is primarily an android browser, even on windows it looks and behaves just like a mobile app.

Whilst I like the feature set as an alternative to Brave the fact they refuse to fix the PWA situation as it's "Of no interest" to the dev is a no go for me.

I've been enjoying your responses a lot! I just wanted to express my gratitude one more time!

Thanks man, means a lot these days.

What I am afraid of is how secure (continued) operation within containers would be. So even if Brave (or whichever browser for that matter) is not the culprit, the rest of the container environment might endanger the rest of my system.

If your container for brave is running but the browser itself is closed, there is no way for to happen within the container because the software that would be connected to the internet is closed/quit/stopped. In fact that container should be reported as down by whichever management subsystem is provided by said container (portainer, lxd, systemd-namespaces, etc)

So I've mostly been using well-integrated 'pet-containers' like the ones known from Distrobox (with a relevant recent feature). Aside from those I've been exposed to the earlier article and to this video. These 'expositions' have made me go from a Distrobox-enjoyer to a pessimist that doesn't dare to come close to them until I've better educated myself on them

I think you should look more into what containers are and can do, You previously said that your system is low power but distrobox is making loads of of full OS/distro containers which for the most part act like a VM. Distrobox is a good way to test drive a distro OR allow a dev to ensure the app they've made works on their target distro's for chosen use case.

All you really need to do is run a single application within a container, not a whole distro!/os Why do I say this? Well resource consumption for one and why replicate an entire distro/os when an app can be run inside a container: https://bacchi.org/posts/brave-in-docker/

Additionally I spoke about attack vectors, running another distro/OS inside a docker may well have samba, ssh running by default, If the container for that is not firewalled that is is an attack vector that will allow RCE and exploits be run inside that container!

Aside from those I've been exposed to the earlier article and to this video.

The first minute of that video talks of nginx webserver image, That is a webserver running inside a container, with distrobox you have the rest of the OS inside the container as well as nginx. Do you get what I say now?

I suggest you use the above link I gave to look into running just a browser within a container, drop distrobox (unless you need to test drive distros) and learn about running a single application within a container, when you can do that find a container framework that provides the security you want/like then run your "untrusted" applications in containers and rejoice with a slightly faster machine.

EDIT: Additionally wolfi is based on Alpine, This is a popular server distro, If you want to install wolfi you'll need to know how to install alpine, which is similar to installing gentoo as it uses bootstrap images, don't be surprised if the desktop experience is a bit ...erm lacking as that is not the focus of alpine or wolfi ! Good luck

Valid response, but why do you need to protect the OS from the browser when the browser (Brave) is already sandboxing and the browser is not an attack vector that can be directly exploited to gain access/root on your OS?

What I mean is that the tabs themselves are sandboxed to protect accounts that are opened in each from being breached, the bowser itself is obfuscating your fingerprint and blocking known bad actor sites etc so this leaves only what you manually download and here the browser will warn you if a given download has the potential to harm.

So unless you are downloading files from very questionable locations I can't see the need for a containerised browser.

Containers are good and yes have flaws but the main purpose of them is to add another layer between the application and the OS so if application is exploited the attacker has to break another wall/layer to get to the real root.

I know in April 2021 the was a PoC that used JavaScript to reverse the effect of a patch which allowed an attacker to break out of the chromium sandbox, but that was never used and if it was the attacker would first need to breach a site to deploy the code that you would then execute by visiting the site or it would be fed to you via a phishing attempt. Both of these delivery methods would need to be very stealthy and fast. currently there are 4 known CVEs for brave: (sorry for long link)

https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=16266&product_id=36540&version_id=0&page=1&hasexp=0&opdos=0&opec=0&opov=0&opcsrf=0&opgpriv=0&opsqli=0&opxss=0&opdirt=0&opmemc=0&ophttprs=0&opbyp=0&opfileinc=0&opginf=0&cvssscoremin=0&cvssscoremax=0&year=0&cweid=0&order=1&trc=3&sha=74c1df28c6d85bd121726a90109559ec94ea3549

None of these provide an attack vector that will allow access.

To check all the repo's you're going to have to use something more than pacman, maybe a perl or python script that uses libalpm_databases to get the info you need, man libalpm_databases will help you get an idea of how to interact with it.

Question: Why do you think need such high security for a browser?

Clam av on access scan: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ClamAV#OnAccessScan

ClamFS: https://github.com/burghardt/clamfs

Man you've gone down a security worm hole that makes me wonder if you should really be running qubes-OS rather than Fedora 🤣.

Seriously if you need more than the chromium sandbox for brave and want simplicity just use firejail.

The article you linked to is a wonderfully detailed write up but it is more geared towards those using containers that will be providing services (web, sql, etc) if you just want a browser in a secure container then any of the implementations will be fine for you. The browser is not a vector used to gain access to your OS directly but what you download potentially is so with that in mind your downloads folder should really be a CLAMFS folder or a target folder for on-access scanning by clamav.

Yes, I could say come to arch but you seem happy in fedora 😉

I've not used GNOME for over a decade and have not used GNOME web(epiphany) for even longer lol. I'll stick with brave as it fits my needs.

I use arch-btw so I get brave from aur, on other Linux distros the way to get brave is via flatpak if the provided repos are borked for you.

I mentioned Brendan specifically because people like to lump in his flaws as reasons for not using brave in these discussions.

Yes I was referring to pwa's, ssb's, app windows, whatever you want to call them. Firefox used to have xulrunner and prism to provide them but now Firefox doesn't provide a way other than a JavaScript popup via bookmarklet.

I've used brave since it came out. I use tampermonkey, edit this cookie and bitwarden extensions. Additionally I use pihole/unbound+roothints.

I tend not to let Brendan's controversies affect my choice because if I did I'd have to avoid JavaScript.

Brave provides me with a more secure chrome with extra bells and whistles. I'm a heavy user of app windows as I refuse to use electron based apps due them being pure chrome. When other browsers do this with the same protection as brave I'll consider moving.

The site you visit only sees the VPNs info. Which is how you maintain some anonymity while browsing.

A VPN just changes your IP, all your browser info is still visible to the website.