The most SECURE browser?

Hi I finally got around to joining this. I'm the guy with WhiteHat who answered the emails mentioned above. I'm not a developer or in a really technical capacity here, so I won't be able to answer more in-depth questions, but I can and will forward them to our development team in an attempt to make what Aviator does/is more apparent to everyone. Hopefully this all falls within the forum rules regarding advertising or product boosting...

To Username Issues: I finally responded to your email. I apologize for taking such an obscenely long time to do it, I saw it, sent the suggestion to development, and then just blatantly forgot to send an acknowledgement to you. Rookie mistake on my part, and once again I am really sorry for the inconvenience.

Regarding the person who's cookie settings won't stick (Callender in Post 120), this seems to be an issue that just came out the last update or two. I know development's working on this, but I don't know exactly what they've got done. This seems to be a result of us moving Settings to be opened in a Protected window, when before it was Not Protected. This is a shot in the dark, but if you open Settings in a Not Protected window (ctrl+shift+u, then settings as normal) you might be able to get the settings to "stick". I can't stress the shot-in-the-darkiness (shot-in-the-darkiosity? Well, whatever the word for being characteristic of being a shot in the dark is) improbability of this suggestion enough, but it is possible it works.

To other posts, we're kind of stretched thin for a lot of things, what with being a new browser and all, so things like consistent browser window size are known but aren't prioritized for repair when we have more pressing functionality issues to focus on. Eventually we'll get that fixed as the long term success of Aviator depends on it being a browser that doesn't frustrate you every time you open it. Regarding Panopticlick, we're pretty identifiable, that's a side effect of being a new browser, though we're looking into ways to improve this in the future. Browser fingerprinting may not be too big a deal now when compared to cookies for tracking, but in the future we do want to be ready for it.

This is a pretty big thread already, so I can't hope to say everything here to answer all the still open questions, so I'll limit my response to the above. If you have any questions post them here or email me at the support website and I'll either answer or get someone more qualified to answer.

Finally, on a more selfish note, it's been pointed out rightfully that Aviator's a newer browser, thus partially explaining the large amount of bugs or lack of polish. The solution to this to hear what people who use it dislike/notice/want. So don't be shy to let me know what is wrong with Aviator, what could be better and what you think should be done. We're a small team and it's hard to get that info on our own.

PS regarding the "Their style/hype of communicating things is worse than Chicken Little's and Steve Gibson's" comment... Yeah that seems about right. Hype must sell, I guess...

A browser is as secure as the person sitting at the keyboard is.

Aviatorguy,
Welcome to the Seven Forums and thanks for joining.

Thanks for the e-mail reply. Rather than reply to that e-mail, I'll put a tiny bit of info below.

Here is a small snippet from your e-mail to me:
The integrity level is being discussed right now, as it does lead to complications in terms of which account can use Aviator

Sorry, either I was not clear or I'm not understanding the line that I've quoted above. I don't see how it has any impact on which account can use Aviator.

The installer runs as admin (high integrity level).
The installer launches the browser.
(which is also now running as admin*).
Does it have to be running as admin so that it can write some stuff somewhere just one time?

*That "parent" browser launches "children" that run at the untrusted level - so, perhaps that is secure enough. If there is no danger from running the "parent" process, then no changes need to be made. If there is a danger, then simply don't start the browser after the install. Let the user start it manually. If you really want to have the browser start after the install, then there are ways to have the installer launch the "parent" process at the medium integrity level.

Once the browser is closed, subsequent sessions are launched with the "parent" process at the medium integrity level (The "children" are still untrusted.)

My fear (perhaps unfounded) is that a user thinks that this is the most secure browser (per your hype) and immediately surfs to a black hat website**. Also, users can leave windows open for weeks.

**...because wanting to feel safe while surfing to a questionable website was the reason why some people install Aviator.

That's great to hear Callender! Regarding your suggestion that is a feature we're putting in, either next update or the one after. It just doesn't exist on Aviator right now, and I really have no idea why it's taken this long as it's a simple button already in Chromium, but the moral of the story is we're on it!

And UsernameIssues, what you said:

The installer runs as admin (high integrity level).
The installer launches the browser.
(which is also now running as admin*).
Does it have to be running as admin so that it can write some stuff somewhere just one time?

Is what I was trying to address but worded wrong. We've run into problems in the past with users who weren't admin, and thus couldn't install Aviator or had other problems. What I meant to say is that we're reevaluating the need of Aviator to use admin, or some variation of this to fix the problem. I don't know the exact reasoning for the way it is right now, but I do know that development's actively looking into a way to change it.

Also, your fear about a user blindly trusting Aviator due to the hype machine going on over here is very founded. I'm not in marketing, but I do know that they have to walk a line between "no hype so no-one cares" and "overhyped that people think it's something it's not". They also try to convince everyone that this product's needed. The website's wording is pretty strong in terms of what Aviator can do but I don't think it's so ridiculous as to imply it's bulletproof, just rather as the most practical and safe option available today ready-to-go, which is a) hopefully not misleading anyone into thinking they can surf with impunity and b) let's be honest, the bare minimum you can say about your product on your own website.

That all being said, I'm kinda extremely biased in favor of Aviator, so if you (or anyone else here) feel that Aviator's overhyped to the point of putting our users at risk let me know where I can get an example of this so I can bring this to the attention of people who can change this sort of thing. The last thing we need is to have people think our product does way more than in actuality, so I actually want to hear what you think about that!

Aviatorguy said:

Hi I finally got around to joining this. I'm the guy with WhiteHat who answered the emails mentioned above. I'm not a developer or in a really technical capacity here, so I won't be able to answer more in-depth questions, but I can and will forward them to our development team in an attempt to make what Aviator does/is more apparent to everyone. Hopefully this all falls within the forum rules regarding advertising or product boosting...

Thank you for joining the forum as requested and WELCOME!

All contribution are welcome.

Not sure if you would ever need advice but the members on sevenforums.com are very knowledgeable and helpful.

P. S.

I'm no MS expert but I help where I can. Hence all the emails you've received from me lol.