ericlaw

Browser SSO / Automatic Signin

Last Update: 8 March 2024 Over the years, I’ve written a bunch about authentication in browsers, and today I aim to shed some light on another authentication feature that is not super-well understood: Browser SSO. Recently, a user expressed surprise that after using the browser’s “Clear browsing data” option to delete everything, when they revisitedContinue reading “Browser SSO / Automatic Signin”

Improving the Microsoft Defender Browser Protection Extension

Earlier this year, I wrote about various extensions available to bolster your browser’s defenses against malicious sites. Today, let’s look at another such extension: the Microsoft Defender Browser Protection extension. I first helped out with extension back in 2018 when I was an engineer on the Chrome Security team, and this spring, I was taskedContinue reading “Improving the Microsoft Defender Browser Protection Extension”

How do Random Credentials Mysteriously Appear?

One commonly-reported issue to browsers’ security teams sounds like: “Some random person’s passwords started appearing in my browser password manager?!? This must be a security bug of some sort!” This issue has been reported dozens of times, and it’s a reflection of a perhaps-surprising behavior of browser login and sync. So, what’s happening? Background EvenContinue reading “How do Random Credentials Mysteriously Appear?”

Detecting When the User is Offline

Can you hear me now? In the web platform, simple tasks are often anything but. Properly detecting whether the user is online/offline has been one of the “Surprisingly hard problems in computing” since, well, forever. Web developers often ask one question (“Is this browser online?”) but when you dig into it, they’re really trying toContinue reading “Detecting When the User is Offline”

New TLDs: Not Bad, Actually

The Top Level Domain (TLD) is the final label in a fully-qualified domain name: The most common TLD you’ll see is com, but you may be surprised to learn that there are 1479 registered TLDs today. This list can be subdivided into categories: Some TLD owners will rent domain names under the TLD to anyContinue reading “New TLDs: Not Bad, Actually”