Note: This post is part of a series about Web-to-App Communication techniques. One of the most powerful mechanisms for Web-to-App and App-To-Web communication is to use an extension that utilizes the NativeMessaging API. The NativeMessaging API allows an extension running inside the browser to exchange messages with a native-code “Host” executable running outside of the browserContinue reading “Web-to-App Communication: The Native Messaging API”
Category Archives: tech
Font Smoothing in Edge
Update, June 2021: See the Microsoft Edge blog post. Text rendering quality is an amazingly complicated topic, with hardware, settings, fonts, differing rendering engine philosophies, and user preferences all playing key roles. In some cases, however, almost everyone can agree that one rendering is superior to another. Consider, for instance, the text of this GizmodoContinue reading “Font Smoothing in Edge”
Managing Edge via Policy
Last Update: February 9, 2024 The new Microsoft Edge offers a rich set of policies that enable IT administrators to control many aspects of its operation. You can visit edge://policy/ to see the policies in effect in your current browser: Clicking on a policy name will take you to the documentation for that policy. TheContinue reading “Managing Edge via Policy”
Seamless Single Sign-On
There are many different authentication primitives built into browsers. The most common include Web Forms authentication, HTTP authentication, client certificate authentication, and the new WebAuthN standard. Numerous different authentication frameworks build atop these, and many enterprise websites support more than one scheme. Each of the underlying authentication primitives has different characteristics: client certificate authentication isContinue reading “Seamless Single Sign-On”
Beating Private Mode Blockers with an Ephemeral Profile
Back in 2018, I explained how some websites use various tricks to detect that visitors are using Private Mode browsers and force such users to log-in. The most common reason that such sites do this is that they’ve implemented a “Your first five articles are free, then you have to pay” model, and cookies orContinue reading “Beating Private Mode Blockers with an Ephemeral Profile”