Brave, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge presented on our current privacy work at the Enigma 2020 conference in late January. The talks were mostly high-level, but there were a few feature-level slides for each browser. My ~10 minute presentation on Microsoft Edge was first, followed by Firefox, Chrome, and Brave. At 40 minutesContinue reading “Enigma Conference 2020 – Browser Privacy Panel”
Tag Archives: browsers
Demystifying Browsers
Last update: October 29, 2024 Web browsers are conceptually pretty simple, but their code and the ecosystems that arise around the platforms they expose are immensely complicated. I started building browser extensions more than 22 years ago, and I started building browsers directly just over 16 years ago. At this point, I think it’s fairContinue reading “Demystifying Browsers”
AppOrWeb-to-WebApp Communication: Custom Scheme Handlers
I’ve previously written about Web-to-App communication via Application Protocols. App Protocols allow web content to invoke a native application outside of the browser. WebApp advocates (like me!) want to continue to close the native/browser gaps that prevent web applications from becoming full-fledged replacements for native apps. To that end, I’ve recently spent some time lookingContinue reading “AppOrWeb-to-WebApp Communication: Custom Scheme Handlers”
Restrictions on File Urls
Last Update: June 8, 2026 For security reasons, Microsoft Edge 76+ and Chrome impose a number of restrictions on file:// URLs, including forbidding navigation to file:// URLs from non-file:// URLs. If a browser user clicks on a file:// link on an https-delivered webpage or PDF, nothing visibly happens. If you open the Developer Tools console on the webpage,Continue reading “Restrictions on File Urls”
Browser Architecture: Web-to-App Communication Overview
Last Updated: September 8, 2026 This is an introduction/summary post which will link to individual articles about browser mechanisms for communicating directly between web content and native apps on the local computer (and vice-versa). This series aims to provide, for each mechanism, information about: Application Protocols Read my Blog post. tl;dr: Apps can register url protocolContinue reading “Browser Architecture: Web-to-App Communication Overview”