Absolute security is simple– put your PC in a well-guarded vault, and never power it on. But that’s not what PCs are built for, and good luck finding a job that would pay you for such advice. Security Engineering (like all engineering) is a story of tradeoffs. Tradeoffs commonly take place across multiple dimensions: AsContinue reading “Security: Tradeoffs”
Tag Archives: compatibility
Explainer: File Types
On all popular computing systems, all files, at their most basic, are a series of bits (0 or 1), organized into a stream of bytes, each of which uses 8 bits to encode any of 256 possible values. Regardless of the type of the file, you can use a hex editor to view (or modify)Continue reading “Explainer: File Types”
Passkeys – Syncable WebAuthN credentials
Passwords have lousy security properties, and if you try to use them securely (long, complicated, and different for every site), they often have horrible usability as well. Over the decades, the industry has slowly tried to shore up passwords’ security with multi-factor authentication (e.g. one-time codes via SMS, ToTP authenticators, etc) and usability improvements (e.g.Continue reading “Passkeys – Syncable WebAuthN credentials”
Understanding Browser Channels
Microsoft Edge (and upstream Chrome) is available in four different Channels: Stable, Beta, Dev, and Canary. The vast majority of Edge users run on the Stable Channel, but the three pre-Stable channels can be downloaded easily from microsoftedgeinsider.com. You can keep them around for testing if you like, or join the cool kids and setContinue reading “Understanding Browser Channels”
New Recipes for 3rd Party Cookies
Last Updated: 11 April 2025 For privacy reasons, the web platform is moving away from supporting 3rd-party cookies, first with lockdowns, and eventually with removal of support starting at 1% in Q1 2024 (was late 2023) and slated for completion in the third quarter of 2024. UPDATE: In Summer 2024, Chrome announced a new plan:Continue reading “New Recipes for 3rd Party Cookies”
Edge URL Schemes
The microsoft-edge: Application Protocol Microsoft Edge implements an Application Protocol with the scheme microsoft-edge: that is designed to launch Microsoft Edge and pass along a web-schemed URL and/or additional arguments. A basic invocation might be as simple as: microsoft-edge:http://example.com/ However, as is often the case with things I choose to write about, there’s a bitContinue reading “Edge URL Schemes”
The “Magical” Back Button
From the mailbag: Eric, when I am on bing.com in Edge or Chrome and I type https://portal.microsoft.com in the address bar, I go through some authentication redirections and end up on the Office website. If I then click the browser’s Back button, I go back to bing.com. But if I try the same thing inContinue reading “The “Magical” Back Button”
Edge/Chrome Policy Registry Entries
One of the more common problems reported by Enterprises is that certain Edge/Chrome policies do not seem to work properly when the values are written to the registry. For instance, when using the about:policy page to examine the browser’s view of the applied policy, the customer might complain that a policy value they’ve entered inContinue reading “Edge/Chrome Policy Registry Entries”
Smarter Defaults by Paying Attention
As a part of every page load, browsers have to make dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of decisions of varying levels of importance: should a particular API be available? Should a resource load be permitted? Should script be allowed to run? Should video be allowed to start playing automatically? Should cookies or credentials be sentContinue reading “Smarter Defaults by Paying Attention”
Debugging Compatibility in Edge
Background By moving from our old codebase to Chromium, the Microsoft Edge team significantly modernized our codebase and improved our compatibility with websites. As we now share the vast majority of our web platform code with the market-leading browser, it’s rare to find websites that behave differently in Edge when compared to Chrome, Brave, Opera,Continue reading “Debugging Compatibility in Edge”
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