Re: WebApps functionality

Michael Catanzaro <[email protected]> Mon, 20 Apr 2020 15:27:45 -0500
Newsgroups gmane.comp.gnome.apps.epiphany
Message-ID <[email protected]>

On Mon, Apr 20, 2020 at 12:43 pm, Jeremiah C. Foster 
<[email protected]> wrote:
> Right, this is where we are as well since we want the default browser
> (Epiphany) to be sandboxed and flatpak is the current best practice.
> There are other alternatives that might be useful for containment but
> as you see the community seems quite invested in flatpak.

Epiphany 3.34 and newer are sandboxed even if you don't use flatpak. I 
think you're shipping 3.32 currently? Anyway, it is a solved problem. :)

 * If flatpak is not used, WebKitGTK will manually create its own 
bubblewrap sandbox for each web process that it launches. This provides 
flatpak-equivalent protection. The trusted UI process is not sandboxed, 
but the untrusted web processes are, and that's where nearly all the 
security bugs are.
 * If flatpak is used, then sub-sandboxes are launched for each web 
process using flatpak-spawn. (That might require 3.36, not sure. 
Certainly it requires the latest WebKitGTK.)

Anyway, your users should be relatively safe as long as (a) you have 
3.34 or newer, and (b) you update WebKitGTK whenever a new stable 
version is released. (Don't rely on Debian to do this in a timely 
manner. Current stable in 2.28.1.)

Michael