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June 12, 2007

security

Safari 3.0 Windows beta broken on first day…and that’s a good thing

Posted Jun. 12, ’07, 9:26 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Security

Them!Apple had to know that when they announced yesterday that they’d be releasing Safari for Windows, it would be scrutinized within an inch of its source code. So it’s little surprise that within the first twenty-four hours there have been multiple reported instances of crashes and security vulnerabilities in the public beta.

First off, let’s stress that last word there: beta. This is not the final, release version of Safari. There’re going to be bugs—possibly, big honking irradiated-by-nuclear-bomb-tests-crawling-all-over-Los-Angeles bugs. And because this is Apple’s browser, people who might have an axe to grind—like a totally hypothetical security researcher called, I dunno, Avidday Aynormay—are going to be all over it like a black turtleneck on Steve Jobs.

But hey, that’s not all bad. I mean, the purpose of a beta is to napalm these bugs earlier rather than later, and having talented and thorough security researchers combing through every inch is a great opportunity to make Safari on Windows as secure as possible. Unless, you’re Mr. Aynormay, whose blog reads: “Keeping with our disclosure policy, we do not report bugs to Apple.” Ackassjay.


10 Comments

jayH said:

i've heard of these crashes, but i've been using safari 3.0 for windows at work since it launched yesterday and it has not crashed. it's light years better than IE (i can't say it's better than fire fox because i never used it on mac or windows)

June 12, 2007 10:03 AM
john said:

I must be lucky or something. Both versions of safari on Windows XP and my Intel iMac are working perfectly.

June 12, 2007 10:24 AM
David Chartier said:

Yea, but there's a huge difference between *bugs* that can crash your browser and otherwise make it behave strangely, and *security exploits* that can allow for arbitrary code execution.

When Firefox 1.0 landed back in 2004, it probably wouldn't have gotten very far if significant security flaws like the ones cropping up in Safari were found on day 1.

A browser crashing is one thing. A browser that allows your system to be taken over or all your passwords and credit card numbers to be harvested is another thing entirely.

June 12, 2007 10:25 AM
Dan Moren Author Profile Page said:

@David: I agree that there's a big difference between bugs and security vulnerabilities. But comparing Firefox to Safari isn't exactly a perfect matchup either: for one thing, Firefox was a brand new product that had to prove itself from scratch—while Safari may be new to Windows, I think Apple's name and brand will be able to withstand security vulnerabilities as long as they patch them.

For the most part, it seems as though the vulnerabilities that have been found allow denial of service attacks (aka crashes), with Maynor claiming to have found some that lead to arbitrary code execution (but again, his policy is not to report things to Apple, so hopefully Apple or someone else will find that and patch it).

June 12, 2007 10:36 AM
Jack said:

I'm sure the bean counters at apple did a cost-benefit analysis to decide if releasing WinSafari was a good idea (or necessary from some iphone point of view). But I wonder if in their calculations they put enough weight (in the mathematical sense as well as the figuative) on the incredible headache apple has just taken on. Security on Windows...like I think you are saying though, perhaps if they survive, they will be the stonger for it...you know in the Nietschze sense.

June 12, 2007 12:23 PM
Josiah Webster said:

I downloaded the beta last night and everything works great except for the bookmark toolbar. Any time I try to add a new bookmark it crashes

June 12, 2007 12:29 PM
Dave-O said:

Well, I don't know about the security problems; but I found it to be a resource hog (worse even than on Mac OS X). At one point it was using 98% of the processor (1 window,

June 12, 2007 2:25 PM
CPotter said:

I installed Safari on my Macbook Pro under parallels and it does not work at all. All the icons are missing and none of the menus are populated.

June 12, 2007 3:04 PM
Avatar said:

I had one crash under WinXP (blech) and a couple of rendering issues. But I just take it all in stride, considering that there is a "beta" on the end and a little button in the bar with a BUG on it for reporting problems.

Come on people.... lighten up.

June 12, 2007 3:45 PM
Cornholieo said:

These comments are typed, using Safari for Windows. The only buggy part is when I hold down the back arrow, to go back more than one web, page it does not usually work on the 1st try. I do like the re-sizing of the text fields which I have done while typing this comment. Over all I like it, for personal use, though professionally, Firefox is best, due to extentions and addons.

June 12, 2007 4:20 PM

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