I'll bite. It's maybe not the fact that browsers CAN do that, since, as someone above (maybe you?) said, they are programs. They can exec(). It's that the browser would be programmed to do that.
It takes the opposite tack of browser sandboxing that seems to be better from a security standpoint, as far as preserving the integrity of the computer. There are probably security measures in place to prevent that from happening at other sites, which is great, because I _really_ don't ever want to click on a random hyperlink on freshmeat or cnet and *poof* have a program installed. The additional security of examining the filename for version sanity, letting my antivirus take a look at it, and then running it at my own discretion is much preferred. I'm sure when the feature was added, it was seen as an increase in convenience rather than a decrease in security, but accidents do happen, even to trusted servers. You know that as well as I do. Look at the OpenSSH guys who had their distro FTP server broken into and had trojan'd versions uploaded in their place. It's rare, but it does happen. I just don't see anything wrong with the original model of download and click to install. Since it's what I expect, I would be surprised if my browser did something different, and we can probably agree that software should follow the principle of least astonishment. --Matt On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 11:51 AM, Tom Limoncelli <t...@whatexit.org> wrote: > On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 9:40 AM, FRLinux <frli...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 1:15 PM, Tom Limoncelli <t...@whatexit.org> > wrote: > >> What makes you the most upset: that you've just learned that all > >> browsers have this function or that Google is using this function? > > > > Nice one :) > > Steph > > I'm asking in all seriousness. > > Tom > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lopsa.org > http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ > -- LITTLE GIRL: But which cookie will you eat FIRST? COOKIE MONSTER: Me think you have misconception of cookie-eating process.
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