Leading browser coders get together on internet security
This is one of those stories that you never thought you’d see (especially after the Microsoft-Netscape “wars”)… Developers from four of the most prominent web browsers, Internet Explorer, Mozilla/Firefox, Opera and Konqueror (much of the foundations for Safari are in the Konqueror codebase)… have got together and talked about different approaches and ideas on improving security while web-browsing…
For starters it’s great to see developers from competing products have discussions like this. I’d be a bit concerned about the “they stole that idea from us” kind of patent skirmishes that could come from it, but I think a lot of good ideas can come as well… (Maybe some standards for what minimum steps a browser takes to “protect” (I’d prefer saying inform) users from phony sites, or poorly encrypted data). Anyway, one idea that seems to have legs is an IE 7 feature using color codes in the address bar to indiciate the security of the connection. Also mentioned is the anti-phishing addon for IE 7.
It will be interesting to see where this kind of “summit” might lead.