German Government Endorses Chrome As Most Secure Browser

New submitter beta2 writes "Several articles are noting that the German IT security agency BSI is endorsing Google Chrome browser: 'BSI ticked off Chrome's anti-exploit sandbox technology, which isolates the browser from the operating system and the rest of the computer; its silent update mechanism and Chrome's habit of bundling Adobe Flash, as its reasons for the recommendation. ... BSI also recommended Adobe Reader X — the version of the popular PDF reader that, like Chrome, relies on a sandbox to protect users from exploits — and urged citizens to use Windows' Auto Update feature to keep their PCs abreast of all OS security fixes. To update applications, BSI gave a nod to Secunia's Personal Software Inspector, a free utility that scan a computer for outdated software and point users to appropriate downloads.'"

Adobe worship much?

[icebike]

It would seem to me that "Chrome's habit of bundling Adobe Flash" would be a detriment. But that's just me.

They went on to recommend Adobe Reader X. I agree that pdf readers in a sandbox make a lot of sense, its just that I have no particular reason to trust Adobe, since it was their doing that made PDFs unsafe [adobe.com] in the first place. With Chrome's built in PDF render engine, I find I seldom have to use the adobe plugin at all any more. (And when I do, I'm always suspicious).

If Google wanted to do us all a favor they would to with Flash content what they did with PDF documents, and add their own in-browser render engine.

That being said, I do like the sandboxing that Chrome supplies, and Google Chrome is my browser of choice.

Some people don't like keying search terms in the URL bar, and other minor objections that, when investigated, all amount to "its not firefox". I've seen some reports of incredibly slow page fetches, which are usually traceable to external things (chrome likes to use multiple concurrent connections, and swamps some anti-virus packages that operate as a proxy server).

For me, the speed can't be beat on any of the platforms I use (linux and windows - various flavors of each). I prefer Google's builds to those in the Chromium Open Source project but both work very well.

saw this coming

[slashmydots]

Well, IE is IE but the reason I'm really not surprised is all my repair customers who have Firefox give me an extra headache. You can uninstall Firefox completely then reinstall it from scratch with nothing preserved and you'll still have the MyWebSearch toolbar and basically any other malware that was on it before. You have to actually delete the plugins folder out in Program Files to actually clear it. The add/remove plugins menu is confusing and non-exhaustive compared to IE8 and 9. It's really, really annoying and bad from a security standpoint. Plus, you have to go into the options menu to permanently disable password-remembering which is just about the least secure thing you can do in a browser. They sure have gone downhill lately. I wouldn't be surprised if Mozilla hires the old Netflix CEO because they've been about that smart lately. So I guess chrome wins.

Extensions can enhance security of Firefox

[ChadL]

I use Firefox because it has NoScript and SSLEverywhere, that Chrome doesn't (or doesn't that have equivilent funcionality); thus making Firefox more secure for my usage paterns.

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Google protecting what? If anything, they invade your privacy every day, even more so since the David Drummond asshole rolled out the new privacy policy!

--
Jordyn Buchanan

Re:Maybe...

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

I, for one, am grateful for the Chrome browser because it works as a very effective sandbox for everything Google. Ever since Google decided to track me through Google+ +1 buttons added to every page I browse, I've had to remove google.com from my whitelist. I've also switched to Bing as my primary search engine in Firefox, and I have to say, I don't mind getting Xbox Live! points for searches I do.

The features that bother me in Chrome include the very coarse scroll bar, which requires me to manually scroll down when reading longer articles instead of just using my touchpad. I have yet to figure out how the search bar/address bar is supposed to function (the awesome bar and search bar in FF is best I've come across). Last I checked, Chrome equivalents of NoScript do not truly block scripts because they allow them to load briefly before stopping them, giving probably enough time to identify the computer or even run an exploit. I also haven't found a cookie manager like Cookie Monster. I regularly see ads in YouTube videos even with AdBlock installed, most especially in embedded videos (I have no memory of ever seeing ads in YouTube in FF).

At this point, for me, Chrome is not very private and a bigger PITA to use than FF. I don't care what the Germans claim.

Re:Endorsed as Most Secure? Must have a back door

[BZ]

Chrome is not in fact open source. It includes a bunch of open source code but also various closed-source components. Perhaps you confused Chrome and Chromium? They're not the same thing.

If you compile Chrome yourself, you're not using Chrome, of course (and in particular, some features that this particular security evaluation ticks as positives, like the bundled Flash, will be missing).

(There's the side issue that compiling yourself gives you no particular guarantees either if your compiler is in cahoots with the code you're compiling, but for now the chances of that for Chrome are low.)