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by brazzledazzle 3831 days ago
If I had to guess: because at this point it's obvious that they have no idea what they're doing and will struggle to not just fix it, but maintain the level of quality needed to keep it that way.
1 comments

Then tell AVG that. I've seen plenty of bugs where the original fix didn't fix everything, and the reporter explains why, and then they wait for another response. Here they didn't even keep the 90-day deadline.
> I've seen plenty of bugs where the original fix didn't fix everything

You're right, but plenty of bugs aren't for a browser extension that is supposed to enhance the user's security when browsing the internet. The initial fix appeared to show a complete lack of understanding of basic web security.

If you and an intelligent coworker have an agreement to review each other's code on commit, and that coworker responds to a valid complaint about what they've written with something that's probably lifted off of the first StackOverflow post they searched for that addresses the literal value of the complaint without actually solving the problem, you'd probably be a bit peeved that they're not doing their job. Here, the Chrome developers are just showing frustration at AVG's apparent lack of basic skill.

Frustration is fine. I'd even be fine if they banned AVG. But revealing a 0-day publicly without giving time to respond is worse, and is also not in line with Google's policies as I understand.

Many security bugs are for things that one might think are basic after hearing about them, and that shouldn't make it right to 0-day them.

edit: why would revealing a vulnerability to the world before it's been fixed be the right response to incompetence on the part of the vendor?

Regardless of policy it was the right thing to do.
Do you think 0-days should be reported as soon as they're found if the vendor is incompetent? If yes, what's the argument, if not, why is this different?
When you find critical vulnerabilities in popular antivirus software, you can establish a 90 day publishing schedule, or a requirement not to publish until all related vulnerabilities are fixed, or whatever other policy you deem sensible.

Tavis Ormandy is one of the best known vulnerability researchers in the world; whatever publishing decision he and his team made, I think they probably put more thought into it than any combination of the comments on this HN thread did.

If the vendor is incompetent and the bug is being actively exploited, then it's reasonable to violate the 90-day policy, which is designed in the spirit of cooperation with competent vendors.

6 months ago they decided to limit inline installations [1] and they probably started reviewing poorly-rated add-ons like this one at that time.

http://blog.chromium.org/2015/08/protecting-users-from-decep...

Yes. 90-day windows are for us, not for companies/projects/teams. They are an acknowledgement that the producer of the software is best suited to patch and get that update to users. If they aren't suited for the task notifying users that they are at risk is the right thing to do.