[the8472]

> Trying to fight a local attacker with root (which is necessary to add a certificate to the trust stores on most platforms) isn't worth the effort.

Hah. That's precisely the argument I have made when arguing that there should be an opt-out for addon signature verification (needing admin permissions to toggle it if they insist) because you already utterly lost the security game if someone had admin on the machine.

But no, they argue that they must defend against malware with admin permissions injecting addons into the browser. Because that's a fight worth fighting and the perception of the browser's security is somehow more important than user freedom.

[ploxiln]

I agree. But the reason they felt forced to do this is because even "reputable" software companies were auto-injecting unnecessary extensions as a side-effect of installing their popular software. Companies like Adobe and Microsoft, and "industry leading" "computer security" companies.

My first instinct is to say "it's important to not install crap software, you need to reasonably trust the software you install". But I immediately recognize that it's un-intuitive that Adobe and Microsoft and Symantec and McAfee are not on the "trusted" list. (Office and .Net have silently installed problematic Firefox extensions in the past.)

I don't really have a conclusion here, just, it sucks.

[xyzzy123]

The problem in the field was application installers quietly "side loading" browser plugins.

[the8472]

Either those are malicious, in which case you lost the game and cannot defend against that because they have the security high ground, or they legitimately act on the user's behalf.

The "quietly" adjective suggests they are malicious. Which means they should be reported to AV vendors (including microsoft) instead of being used as a boogeyman when arguing against user freedoms.

[SCHiM]

Yes, especially since true malware creators have been able to inject code into browsers and intercept and modify pages for ages. They don't need an add-on, they'll just inject a shared library or something similar.