We publicly released Aviator on Monday, Oct 21. Since then we’ve received an avalanche of questions, suggestions, and feature requests regarding the browser. The level of positive feedback and support has been overwhelming. Lots of great ideas and comments that will help shape where we go from here. If you have something to share, a question or concern, please contact us at aviator@whitehatsec.com.
Now let’s address some of the most often heard questions so far:
Where’s the source code to Aviator?
WhiteHat Security is still in the very early stages of Aviator’s public release and we are gathering all feedback internally. We’ll be using this feedback to prioritize where our resources will be spent. Deciding whether or not to release the source code is part of these discussions.
Aviator unitizes open source software via Chromium, don’t you have to release the source?
WhiteHat Security respects and appreciates the open source software community. We’ve long supported various open source organizations and projects throughout our history. We also know how important OSS licenses are, so we diligently studied what was required for when Aviator would be publicly available.
Chromium, of which Aviator is derived, contains a wide variety of OSS licenses. As can be seen here using aviator://credits/ in Aviator or chrome://credits/ in Google Chrome. The portions of the code we modified in Aviator are all under BSD, or BSD-like licenses. As such, publishing our changes is, strictly speaking, not a licensing requirement. This is not to say we won’t in the future, just that we’re discussing it internally first. Doing so is a big decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Of course, when and/if we make a change to the GPL or similar licensed software in Chromium, we’ll happily publish the updates as required.
When is Aviator going to be available for Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, etc.?
Aviator was originally an internal project designed for WhiteHat Security employees. This served as a great environment to test our theories about how a truly secure and privacy-protecting browser should work. Since WhiteHat is primarily a Mac shop, we built it for OS X. Those outside of WhiteHat wanted to use the same browser that we did, so this week we made Aviator publicly available.
We are still in the very early days of making Aviator available to the public. The feedback so far has been very positive and requests for a Windows, Linux and even open source versions are pouring in, so we are definitely determining where to focus our resources on what should come next, but there is not definite timeframe yet of when other versions will be available.
How long has WhiteHat been working on Aviator?
Browser security has been a subject of personal and professional interest for both myself, and Robert “RSnake” Hansen (Director, Product Management) for years. Both of us have discussed the risks of browser security around the world. A big part of Aviator research was spent creating something to protect WhiteHat employees and the data they are responsible for. Outside of WhiteHat many people ask us what browser we use. Individually our answer has been, “mine.” Now we can be more specific: that browser is Aviator. A browser we feel confident in using not only for our own security and privacy, but one we may confidently recommend to family and friends when asked.
Browsers have pop up blockers to deal with ads. What is different about Aviator’s approach?
Popup blockers used to work wonders, but advertisers switched to sourcing in JavaScript and actually putting content on the page. They no longer have to physically create a new window because they can take over the entire page. Using Aviator, the user’s browser doesn’t even make the connection to an advertising networks’ servers, so obnoxious or potentially dangerous ads simply don’t load.
Why isn’t the Aviator application binary signed?
During the initial phases of development we considered releasing Aviator as a Beta through the Mac Store. Browsers attempt to take advantage of the fastest method of rendering they can. These APIs are sometimes unsupported by the OS and are called “private APIs”. Apple does not support these APIs because they may change and they don’t want to be held accountable for when things break. As a result, while they allow people to use their undocumented and highly speed private APIs, they don’t allow people to distribute applications that use private APIs. We can speculate the reason being that users are likely to think it’s Apple’s fault as opposed to the program when things break. So after about a month of wrestling with it, we decided that for now, we’d avoid using the Mac Store. In the shuffle we didn’t continue signing the binaries as we had been. It was simply an oversight.
Why is Aviator’s application directory world-writable?
During the development process all of our developers were on dedicated computers, not shared computers. So this was an oversight brought on by the fact that there was no need to hide data from one another and therefore chmod permissions were too lax as source files were being copied and edited. This wouldn’t have been an issue if the permissions had been changed back to their less permissive state, but it was missed. We will get it fixed in an upcoming release.
Does Aviator support Chrome extensions?
Yes, all Chrome extensions should function under Aviator. If an issue comes up, please report it to aviator@whitehatsec.com so we can investigate.
Wait a minute, first you say, “if you aren’t paying you are the product,” then you offer a free browser?
Fair point. Like we’ve said, Aviator started off as an internal project simply to protect WhiteHat employees and is not an official company “product.” Those outside the company asked if they could use the same browser that we do. Aviator is our answer to that. Since we’re not in the advertising and tracking business, how could we say no? At some point in the future we’ll figure out a way to generate revenue from Aviator, but in the mean time, we’re mostly interested in offering a browser that security and privacy-conscious people want to use.
Have you gotten and feedback from the major browser vendors about Aviator? If so, what has it been?
We have not received any official feedback from any of the major browser vendors, though there has been some feedback from various employees of those vendors shared informally over Twitter. Some feedback has been positive, others negative. In either case, we’re most interested in server the everyday consumer.
Keep the questions and feedback coming and we will continue to endeavor to improve Aviator in ways that will be beneficial to the security community and to the average consumer.