Socket puppets

[pocaracas]

Shall we carry on?

If it fails to render a particular page as intended.

Spoken like someone who has never coded a single op in their entire fucking life.

Care to define "op"?
In my most recent bout with such an acronym, it means Over Powered.
I fail to see how that applies here...

Care to show me a bug-free rendering engine?

No?

That's because they don't exist.

Care to show me where I said firefox was bug free?
I merely answered your requirement for a way to discern what is better in this context. Less buggy rendering was my reply...though not using these words, but I sort of expected you to understand it, instead... you... misunderstood.
I get it... tunnel vision: destroy invisible internet enemy... yeah, yatta, yatta...

Did I ever say there weren't?

I'll use your own words:

I think it's stupid to start using a non-open-source browser when firefox exists and is as good as any other. /snip

You outlined a binary split between "Non-open-source browsers" and "Firefox".

You didn't say:
"I think it's stupid to start using a non-open-source browser when open source alternatives like Firefox exists and is as good as any other."

Nice goal post moving.

Yeah... right... like the focus of the thread wasn't on firefox, already?... context, my boy, context.
Yes, I meant it like you said it, while I said it in another way, due to the already presence of firefox in this thread.

You are correct, but I don't think the developers would do such a thing, given the potential repercussions if it was found out... and it could by found out.. unlike what happens with close-source software.

"I don't think" != "It is assured"

Magical thinking.

And "finding out" requires:

- knowledge of the domain (browsers)

- knowledge of intentional and unintentional side-channel attacks

- lots of time to examime to accumulate a high confidence of security.


The burden of proof is on those to prove a piece of software is reasonable secure. Closed or open source.

Open source may increase the visibility of bugs to be fixed.

As we can see from critical OpenSSL and GnuTLS bugs lately, horrible defects can creep in to plain sight.

That's because Open source is:
"In production and development, open source as a development model promotes a) universal access via free license to a product's design or blueprint, and b) universal redistribution of that design or blueprint, including subsequent improvements to it by anyone."

Nothing in that definition has anything to do with security, defects, etc,. Any benefits there are side effects of it being open.

REF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

Yes, bugs can exist...
Not a single program that I've written was bug-free on the first go... not even stinking hello world!

On the other hand, blatant data gathering... I wouldn't expect it on open-source software... but, again, that doesn't mean it can't exist... it's just stupid to do so, for it will found, sooner or later.

Indeed I can, but I don't have the time for that. I trust those people who work on it and those who keep a watchful eye and are not finding any glaring security faults...

Once again, it's not assured. It's faith you're using.

"Trust", was the word I used.
I can understand some confusion between the concepts alluded by those two words, but, in this forum, let's try to keep faith in the realm of religion and trust everywhere else, ok?

I don't have a problem with faith, only people who attempt to deny they have faith in something while indulging in precisely that.

Hypocrisy is a pain in the ass.

Hotheadedness too...

Do you think an institution like Mozilla would risk such a blow to its main product? What would it gain with such a behavior?

Then what is this:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/describecom...ct=Firefox

Bugs are a natural part of the software development cycle. Nearly every single article of software has a bug within it, excepting the few that are formally verified.

Again, you present me with bugs, while the argument was more about deliberate data gathering routines potentially embedded in close-source software

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If it fails to render a particular page as intended.

"As intended" is not necessarily a deterministic metric, particularly in the absence of specific font selections, weights, etc in markup. We can infer what the page creator intends when such things are present, but in the absence of such specifications a client is free to render elements however it wishes.

Or, the TL;DR version: Precisely how should an entity enclosed in H2 tags be rendered?

Beats me!
The way the person who designed it saw it in his/her browser and thought it looked good?
"And on the fourth day, Carl created the section on foods and pets. He looked at the screen and saw that it was good"