Posts tagged safari
Google removing H.264 video support from Chrome
Jan 12th
Google just announced on its Chromium blog that it will be removing support for the H.264 video codec from the Chrome web browser, in favor of supporting only its own open WebM codec (which, as we covered earlier, is based on On2 Technologies’ VP8) for HTML5 web videos using the <video> tag.
Earlier, Microsoft, Apple, and Google had decided to support H.264 (the dominant high-definition video codec) for HTML5 web video, while Mozilla and Opera supported only Google’s WebM codec. Now, Google’s move leaves Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 and Apple’s Safari 5 as the only major browsers supporting the H.264 codec without plugins. Ironically, since the vast majority of HTML5 video on the web today is encoded using H.264, Google’s move will likely reduce the usable installed base of HTML5 video-capable browsers.
Read on for more about Google’s web video codec move.
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iPhone hacked in 20 seconds at Pwn2Own, SMS messages stolen through web
Mar 25th
The CanSecWest Pwn2Own hacking contest in Vancouver has resulted in a number of exploits, from Charlie Miller taking down yet another MacBook through a critical hole in Apple’s Safari browser to successful attacks on Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer 8, but perhaps the most interesting was the iPhone attack. European researchers Vincenzo Iozzo and Ralf Philipp Weinmann lured an iPhone to their web site and in just 20 seconds managed to compromise the phone and steal its entire SMS text message database, including deleted messages.
Through their exploit, Weinmann and Iozzo were able to bypass Apple’s sandbox and gain access to a user account in the iPhone operating system called “mobile.” Through this account, they could have accessed and stolen everything from the phone’s contact list to the email database, photos, and iTunes music and video files.
The current exploit crashes the Safari browser after stealing the data, but the researchers say they could build a version that would continuously steal information as the user — who wouldn’t know that anything was wrong — browsed the site. “Basically, every page that the user visits on our [rigged] site will grab the SMS database and upload it to a server we control,” Weinmann said.
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Opera Mini browser submitted to iPhone App Store [UPDATE: Video added]
Mar 23rd
Opera has just submitted the iPhone version of its mobile browser, Opera Mini, to the iTunes App Store. Opera Mini uses techniques like server-side rendering (loading pages on Opera servers and relaying only the end result to the phone) to dramatically speed up mobile browsing– on an iPhone 3GS, Opera Mini loads pages up to 5 times faster faster than Apple’s Safari browser. Yet Apple is virtually guaranteed to reject the app, since it “duplicates functionality” already in the phone (a reason Apple uses to anything that might compete with its own apps on the iPhone).
So the question is why has Opera gone to such lengths to develop a version of Opera Mini for the iPhone and submitted it to the App Store if it’s just going to get rejected anyway? First, Opera genuinely wants to have its browser available on the iPhone. The company’s been building buzz around its new iPhone browser through closed-door demos, likely to build up public support which could be mobilized to put pressure on Apple if it rejects the application. Second, Opera was one of the driving forces behind the 2007 European antitrust investigation into Internet Explorer on Windows, and there’s a possibility the company is looking to launch something similar in the iPhone space.
In 2007, Opera claimed it wanted to give “consumers a genuine choice of Web browsers,” a line the company’s CEO, Jon von Tetzchner, recently repeated: ”Opera Mini is the world’s most popular mobile browser and users on the iPhone deserve a choice.” Opera also just put up a page tracking how long it’s been since it submitted the app. Certainly a nice publicity stunt– now let’s see where the company goes with this.
Update: Video added after the break.
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