Isolated Web Browsing: Enforcing OS-Like Isolation for Browsers

Overview

The rising popularity of web-based applications has forced the browser into a role for which it was not designed. Multiple applications run within the same process and have access to the browser's disk-based state, despite being conceptually separate. Most browsers attempt to address these issues, yet bugs are inevitable in software of such complexity. The authors investigate an orthogonal solution to these issues. Using the system, called CleverNameHere, they are able to separate distinct applications into separate OS processes, and appropriately restrict access to disk-based state.