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IronFox for OS X sandboxes Firefox for more secure browsing
One of the major draws of Chrome is that it runs in a sandbox, making it one of the most secure ways you can browse the Web today. The catch is that people have to use Chrome to gain that extra measure of security, and let's face facts here -- Chrome and Chromium only hold a fraction of the market share that Firefox has earned over the years.
Thankfully, Firefox users on OS X now have the option of using IronFox, which is simply a shell-script wrapper which starts Firefox in its very own sandbox. The only catches are that you must be running OS X 10.6 and Firefox 3.6 or newer. It's not a bad deal, considering all you're really doing is opening the Firefox you already use with a different icon.
IronFox creators say that while it only functions on Snow Leopard at the moment, that they do plan on a backport for Leopard sometime in the near future (when they find the time to work on it). Tiger users won't be able to take advantage of this since the kernel in 10.4 isn't built to handle it. (Sorry folks)
Comments
9
Subscribe to commentsbrockrumerJun 14th 2010 5:17PM
"let's face facts here -- Chrome and Chromium only hold a fraction of the market share"
True, but how many of those Firefoxers are going to install this? And if you are going to install this... why not switch to Chrome?
DrewJun 14th 2010 5:25PM
Because unlike Chrome Firefox has alot of better things that I like. Sure it might not be the fastest and nicest looking but I love the whole Private Browsing option I get everytime I open Firefox. Specially when you have nosey people in your family.
matthawsJun 14th 2010 5:36PM
@Drew: Chrome has private browsing as well. I prefer Firefox for a huge number of reasons, but private browsing isn't one of them.
mountaingrubJun 14th 2010 8:06PM
check
F-ZeroJun 14th 2010 5:42PM
Q: is there any cost in terms of performance when using IronFox?
DrewJun 14th 2010 8:03PM
@Matthaws
Yeah, but in my Firefox I have it set to Private browsing right when I always open it. It's annoying in Chrome how you have to always set it when opening it by going to the menu bar.
robin_rosengrenJun 14th 2010 11:39PM
--incognito
StrideryJun 15th 2010 2:22AM
Or if you have Windows 7 you can right click on the task bar to open the jump list and select "Open new incognito window".
stinlen56Jun 15th 2010 2:05AM
In other news, Windows users can install Sandboxie to run Firefox (or any other program) in a sandbox.