Microsoft researching new (secure) browser

Microsoft’s research unit is investing resources in a new Web browser that could eventually signal a shift away from the ubiquitous Internet Explorer.

According to a research paper released this week, the project is called Gazelle and is positioned as a secure web browser constructed as a multi-principal operating system.

From the research paper (.pdf):

Gazelle’s Browser Kernel is an operating system that exclusively manages resource protection and sharing across web site principals. This construction exposes intricate design issues that no previous work has identified, such as legacy protection of cross-origin script source, and cross-principal, cross-process display and events protection. We elaborate on these issues and provide comprehensive solutions.

Our prototype implementation and evaluation experience indicates that it is realistic to turn an existing browser into a multi-principal OS that yields significantly stronger security and robustness with acceptable performance and backward compatibility.

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