Day: Sandboxed Applications for GNOME

In the first of a two-part series, GNOME contributor Allan Day looks at sandboxed applications for the GNOME desktop. In this installment, he looks at the benefits of application sandboxes from a couple of different angles. “Security and privacy, I think, are core beliefs for Free Software. Users should be able to trust us to have their interests at heart, and should be able to have more faith in our products than proprietary alternatives. Ironically, though, the Free Software desktop world hasn’t done a great job at security. It is actually pretty scary what a malicious desktop application could do if it wants to. We rely on transparency and good faith to ensure that applications do not infringe on user privacy, rather than robust technical architecture.“