Google Lists Chrome's Core Security Principles

Security has been at the heart of Google Chrome from the get go. In fact, the team built Chrome around some very solid security principles since it had the luxury of building a browser from scratch, something Mozilla doesn't have, for example.

While sandboxing and several other security-oriented features were built into Chrome from the start, they are by no means enough. In time, the Chrome team has added new features and perfected existing ones.

But more than just individual features or technologies, Google says, the key to Chrome security is that it is not treated as an afterthought, it's not something that's bolted on after new features are added, everything is built with security in mind.

To highlight some of the ideas behind Chrome's stance on security, the team has put together a set of core security principles, published over at Chromium.org.

"After spending tens-of-thousands of hours working on ways to make users safer on the web, we thought it might be worth sharing the Chrome security principles that guide the work that we do," Justin Schuh and Travis McCoy, from the Chrome Security Team, wrote.

"There are lots of technical details, but the fundamentals have always been simple. Security should compliment your browsing experience, not detract from it, and your browser should be secure by default -- no configuration required," they reported.

"No defense is ever perfect, so we rely on multiple layers of protection to help guard against single points of weakness," they added.

Security is a tough thing to quantify. Google Chrome is generally regarded as the safest browser, but it may simply be that hackers and attackers have more experience in dealing with Internet Explorer or Firefox.

And no popular browser today can be considered unsafe, they all have various features that contribute to security, some overlapping, some not.