Revolt v1.1

[skool h8r]

Hi all,
well, after a whole load of work on re-volt, it's almost ready, version 1.1. It in RC2 ATM so it is almost done. some of the buttons just need to be moved a bit to make it look a bit better. I know some of you didn't get to use the first version of re-volt but it had a throbber, like IE has, in the top-right corner. V1.1 doesn't have this anymore because it actually caused problems with the title. So that's gone. A popup blocker has been intergrated. One click and you're safe, another click and popups are allowed. Currently there's no way to save preferences but maybe there will be in future. I'm actually using Re-volt v1.1 RC2 to post this now and it's all going well. It's absolutely full to the brim with features, the next feature i plan to implement is advert blocking and/or the ability to use plugins (need to be verified (and probably made) by me to work) but the latest version is looking good. I'm considering making an FTP where i can store updated versions as i have a 50 file limit on my current account so an ftp is what i'm gonna need. If anyone wants to host it, go ahead, be my guest.

When you use re-volt, you're using something more secure than IE IMO. It blocks lots of dangerous sites including those "dangerous google wannabe's" from a few months ago. It blocks pop-ups. It even has the ability to block individual sites, active X controls, cab files FROM WITHIN THE BROWSER! No proxies needed, no expensive filtering tools, just one piece of free software, re-volt. A user can't add sites, controls or whatever themselves but i am open to make custom browsers which do this. Ideal for schools, businesses, worried parents or anyone.

Anyway, it should be ready by next sunday.

p.s. if you didn't know or guess, re-volt is an internet browser.

[Rondog]

Nice man. If I get my switch, and get my other computer on the net 24/7, i'll host it for you. Not to many downloaders at once please. Im only on 1.5mbit/256k.

[skool h8r]

well, soon (next few weeks definately) i will be getting broadband, probably 2mbps (256kbps upload i think)! there shouldn't be that many downloaders for it though, i'm simply not that popular. :'( My dad has a concern that he won't be able to keep his email address though which he uses for employment (recently hit on hard times) but things are getting better. Anyway, i'm gonna try to get an FTP sorted out so that i can get a permanent host but the more mirros the better i guess. Thanks.

[danrok]

We have a browser section at AOA Files:
http://files.aoaforums.com/index.php?dir=204

Upload it there and dsio will sort it out.

The upload button is in the top right corner of that page.

[skool h8r]

Ok, will do. It's nearly done now, just need to finish it off, build the setup and upload!

[skool h8r]

Right. Done! Instead of having all the buttons on the main interface, i thought, to hell with this, let's have a panel for them. Yeah, it now has just one button that opens the options panel and all the optional buttons such as the about dialog, the update button, the 'visit our site' button and the 'internet options' button are on there as well as a 'close' button for the panel. It's all looking good so far. There's a dark blue border around each window so it is easier to define where one starts and another one ends. Much better than the previous version. It is ready but i'm gonna upload it sometime next week as i still have the setup to do which won't take long but i just can't be bothered uploading it today.

[Got EpOx]

How long has the whole project taken and what programming languages did you use?

[skool h8r]

Well, for just version 1.1, it's taken about 2 months, including planning. It was done before but i have improved it since then and added many more features including:

tabbed browsing!
Pop-up blocking!
It's skinnable!

I finished it earlier today and it is going to be released on monday 25th july 2005. I am going to buy some hosting this thursday or friday (uggle.com '.site' package) so that's better hosting sorted.

As for programming languages, if i told you what i used, it would give away the secret of my 'success'. I'll take it to the grave with me if i have to. I can tell you one thing though, the tabs 'mechanism', all coded in HTML! Yep. HTML, the language of the web in an internet browser! You have probably used another idea like this without even realising it. The 'About' dialog in internet explorer, that's html as well! I'll get the code for you if you like (it doesn't look the same in a browser but it is almost still the same look). Anyway, i finish school this thursday at 12.35pm so that's when i'm going to start sorting out my hosting. I'm also going to post a letter to a girl i know so i'll let you know how that goes . See, i do have priorities outside of computers.

[fantomfreq]

I'll offer the services of my hosting if you'd like. I've got an account with bluehost.com currently and it's working out quite well. killergerbil.com is my domain; if you'd like I can make a subdomain for your browser's site.

Of course, looking at that uggle.com thing, it seems like you've got a workable plan. Domain and hosting for 30 pounds doesn't seem bad. Still, if you would like the use of my hosting I'd be glad to open it up for you.

[skool h8r]

Well, i already have a domain myself so i don't need another one. You can always make a mirror of Re-volt if you like. I need some better hosting as freewebs (my current host) only allows 50 files maximum hosted per account and with a quite graphic intensive site like mine, it's not ideal. I did figure a way around this but i am not posting it as freewebs will probably find a way to prevent it. But anyway, anyone who wants to host it is welcome. They don't have to contact me but if they want to be listed on the mirrors page on my site, then they will have to contact me. I will check through the actual program they have hosted and check it's genuine (i have my ways which no-one except me knows about). If it is dangerous, they will not be added to the list and may be reported to their ISP, host and any relevant authorities. I do take things like this serious. But like i said, if you wish to host it when it's released, you are very welcome to.

One of my school mates asked me to send it to him over MSN. Because it wasn't zipped, MSN simply rejected it. He was going to be the first person to use it. When it was rejected, he told me to zip it. i told him i couldn't be bothered with that so he didn't get to use it. But anyway, the release will be on Monday 25th july. So many features compared to v1.0 and Browsemaster (an earlier browser i made which got to v1.3 release before i decided to make re-volt).

Also, still on the topic of my software, i have a program called n-pad (a notepad type of program), Magenta (a magnifier program) and Calc-oholic (a calculator program). they may be released soon, but i just haven't had time to work on them lately.

[Áedán]

skool h8r - AOA can host both the website and the files if you want. We have plenty of bandwidth available!

As far as revolt goes - does it use any of the JPEG functionality that MS used in IE? If so, does it suffer from the same attacks as IE does in terms of a malicious JPEG file being able to execute code on the machine?

[skool h8r]

Hi Áedán,
It uses IE's browsing engine and a security engine i developed. IT does use parts of IE like the 'Per site privacy actions' to block dangerous sites but some dangerous sites are specified and hard coded into the browser so it is not vulnerable in this way. If the machine is patched, then it will not be affected.

The security engine is what i like to call 'loose'. A loose engine (in computers) is basically where the security features are not built as one piece of code but are scattered throughout the browser programming. A 'tight' engine is where the code is all huddled in one area which makes it more likely that if it is decompiled, the code will be extracted and exploited. With a loose engine, while this is a real possibility, programmers often add dud code that may form a loop on itself without actually affecting how the program works. It means it is less likely to be exploited if it is extracted.

The code i used wasn't developed externally, it was buit into the browser using the 'loose engine' method mentioned above. There is only one possible vulnrability which could cause very serious problems with v1.0 but this has been sorted in v1.1. It was to do with the SSL site dialog and padlock icon. It's not likely to be exploited as i only noticed it just before i started building v1.1 so that's the (possibly) only really serious bug gone.

A bit long and winded but hope this gives you an idea about how v1.1 is better.


As for the hosting, i would prefer to have my own host but i promise you that i will upload re-volt on monday.

[Áedán]

Originally Posted by skool h8r

It uses IE's browsing engine and a security engine i developed. IT does use parts of IE like the 'Per site privacy actions' to block dangerous sites but some dangerous sites are specified and hard coded into the browser so it is not vulnerable in this way. If the machine is patched, then it will not be affected.

<snip>

As for the hosting, i would prefer to have my own host but i promise you that i will upload re-volt on monday.

If it uses IE's browsing engine, then it's vulnerable to the JPEG attack as this is an issue within the JPEG decompression libraries used by IE. This hasn't been patched by MS yet as far as I'm aware. This is one of the issues with using IE as the browsing engine - a lot of malicious code is designed to exploit vulnerabilities in the browsing engine itself.

As far as decompiling goes, even deliberately obfuscated code has been decompiled time and time again. Some debuggers are better than others at attaching to processes unnoticed. The most common debuggers leave too many telltale signs when it comes to the fact they've attached to a process.

Hosting: In terms of hosting with AOA, you'd end up with a virtual site that you can upload/download/maintain yourself. We'd not do anything more than provide the server and bandwidth.

[skool h8r]

Well, i've purchased the package now and the site is uploaded and ready to go. there's a forum in there as well and the domain has been transferred to my account. The site can still be accessd through http://www.yowzagames-mark2.co.uk , it just points to the new site. I still have to pay the domain transfer fee which was a bit of an accident but it's worth it, at least i can refresh an individual page rather than the whole site and i can also access the forum now. There's a news update system in there which works very well and doesn't use a MySQL database (i currently only have one and that is used on the forum). I have plenty of space to go at which is what i need. Enough bandwidth and plenty of stats which even have a subdomain of their own so i don't have to login to the admin CP. That cost nothing extra. The domain transfer fee which i did do and it wasn't included is only £10 and i'm selling a sim card to my brother for that soon so i've got no worries with that. You may recognise the layout and design of the site from the modding site i made a few weeks ago. I did it because it was easy. so, that's the site sorted for a year or so.

[skool h8r]

Well people, just one more day to go and you can experience the Re-volt for yourself. It's customizable in loads of ways. In future versions, it'll be even more cutomizable because you'll be able to specify your own title with a simple registry hack! There will be more was to customize but for now, v1.1 is still going ahead for tomorrow. The program itself will update from my site so it doesn't use other peoples bandwidth. I've got to go now for dinner but i'll add more info after.

[Got EpOx]

Well i take my hat off to you, how long did it take to build this dream browser?

[skool h8r]

If you mean from the first version to present day, since about january 2005! If just this version, about 2 months. Anyway, more about the updates. When a user decides they want an update and clicks the relevant start menu item, the updater checks for a certain file on my server. If a newer version is present then it downloads it, if a newer one isn't available, then it doesn't bother downloading it. The thing is, even if the exe file is on a completely different server, it will still know where to update from as the autoupdater component is packaged in with the setup. But anyway, i want to hear your ideas. There is so much that could be done with this browser. I'm currently after customization ideas and maybe someone to join me in improving it even further, like a personal advisor but for ideas. it is still a very big maybe though.

I'm planning on developing a special file type that holds all the button images, a bit like a zip file but where the browsers exe file can retrieve each individual file but the user can't extract them. I think that if i get a lot of interest from people about Re-volt, then there will be custom mods available for it. I plan to start developing themes for it ASAP. The current ones i'm thinking about are:

red
pink
orange
green
yellow

Those are easy to make and could be done within a day. In fact, as i didn't post this message as soon as i 'finished', i've been working on the theme pack file type and extraction program (based on XP's zipfldr.dll). It's a Dll file and will probably be included in this version of re-volt. If not, it'll be an addon in a few days. There's no visible change to the browser itself and it will remain as a seperate component.


EDIT: Ok, it didn't work. Gonna have to find another way i guess.

[skool h8r]

The Re-volt has begun! Re-volt v1.1 is ready to enter the arena and take the web by storm. Nothing can stand in the way of true power. Featuring tabbed Browsing, pop-up blocking, customization and much more, it is one of the most powerful internet browsers around. There are so many routes you could take with this browser. You could mod it, improve it or just use it!


Download it today and start enjoying the benefits of a secure internet browser.

Download!

[Got EpOx]

Just downloaded your browser Scott and i gotta say it looks pretty good, you're right this could end up being the next firefox of the net. All i can say is listen to peoples suggestions and keep up the good work.

[kellamne]

you after feedback and suggestions?

if so only just installed but:
choice of what shortcuts used i.e. i hate clutter on my desktop; and installing both revolt and update button into one folder on start menu would be better (unless i overlooked something on setup). Other than this i'm still just experimenting with it.