Why can't MS create a new browser based on .Net?

BitFlipper said:

You need to try really hard to create an insecure app with .Net

You really, really don't.

.NET might make a small class of bug less likely but it's still very easy to introduce security flaws if you don't take the time to architect things correctly. Especially if you're getting untrusted data from the Internet.

It protects against buffer overrun type attacks (mostly), but it's certainly possible to leak memory in a .NET app (even though a memory leak isn't necessarily a security issue) even if it more difficult than with unmanaged code. And there are plenty of other attack vectors which .NET by itself can't protect you from.

The web browser control in .NET is just the native code rendering component. If there is a compelling reason to write one in .NET then why not start a project on CodePlex today?

FWIW I think there are advantages to having a webbrowser written entirely in WPF. Not necessecarily because of "security", "plugins" or "speed" but because it would open up the possiblity of applying transforms and other WPF-y effects that you can't do on an interop'd control. That would be a far more compelling argument to me. I'm also not naive enough to believe that such a thing would be trivial (though I'd certainly be interested in helping if there was a project underway!)

See, now that is interesting.

Paste the following into XAMLpad:

<Window
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    Title="Window1" Height="300" Width="300">
    <Grid>
        <Rectangle Width="40" Height="40" Fill="Beige" HorizontalAlignment="left"/>
        <WebBrowser  Margin="15" Source="http://channel9.msdn.com" />
        <Rectangle Width="40" Height="40" Fill="AliceBlue" VerticalAlignment="top"/>
        <Menu VerticalAlignment="Top">
            <MenuItem Header="_File">
                <MenuItem Header="_New"/>
                <MenuItem Header="_Open"/>
                <MenuItem Header="Close"/>
        </MenuItem>
        </Menu>
        <Label VerticalAlignment="Center" HorizontalAlignment="Center">This Text should should appear over the top of everything</Label>
    </Grid>
</Window>

Notice how the webbrowser appears over the top of everything. It's a limitation of hosting a native control in a WPF application, which really limits the things you can acheive. A 100% WPF based managed webbrowser control would allow you to integrate HTML content in a much more natural and flexible way.

steveo_ said:

Also AndyC, that example doesn't mean you should do it in .NET, it just means there needs to be a better way to interop the drawing layers in WPF and native.. maybe they already do have a good way but the web browser control just isn't compat..

Unlikely, doing that would mean pretty much redeveloping large parts of Win32, since it is fundamental Win32 decisions that lead to the limitations involved. And that in itself would be not only an enormous job, but a compatibility nightmare. And even after all that it might not even be fixable without breaking basic Win32 assumptions - remember it's not necessarily just layering, but the ability to truly treat it as a WPF control, including applying transformations, animations or embedding the control onto a 3D surface whilst remaining functional.

Given that Trident no longer has any actual dependencies on real Win32 controls, it would probably be easier to port that into WPF via C++/CLI if they wanted to fix that. It's questionable whether that would have any benefit for Microsoft though, given it's not something they necessarily need themselves. I still think it would be a useful third party control though.