[tbb-bugs] #13873 [Applications/Tor Browser]: hard lock tails/torbrowser

[Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki]

#13873: hard lock tails/torbrowser
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 Reporter:  ioerror                       |          Owner:  tbb-team
     Type:  enhancement                   |         Status:  new
 Priority:  High                          |      Milestone:
Component:  Applications/Tor Browser      |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal                        |     Resolution:
 Keywords:  security, usability, fuzzing  |  Actual Points:
Parent ID:                                |         Points:
 Reviewer:                                |        Sponsor:
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Changes (by cypherpunks):

 * severity:   => Normal


Comment:

 It's not really up to the browser to set resource limits. My computer has
 64 GiB of memory, and I often have a *lot* of tabs open. I also have a
 small laptop with 2 GiB of memory, and the browser easily crashes if I
 open a particularly large webpage that lists an index of enough thousand
 files. What would save my tiny laptop from an unfortunate crash would
 severely limit my high-end workstation and prevent me from using it to its
 full potential.

 Setting resource limits is up to the operating system. If you want to set
 the limits, you set them before opening the browser. I agree, Tails should
 probably set rlimits, and I've been considering opening a bug report for
 them to do so for more than a year now for both the browser and other
 programs (but I've been lazy).

 The only type of limits Firefox should set are stack limits, since that
 has a security benefit and there's a point when no matter how many tabs
 you open, you won't increase the size of the stack, and process limits,
 because Firefox won't just spawn infinite processes as you increase your
 number of tabs. But limiting the memory (address limits) is just asking
 for trouble.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/13873#comment:3>
Tor Bug Tracker & Wiki <https://trac.torproject.org/>
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