Mark of the Web (MOTW) missing in Linux version..

tbone-15

Hello Fans! o)

On Windows, every browser "tags" any downloaded file with the MOTW, this is some extended attributes on regular files in the NTFS file system (using NTFS Alternate Data Streams -> ADS).

Every downloaded file has an ADS on Windows, where you can retrieve the source URL of the file downloaded and the http referrer for that download link.

I tried Vivaldi, Chrome and Firefox on Linux now to see, whether these attributes are added to downloaded files on Linux as well, but they are not.

Linux does not have NTFS ADS of course, but Linux file systems have "xattr" and "extended attributes", which is able to store the same kind of tags on a regular file or folder.

Is there a chance you can add the MOTW data for downloaded files on Linux as well?
I heavily rely on that data in downloaded files (it's very useful for automatic sorting, building a download library or even search for downloads from a specific website / url).

If there is no chance of getting this MOTW handling implemented, maybe an even better way of adding this feature is by supporting some "after download hook"? Just an option for a command or script Vivaldi will run after a download finished, which would allow me to set the required attributes on the downloaded file myself (Vivaldi needs to provide / pass things like URL, HTTP-Referrer and other properties for this to work of course).

Looking forward to any new Vivaldi release!

Thank you! o)

ps: Just a small MOTW demo: This is the file manager "Directory Opus" showing MOTW data of a file downloaded with Vivaldi on Windows. The downloaded clipart has its source URL and keywords in there, very useful information on any download.

DoctorG

@tbone-15 MOTW is a Windows OS feature.
Nothing that Vivaldi developers can implement on Linux.

tbone-15

Hello DoctorG! o)

Well, MOTW uses an attribute (NTFS Alternate Data Stream) on the downloaded file. You can create attributes like this even with Notepad.exe or anything else which can read and write files.

You can use this notation (notice the ":" after the file name, specifying the attribute name):
Notepad.exe C:\MyFile.txt:MyAttribute

Of course, Windows is looking into this MOTW attribute, to show a warning when opening downloaded executables. Linux will not do this, which is ok for me! o)

I just need similar attributes (URL and HTTPReferrer) being set on downloaded files. Linux can do this as well, like so e.g. (using "attr" command).

#create attribute on file
attr -s MyAttributeName -V "MyAttributeValue" ./MyLinuxFile.txt 
#list attributes of file
attr -l MyLinuxFile.txt 
#get attribute value 
attr -g "MyAttributeName" MyLinuxFile.txt

You can also edit these attributes with Eiciel e.g.:

What do you think?
Writing URL and HTTPReferrer into file attributes, should work on Linux as well, no?

Thank you! o)

DoctorG

@tbone-15 said in Mark of the Web (MOTW) missing in Linux version..:

Writing URL and HTTPReferrer into file attributes, should work on Linux as well, no?

Depends on used file system

But i do not expect that Vivaldi Developer will add non-standard user-defined file attributes to a downloaded file.

If you think such feature is useful, please read Request New Feature, open forum Feature Requests and post request.

edwardp

Mark of the Web

This apparently has had some security vulnerabilities according to the Wikipedia article, so I highly doubt this would be added to Linux.

yngve

The "Mark" is, as mentioned, an OS specific feature, so asking the browsers to implement it is starting at the wrong end of the chain.

In order for this to (eventually) be added to browsers, (in this case) the Linux (or filesystem) maintainers would first need to add support in the file systems, and APIs in the OS to set and detect the "Mark", and not the least: There need to be security systems/software that checks for the mark before doing things like installing an application outside of the normal package management system used on Linux.

Only once such features are in place does it make sense for browsers to add support for something like that (in our case, it should be added in Chromium).