Chrome popup issues with Sitecore 7.1

Was noticing that after a particular update on Chrome (number 37) that my popup windows from the Sitecore Content editor admin were not working.

Examined the js being called and tracked it down to Chrome depreciating showModelDialog API in July 2014. Mind you, this is a good thing and addresses one of my pet peeves with Sitecore (and not just Chrome). That being, when you open some modal windows, you loose access to other tabs in your browser as Sitecore uses the poorly implemented  showModalDialog API to freeze everything.

{Note}Once I passed update 39 on Chrome the following did not work.

To fix this you can enable EnableDeprecatedWebPlatformFeatures . 

In updated versions of Sitecore this is no longer an issue but for someone stuck on a 7.1 it looks like the only optionwould be to use a browser that still allows showModaliDialog

NAT Pinning Security Concerns

There is an old attack method that was first published in 2001 that now is gaining more notoriety with the adoption of HTML 5. The method was dubbed "The HTML Form Protocol Attack" or Cross Protocol Scripting.  Some of the vulnerabilities described in the paper have been addressed by the browser makers themselves but others are still open.
 
The premise of the vulnerability is that a browser can be tricked into communicating on a non standard port (i.e SMTP, POP, NNTP) from a hidden form on a web page. This can be used by spammers for instance by setting up a page with a hidden form that submits a request to a mail server and turns your client into a spam bot.

Browser Penetration

Browser stats have been updated for February here. As a breakdown IE7 is losing ground to IE8 (.2 percent up and down) while Firefox continues to grab marketshare - mostly at the expense of Opera (trending downward).

When will the day come when we can stop supporting IE6? For the Norwegians it seems that now is the time as several large properties are actively telling users to upgrade.