What’s a cookie? How do I protect myself on the web? And most importantly: What happens if a truck runs over my laptop?
For things you’ve always wanted to know about the web but were afraid to ask, read on.
OPEN BOOK
Browser extensions can also act on their own, outside of web pages. An email notifier extension can live on your browser toolbar, quietly check for new messages in your email account and let you know when one arrives. In this case, the extension is always working in the background no matter what web page you’re looking at — and you don’t have to log in to your email in a separate window to see if you have new messages.
When browser extensions were first introduced, developers often had to build them in unusual programming languages or in heavy-duty mainstream languages like C++. This took a lot of work, time and expertise. Adding more code to the browser also added to security concerns, as it gave attackers more chances to exploit the browser. Because the code was sometimes arcane, extensions were notorious for causing browser crashes, too.
Today, most browsers let developers write extensions in the basic, friendly programming languages of the web: HTML, JavaScript and CSS. Those are the same languages used to build most modern web apps and web pages, so today’s extensions are much closer cousins to the web apps and pages they work with. They’re faster and easier to build, safer, and get better and better right along with the web standards they’re built upon.
