• Vladimir Panteleev (5/20) May 13 2015 From

"Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:

 From 
http://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2015/05/11/microsoft-edge-build
ng-a-safer-browser/ 
:

 MemGC
 
 As these mitigations have rolled out, attackers have adapted, 
 inventing new forms of attack. Microsoft in turn has responded 
 with new memory safety defenses that mitigate the most common 
 new forms of attack, including and especially use-after-free 
 vulnerabilities.
 
 MemGC (Memory Garbage Collector) is a memory garbage collection 
 system that seeks to defend the browser from UAF 
 (Use-after-free) vulnerabilities by taking responsibility for 
 freeing memory away from the programmer and instead automating 
 it, only freeing memory when the automation has detected that 
 there are no more references left pointing to a given block of 
 memory.

It sounds like they are using a conservative GC to avoid problems 
caused by dangling pointers.