Launcher and Browser Security Questions

I am in conversations with various Storm Launcher developers. It seems to me that having an Accuweather or Reuters launcher is both useful and convenient, especially when you are out and away from home - just click your way to information - as opposed to using a browser's bookmarks, which is tedious, especially while you are walking and/or in bright sunlight. The extremely popular and effective WSJ launcher also comes to mind.

To me, it is a totally different matter to use a launcher to view or manage a bank account or buy and sell stocks or purchase items. In these cases, we are talking about access to money. What would keep a software engineer from logging your username/password and THEN sending you to your bank or what ?

In the case of our PCs and MACs, an effort is made via the secure socket mechanism to help maintain security during such vital transactions. What about in the case in which we use a launcher or BB Browser to look at our bank accounts. Is this safe even on the vaulted RIM network ?

In fact, even for the case of Microsoft or Mozilla, how do they protect us from their software engineers logging our info ?

One Storm developer said, "Well, my software is signed by RIM." Does this improve our security or not ?

Doctor Neutron :confused: