Security and Privacy » firefox

The problem with the Prefetch function in Firefox and Chrome

derek — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:01:23 +0000

Did you know that Firefox and Chrome both have a feature that fetches pages and links that it thinks you might be going to click on? This can slow down your computer and browsing dramatically. The majority of problems come up when using a search engine, particularly Google with its “preview function”.
The pre-fetch function in these browsers silently loads every link in the background and caches ( stores) the pages in your internet temporary files folder used by Firefox or Chrome. So far Internet Explorer has resisted the temptation to do this.
It also has another major problem when using security software that blocks dangerous or known malicious IP numbers or web addresses. You either get constant alerts about malicious pages attempting to infiltrate your computer or pop up warnings saying xxxx address or IP number has been blocked. Some security softwares will block you from the original page that you are attempting to visit because of the preloaded link to a potentially malicious site, that can lead to major problems with search engines. In 99% of the time, you have absolutely no intention of ever visisting that site, it is just Firefox or Chrome being helpful and preloading the pages for you

Here’s how to disable the Firefox prefetch setting.

1. Type about:config in the address bar and press ENTER. Agree to the warning that changing settings can cause problems

2. Locate and double-click the entry for
network.prefetch-next

3. Set it to false to disable this feature. Double-clicking on the setting will change it.

How to disable prefetch in Firefox

This is how to disable the prefetch function in Chrome:
1. Click the wrench in the upper-right corner.

2. Select Options

3. Select the Under the hood tab.

4. Uncheck “Use DNS pre-fetching to improve page load performance” . and then close the options page

Disable prefetch in Chrome

Beware of fake shopping sites

derek — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:55:16 +0000

With the seasonal shopping season well underway, watch out for fake shopping sites and phishing emails trying to get your identity & credit card details.

A slightly different approach came into my inbox today which asked me to confirm the item in my shopping basket. Now I haven’t shopped with Littlewoods online but you can be sure that thousands of people have and the same scam will be applied to just about every well known online shopping site this season.

The email looks quite believable

The website if you follow the link looks exactly like the real Littlwoods shopping site Account sign in page EXCEPT that the real Littlewwoods or ALL reputable shopping sites will have a Padlock icon and the site address will start with HTTPS and the address bar will turn green to show that you are on a secure site

This screenshot shows the fake site and I have blanked out the address for safety reasons

These show how a genuine site will appear in Internet Explorer 8 on left and Firefox on right. Both show the padlock icon and a green safe address bar. A genuine shopping site will always start HTTPS to show a secure site when you are asked to put in any details. The front page of the site might be a normal http:
Unfortunately a lot of well known shopping sites haven’t yet signed up to the Extended Valuation green bar very secure system yet so watch for the closed padlock and HTTPS in the address bar to show a secure site. In Firefox browser the closed padlock is on the bottom right hand corner of the page, not in the browser address bar

I strongly recommend using ROBOFORM which keeps all passwords in a secure encrypted database that only you (not a keylogger or malware) can access and use it to create safe secure passwords

Mozilla fixes 16 flaws with Firefox 3.5.4:

derek — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:47:55 +0000

http://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox35.html#firefox3.5.4

Mozilla fixes 16 flaws with Firefox 3.5.4:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140008/Mozilla_fixes_16_flaws_with_Firefox_3.5.4

Mozilla today patched 16 vulnerabilities in Firefox, 11 of them critical, as it updated the open-source browser to version 3.5.4.

The 11 critical Firefox 3.5 vulnerabilities were located in a variety ofn components, including Web worker calls, the GIF color map parser, the string-to-number converter, a trio of third-party media libraries, and both the JavaScript and browser engines.