Category Archives: Firefox

A small collection of Firefox add-ons you can install to improve (a little bit) your privacy – Part 2

I already described the privacy concerns related to Flash files in the my last post about Firefox add-ons and privacy. Today I want to talk about some interesting Firefox add-ons that could be helpful to reduce privacy risks during Internet navigation.

The first add-on is Flash Control that “controls as and when to display the Flash player and the HTML5 player”. Another similar add-on is Flashblock that does not allow Flash player to send information about your computer until you will decide to allow it. Personally I prefer Flash Control that is very intuitive and you decide when and what to watch just clicking on the Flash icon in the middle of the player.

But, if you are a purist and you want to be able to control not only Flash player but also Javascript, SilverLight, images and proxies, QuickJava is what you are looking for. QuickJava is intuitive, easy to control and really effective.

In fact, you must not underestimate Javascripts that are dangerous too if you think that they are equally able to remotely discover many information about your Ip, User-Agent, Architecture, OS Language, System Time, Screen Resolution. Statistically, when you have all these details, you have semi-unique fingerprints of the computer… and so someone could be also able to know who are you. For this reason an add-on as Disable WebRTC is recommended because it blocks JavaScripts to access your local IP(s), without any user prompt.

References:

https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/support-flash-control/2479

http://flashblock.mozdev.org/

http://quickjavaplugin.blogspot.com/

https://addons.mozilla.org/it/firefox/addon/happy-bonobo-disable-webrtc/?src=api

A small collection of Firefox add-ons that you can install to improve (a little bit) your privacy

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When I read news and reports about modern spyware I am a little bit discouraged about my privacy. But I also think that something can always be done to improve privacy levels.

This time I don’t want to talk about password strength but I will try to focus your attention on some Firefox add-ons can could positively impact on your privacy.

The first is about Random Agent Spoofer that is able to obfuscate your computer configuration (better: identity) when you connect to a remote server = Internet.

This add-on is really flexible and you will spend just a couple of minutes to decide what configuration can be useful for you. In particular you can decide how often you desire to change your agent profile and if you prefer to use just desktop agents or to appear as if you were connected through a mobile device.

Moreover, you can choose if you want to:

Send spoofed ‘If-None_Match’ headers (ETags)

Send spoofed ‘X-Forwarded-For’ headers

Send spoofed ‘Via’ headers

Accept headers match the selected browser profile

Spoof accepted documents

Spoof accepted encoding

Spoof accepted language (US English)

And if you have time you can also play with the many extras as:

Use standard font set

Disable local dom storage

Limit tab history to 2

Disable browsing and download history

Disable browser cache

Disable geolocation

Disable link prefetching

Disable dns prefetching

Disable webgl

If you prefer a less complex agent spoofer or you are planning to use it seldom, you can use User-Agent Switcher that contains fewer features and needs to be manually configured but it’s intuitive and equally effective.

The second add-on I suggest to install is TrackMeNot that will help to defend your privacy contrasting web search engines profilation with a (huge,-if you want-) number of false queries from your browser. The (huge) number of queries about general topics will obfuscate search engines’ profile about your personal preference. Also in this case this add-on allows you to decide what kind of false queries you want to submit and how often TrackMeNot will “search” the web.

The third recommended add-on is ZenMate, a free VPN service that has obtained positive reviews by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) also because ZenMate is “based in Berlin and operates under strict German data protection laws”. ZenMate is free, easy to use and let you choose between four different exit node also if using the free base version:

– Germany

– Romania

– Hong Kong

– USA

Last but not least, keep attention on Flash Files. Do they are so essential for you? You have to keep in mind that sometimes, also if you use a VPN as Zen Zone, you can be betrayed by Flash files. In fact, videos based on Flash can potentially leak your identity also if you try to hide your IP behind a VPN or a proxy.

Link

Firefox’s tracking cookie blacklist reduces website load time by 44%

YouTube changed its website parameters and DownloadHelper immediately released an updated, on the fly, version

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Sunday night the (on the fly) updated version of DownloadHelper was released. After just few days of malfunctioning all the features offered by this add-on for Firefox are back again.

In particular it is possible to download again all the videos to have a local copy to watch when we are not able to use the internet.

The team of DdownloadHelper was professional and fast to solve this annoying problem which was caused by changes operated by YouTube on its website. For all the people who has not already used this add-on before, I remind you that DownloadHelper is, in my opinion, the most advanced tool to navigate YouTube videos, download contents for evaluation and directly convert the format from flv to mp4 or other video format you prefer.

For the record, this problem caused the same malfunctioning to all the software with similar features. In particular, you could have problems when using Gmediafinder for Linux (at least we have had this kind of matter during the past weekend).

Don’t let them to track your internet behaviour! Use Ghostery for Firefox

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We know that every time we visit a website we are caught by “invisible” robotized voyeurs which analyse our behaviour and share information to the site owner or to specialized data-collecting companies. These companies usually analyze the obtained information to improve the quality of their web service (in the most optimistic case) or to create a profile about the user with the specific goal to better sell services in the near future.

The real problem is that normally we are not able to realize what is happening. all this “ghost” activity happens in a silent mode without any tangible trace. To avoid this data collection and protect in a more efficient way our privacy we can use Ghostery, a specific add-on for Firefox and Chrome.

Ghostery defuses trackers, web bugs, pixels, and beacons placed on web pages by Facebook, Google Analytics, and more than 1,000 other ad networks, behavioral data providers, web publishers and companies interested in your web activity. As for every Firefox add-on, Ghostery is simple to install and manage. After the installation you can choose if you want to share anonymous information with the Ghostery servers to improve the quality of its services or if you prefer not to collaborate with them. You also can decide if you want to automatically update your Ghostery library and choose the specific trackers you want to neutralize. You can also create a policy for your cookies or (recommended) define a Whitelist for the websites you trust.

During my tests, Ghostery has not slowed the navigation speed in a sensible way also because I spent a little of time on creating a personalized Whitelist during my first use of this add-on.

Last but not least, Ghostery provides a very powerful information section where you can learn about any tracker it has blocked for you.

To conclude I can say that Ghostery is an add-on you must have on your Firefox to better protect your privacy!

Watch your privacy! Upgrade your Firefox security with HTTPS Everywhere and HTTPS Finder!

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As we already discussed many times in this blog, we know that web security is something very difficult to reach but we can always try to improve our security when surfing into the web.

First of all, use Firefox! Do it! In my opinion it’s slower than Chrome but very “transparent” and so you have less risks to unintentionally share information you want to keep private. In my experience, Firefox could be safer than Chrome if you use the right adds-on.

Then, install a particular add-on named HTTPS Everywhere.

This add-on (for Firefox and Chrome) will automatically connect your browser to the https version of many websites contained in its “Rule list”. The number of https connections in the HTTPS Everywhere’s list is sufficiently wide and you can always decide to manually add new https addresses (more info) as in the following example:

<ruleset name=”Google”>
<target host=”www.google.com” />
<target host=”google.com” />

<rule from=”^http://(www\.)?google\.com/” to=”https://google.com/”/>
</ruleset>

If you prefer to save time and you don’t want to write some lines for every website you prefer to connect through https, you will install another add-on: HTTPS Finder. HTTPS Finder is perfectly interconnected with HTTPS Everywhere and it will try to reach every website you type into the address bar, using a https connection. If it finds a valid https website, it will ask you if you want to add a specific rule into HTTPS Everywhere rule list. At this point you have only to agree and the new rule will be stored in the list.

Simple, easy, useful!

Video – Mozilla Collusion privacy tracking add-on for Firefox

Few Tricks to protect your web searches from Search Engines logging

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During the past weeks, we read many posts and articles about the new privacy rules that Google introduced for its web services. The goal of this specific post is not about discussing privacy agreements and the many interesting points of view about this kind of topics but we would like to focus your attention on a couple of “tricks” which can help you to increase the privacy level.

First of all, you can decide to use an alternative search engine which doesn’t log your activity and it is not possible to define your profile about your web activities.

Privatelee

Privatelee has been developed to offer better privacy to people who prefer not to have their web searches automatically analyzed by google.com.

This search engine can work on https mode and its search results are the mix between external search such as Google and Bing. You can also decide to use just one web engine or both. Comparing the results obtained we can affirm that Privatelee is really very effective and offers the same main features of Google and Bing.

Startpage

Startpage is based on Google and has many flexible features that can be selected using the “settings” page. This particular search engine deletes all the logs after 48 hours and you can anonymously visualize images and videos or define how to manage cookies. Moreover, Startpage allows you to save your settings without using cookies.

As for Privatelee, please be sure to type https and not a “simple” http when you insert Startpage address in the bar.

Secondly, if you use Firefox, you can use a specific add-on TrackMeNot. TrackMeNot is a simple but useful add-on you can install on Firefox to obfuscate user search data profiler on Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu and others. TrackMeNot automatically issues random queries on the main search engines using a list a generic list of words. In this way, search engines are not able to create a real profile about you as web user. Your real searches will be just few between the hundreds fictionally created by TrackMeNot. TrackMeNot is completely configurable: you can choose the query frequency or define the klog of your automatic queries. By default, TrackMeNot uses the words contained in the RSS of four primary websites: The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC and The Register.

Last but not least, if you are using your PC in any area with poor Internet connection, you can disable TrackMe Not with just a click. Easy and fast!

Video – Firefox Addon TrackMeNot by LinuxWindowsMacHilfe

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Use the anonymoX add-on for Firefox to visit website protected by IP selection

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What about listening to Pandora or other USA IP-based online music services if you are not into the USA? There are many add-on for Firefox which can help you to use the right proxy for appearing in different places in the world but, in my experience, you can have some difficulties when you try to use them.

In fact the IPs of free proxies change frequently and sometimes you are obliged to spend a lot of time searching for the right IP of free proxies. Other times the free proxy addresses are so overcrowded that you have to wait many seconds before you can visualize webpages.

One exception is anonymoX, a simple add-on for Firefox which always works properly and assure a good connection speed. AnonymoX has two different service levels, the free basic service has fewer features but it really works properly and it’s fast.

With the free level you can choose your favourite IP exit country between USA, UK and NL. You can also decide if you prefer to stealth your web surfing using anonymoX features or the classic TOR servers. Moreover, you can change your fictional ID every times you want also while you are surfing the web.

During all our tests anonymoX was able to assure us a good surfing privacy, in particular we successfully tried to change browser id and we really appreciated the possibility of visiting .onion websites through the Tor option. Recommended!!!