Enable Do Not Track Feature In Web Browsers

How to enable the “Do Not Track feature” in a web browser, you are using?


You may not be aware about the all the modern web browser you are using, is tracking your every single details which might not be put to a good use, good or bad, not sure, but how would it feel if someone follows your every single click, every web page you are surfing, every single details you are entering somewhere and what it could mean, even I’m not sure.


But there are some features and settings which might put a stop on all these activities, a simple setting, a user have to tweak in order to enable the Do Not Track Feature. Most of the modern web browser supports “Do Not Track” Feature, it’s just you’ve to enable for it to work.


Let’s start with Google Chrome.


Unfortunately, there’s no built-in setting which you can enable Do Not Track feature in Google Chrome, but there are so many Google Chrome Extensions which you can use to add “Do Not Track” feature to it. So, simply use this Google Chrome extension to avoid any kind of web tracking. Just make sure you are using the latest Google Chrome web browser, at-least 17 or later. Add it, enable it, and you are free from spying.


Enable Do Not Track Feature In Mozilla Firefox

We don’t need any Add-on to enable Do Not Track feature in Mozilla Firefox. Just follow this quick tweak in Mozilla Firefox privacy settings and you are done. That’s the beauty of it.

• Click on Firefox button.

• Move over to Options.

• Under the Privacy Tab, check that box beside that says “Tell websites I do not want to be tracked”. Ok, and there you are, a free bird.

Enable Do Not Track Feature In Internet Explorer

To add that feature in Internet Explorer, visit this Do Not Track Test Page, and under the heading that says “To express your preference not to be tracked in IE9”, click on that link. Make sure you are clicking that using Internet Explorer 9.

Inside Mozilla's Firefox 4 Security

Content Security Policy (CSP) system will help to mitigate clickjacking

Open source browser vendor Mozilla is readying an ambitious new release of its Firefox Web browser. The third beta of Firefox 4, set to debut sometime this month, is expected to include more stability, features and performance improvements over earlier versions.

Among the areas that Mozilla is focusing on with Firefox 4 are a number of new security features that it says will make the browser even more secure than earlier versions. The new Firefox 4 browser development comes as rival Microsoft pushes its Internet Explorer 9 platform forward and Google continues to accelerate its Chrome browser development.

One of the new security features in Firefox 4 is the Content Security Policy (CSP) effort.

"Content security policy is focused on Cross Site Scripting (XSS) mitigation so it prevents injected scripts from actually running," Brandon Sterne, security program manager at Mozilla, toldInternetNews.com. "The site gets to declare a policy that the Firefox browser will then apply to the page and then any content that hasn't been blessed by the site won't be loaded or executed."

Refer here to read more details.

Firefox Tops Vulnerability List

New study places Firefox at the top of vulnerability list for for the first half of 2009

Application security vendor Cenzic today released its security trends report for the first half of 2009 application. In it, Cenzic claims that the Mozilla's Firefox browser led the field of Web browsers in terms of total vulnerabilities.

According to Cenzic, Firefox accounted for 44 percent of all browser vulnerabilities reported in the first half of 2009. In contrast, Apple's Safari had 35 percent of all reported browser vulnerability, Microsoft's Internet Explorer was third at 15 percent and Opera had just six percent share.

The 2009 figures stand in contrast to Cenzic's Q3/Q4 2008 report, where IE accounted for 43 percent of all reported Web browser vulnerabilities and Firefox followed closely at 39 percent.

Refer here to read more details.

Criminals are looking for ways to turn browser vulnerabilities into money.

Security vs. Usability

Usability and security have been long been at odds with each other in software design. The web browser is no exception to that rule. When browsing the Web or downloading files the user constantly needs to make choices about whether to trust a site or the content accessed from that site. Browser approaches to this have evolved over time - for example, browsers used to give a slight warnings if you accessed a site with an invalid HTTPS certificate; now most browsers block sites with invalid certificates and make the user figure out how to unblock them.

Similar approaches are taken with file downloads. Internet Explorer tends to ask the user several times before opening a downloaded file, especially if the file is not signed. Prompting the user for actions that are legitimate most of the time often creates user fatigue, which makes the user careless in walking the tightrope between software with a "reasonable but not excessive" security posture and a package that is either too open for safety or too closed to be useful. Most browsers today have evolved from the "make the user make the choice" model to the "block and require explicit override action" model.

In some cases the security of the browser has had a major impact on Web site design and usability. Browsers present a clear target for identity theft malware, since a lot of personal information flows through the browser at one time or another. This type of malware uses various techniques to steal users' credentials. One of these techniques is form grabbing - basically hooking the browser's internal code for sending form data to capture login information before it is encrypted by the SSL layer.

Another technique is to log keyboard strokes to steal credentials when the user is typing information into a browser. These techniques have spawned various attempts by Web site designers to provide more advanced authentication with a hardware token and use of various click-based keyboards to avoid key loggers.

Another usability feature of the Web browser that has been attacked by malware is the auto-complete functionality. Auto-complete saves the form information in a safe location and presents the user with options for what he typed before into a similar form. Several families of malware,such as the Goldun/Trojan Hearse, used this technique very effectively. The malware cracked the encrypted auto complete data from the browser and send it back to the central server location without even having to wait for the user to log in to the site.

Giving all the vulnerabilities out there and the willingness of attackers to exploit them, you might think that users would be clamoring for more security from their browsers. And some of them do as long as it doesn't prevent any of their desired features from working.

There are a number of documents available that list steps one can take to lock down a Web browser. For example, one of those steps often is something like "Disable JavaScript." But few people actually ever do that - at least not permanently, because using a browser with JavaScript turned off is annoying, and in many cases prevents you from visiting sites you have legitimate reasons to visit.

"Attack and defense strategies are evolving, as the use and threat models. As always, anybody can break into anything if they have sufficient skills, motivation and opportunity. The job of browser developers, network administrators, and browser users is to modulate those three quantities to minimize the number of successful attacks."

12 Most Vulnerable Apps

Firefox tops list of 12 most vulnerable apps

Mozilla’s flagship Firefox browser has earned the dubious title of the most vulnerable software program running on the Windows platform.

According to application whitelisting vendor Bit9, Firefox topped the list of 12 widely deployed desktop applications that suffered through critical security vulnerabilities in 2008. These flaws exposed millions of Windows users to remote code execution attacks.

The other applications on the list are all well-known and range from browsers to media players, to VOIP chat and anti-virus software programs. Here’s Bit9’s dirty dozen:

1. Mozilla Firefox: In 2008, Mozilla patched 10 vulnerabilities that could be used by remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via buffer overflow, malformed URI links, documents, JavaScript and third party tools.
   
   
2. Adobe Flash and Adobe Acrobat: Bit9 listed 14 flaws patched this year that exposed desktops of arbitrary remote code execution via buffer overflow,“input validation issues” and malformed parameters.
   
   
3. EMC VMware Player,Workstation and other products: A total of 10 bugs introduced risks ranging from privilege escalation via directory traversal, ActiveX buffer overflows leading to arbitrary code execution and denial of service.
   
   
4. Sun Java JDK and JRE, Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE):
   Inability to prevent execution of applets on older JRE release could allow remote attackers to exploit vulnerabilities of these older releases. Buffer overflows allowing creation, deletion and execution of arbitrary files via untrusted applications. 10 patched vulnerabilities listed
   
   
5. Apple QuickTime, Safari and iTunes: In QuickTime, the list includes nine vulnerabilities that allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via buffer overflow, or cause a denial of service (heap corruption and application crash) involving malformed media files, media links and third party codecs. The Safari for Windows browser was haunted by three flaws that could be lead to arbitrary code execution and denial of service involving JavaScript arrays that trigger memory corruption. Apple’s iTunes software was susceptible to a remote improper update verification that allowed man-in-the-middle attacks to execute arbitrary code via a Trojan horse update.
   
   
6. Symantec Norton products (all flavors 2006 to 2008): Stack-based buffer overflow in the AutoFix Support Tool ActiveX exposed Windows users to arbitrary code execution.
   
   
7. Trend Micro OfficeScan: A total of four stack-based buffer overflows that opened doors for remote attackers to execute arbitrary code.
   
   
8. Citrix Products: Privilege escalation in DNE via specially crafted interface requests affects Cisco VPN Client, Blue Coat WinProxy, SafeNet SoftRemote and HighAssurance Remote. Search path vulnerability, and buffer overflow lead to arbitrary code execution.
   
   
9. Aurigma Image Uploader, Lycos FileUploader: Remote attackers can perform remote code execution via long extended image information.
   
   
10. Skype: Improper check of dangerous extensions allows user-assisted remote attackers to bypass warning dialogs.Cross-zone scripting vulnerability allows remote attackers to inject script via Internet Explorer web control.
    
    
11. Yahoo Assistant: Remote attackers can execute arbitrary code via memory corruption.
    
    
12. Microsoft Windows Live (MSN) Messenger: Remote attackers are allowed to control the Messenger application, “change state,” obtain contact information and establish audio or video connections without notification.

See Bit9’s full report (.pdf) for information on how the list was put together, including criteria for inclusion.

Source: ZDnet Blog

Double your browser's speed in just five minutes

8 hacks to make Firefox ridiculously fast

The right settings could make your FireFox browser faster , more than doubling your speed in some situations, all for about five minutes work and for the cost of precisely nothing at all. Here's what you need to do.

1. Enable pipelining

Browsers are normally very polite, sending a request to a server then waiting for a response before continuing. Pipelining is a more aggressive technique that lets them send multiple requests before any responses are received, often reducing page download times. To enable it, type about:config in the address bar, double-click network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining so their values are set to true, then double-click network.http.pipelining.maxrequests and set this to 8.

Keep in mind that some servers don't support pipelining, though, and if you regularly visit a lot of these then the tweak can actually reduce performance. Set network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining to false again if you have any problems.

2. Render quickly

Large, complex web pages can take a while to download. Firefox doesn't want to keep you waiting, so by default will display what it's received so far every 0.12 seconds (the "content notify interval"). While this helps the browser feel snappy, frequent redraws increase the total page load time, so a longer content notify interval will improve performance.

Type about:config and press [Enter], then right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) somewhere in the window and select New > Integer. Type content.notify.interval as your preference name, click OK, enter 500000 (that's five hundred thousand, not fifty thousand) and click OK again.

Right-click again in the window and select New > Boolean. This time create a value called content.notify.ontimer and set it to True to finish the job.

3. Faster loading

If you haven't moved your mouse or touched the keyboard for 0.75 seconds (the content switch threshold) then Firefox enters a low frequency interrupt mode, which means its interface becomes less responsive but your page loads more quickly. Reducing the content switch threshold can improve performance, then, and it only takes a moment.

Type about:config and press [Enter], right-click in the window and select New > Integer. Type content.switch.threshold, click OK, enter 250000 (a quarter of a second) and click OK to finish.

4. No interruptions

You can take the last step even further by telling Firefox to ignore user interface events altogether until the current page has been downloaded. This is a little drastic as Firefox could remain unresponsive for quite some time, but try this and see how it works for you.

Type about:config, press [Enter], right-click in the window and select New > Boolean. Type content.interrupt.parsing, click OK, set the value to False and click OK.

5. Block Flash

Intrusive Flash animations are everywhere, popping up over the content you actually want to read and slowing down your browsing. Fortunately there's a very easy solution. Install the Flashblock extension (flashblock.mozdev.org) and it'll block all Flash applets from loading, so web pages will display much more quickly. And if you discover some Flash content that isn't entirely useless, just click its placeholder to download and view the applet as normal.

6. Increase the cache size

As you browse the web so Firefox stores site images and scripts in a local memory cache, where they can be speedily retrieved if you revisit the same page. If you have plenty of RAM (2 GB of more), leave Firefox running all the time and regularly return to pages then you can improve performance by increasing this cache size. Type about:config and press [Enter], then right-click anywhere in the window and select New > Integer. Type browser.cache.memory.capacity, click OK, enter 65536 and click OK, then restart your browser to get the new, larger cache.

7. Enable TraceMonkey

TraceMonkey is a new Firefox feature that converts slow Javascript into super-speedy x86 code, and so lets it run some functions anything up to 20 times faster than the current version. It's still buggy so isn't available in the regular Firefox download yet, but if you're willing to risk the odd crash or two then there's an easy way to try it out.

Install the latest nightly build (ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/), launch it, type about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Type JIT in the filter box, then double-click javascript.options.jit.chrome and javascript.options.jit.content to change their values to true, and that's it - you're running the fastest Firefox Javascript engine ever.

8. Compress data

If you've a slow internet connection then it may feel like you'll never get Firefox to perform properly, but that's not necessarily true. Install toonel.net (toonel.net) and this clever Java applet will re-route your web traffic through its own server, compressing it at the same time, so there's much less to download. And it can even compress JPEGs by allowing you to reduce their quality. This all helps to cut your data transfer, useful if you're on a limited 1 GB-per-month account, and can at best double your browsing performance.

All I.E fans, have some patience - i will be posting similar tricks about I.E 6 and 7 soon.

XSS Warning - Security Extension

Protect your browser Mozilla Firefox from XSS Attacks

XSS Warning is a extension for Firefox that fitre malicious values to prevent - with Javascript allowed - the Cross Site Scripting (XSS) attacks by malicious Http Request.

XSS Warning 0.3.4 protect from:

# Url attack

# Iframe attack

# Http request attack

Unsurprisingly, it warns you of potential XSS attacks on the URL string with a large blocking page. But here are some thoughts.

Firstly, it only works in the case of reflected XSS. While that’s the most common form of XSS, it’s also only one form. Secondly, because it doesn’t generate an alert box, if the XSS is loaded inside of a hidden iframe, the user would never be warned that it failed (also making it easy to check for, incidentally). I encourage everyone to check it out.

Please click here for more details and to download the extension.

Hacking Firefox Extensions

Try to Hack Firefox Extentions....

Firefox extensions enable users to customize Firefox with additional features. Generally, Firefox extensions are free, open-source, and easily downloaded as .xpi files. This article explains how to hack Firefox extensions of the .xpi variety. There are many reasons why someone would want to hack a Firefox extension — examples include: editing code, debugging errors, and learning extensions. This hack method requires a web browser, zip utility, and text editor.

Step 1: Secure an extension

By default, the Firefox browser will cache and attempt to install any "extension.xpi" file it encounters. Once Firefox installs the plugin, it becomes much more complicated to hack. Therefore, it is best to save an offline copy of the extension. This is easily accomplished with a browser such as IE that does not automatically install the extension, but rather provides an option to save a copy. With IE, simply right-click the extension.xpi link and "Save Target As..". Regardless of the method, the point here is to secure a local copy of the extension.xpi file. Remember to make a backup copy.

Step 2: Initial extraction

Once you have a willing extension.xpi file, open it with a zip utility and extract the files into some directory, say, "/xpicontents/". Within the /xpicontents/ directory there should be at least a "chrome" folder, an "install.rdf" file, and a "licence.txt" file. Certain extensions may include additional and/or different files or folders. If anything looks too unfamiliar, extrapolate the method or find a different extension to use as you follow along.

Step 3: Editing the .rdf file

At this point, you have everything needed to edit the install.rdf file. Simply open the file in a text editor, make/save changes, zip the contents of /xpicontents/ into a new file, and change the file extension from .zip to .xpi. On the other hand, editing virtually any other aspect of the extension — JavaScript, CSS, (X)HTML — requires further digging.

Step 4: Hacking the .jar file

Located within the chrome folder, the "something.jar" file contains a variety of files, including JavaScript, CSS, (X)HTML, etc. Most extension editing will ultimately find its way to one of the files contained within the extension’s .jar file. So, to begin, rename the something.jar file to "something.jar.zip". Then, using a zip utility, open the something.jar.zip file and extract its contents into a unique directory, say, "/jarcontents/". Within the /jarcontents/ directory there should be at least two folders, "content" and "skin". Now, dive into the contents folder (or the skin folder, if needed) and edit, hack, and tweak the files to your heart’s content.

Step 5: Repacking the extension

After the necessary edits have been made, it is time to put humpty back together again. The first step is to replace the original contents of the something.jar.zip file with the freshly edited contents. To do this, select both content and skin folders (or whichever contains the edited material), right-click and add the selected folders to the something.jar.zip file located within the /jarcontents/ directory. Then, rename something.jar.zip back to something.jar.

At this point, you are ready to (re)package the chrome folder, install.rdf file, and license.txt file into a new .zip file, which we will call "hacked-extension.zip". To do this, simply select all three items and zip them into a new file named hacked-extension.zip. Finally, rename hacked-extension.zip to match exactly the name of the original extension, extension.xpi.

Step 6: Installation and testing

Once the necessary edits have been made, it is time to install the extension. Open Firefox, drag-and-drop the extension, and click OK to install. Restart Firefox, activate the extension, and check its functionality. Lather, rinse, repeat. It may be a good idea to test the hacked extension under a variety of different user conditions. Or not. Whatever. At this point, it’s entirely up to you. You may also want to save a copy of the original extension together with your hacked extension along with a few notes, just in case.

References:

Hacking Firefox Extensions Book
GUID Generator Web Service