[ferrija1]

Five Things to Do to Protect Yourself [From Malware]


1. Don’t open email attachments; even if it’s from someone you know. If you do get something from someone you know, make sure that they really sent it to you.

2. Don’t click links in email. That link could lead you to a phishing site, or the link may lead you to install malicious software. Copy and paste links instead. You can avoid this if you disable HTML email. Use plain text email.

3. Don’t download files from places you aren’t absolutely sure are safe. Stick with the well known sites.

4. Update regularly! There are problems with software that occur. If there’s a patch out, you better apply it. Even MySpace can infect you. There was once a banner ad that had malicious code that took advantage of an Internet Explorer flaw that Microsoft had already patched. However, over a million people still got infected.

5. It is absolutely necessary to have a firewall. The best firewall is a hardware firewall: your router. It keeps your system clean of worms. There are worms that are network viruses. If you don’t have a firewall on the Net, the worms will get you right away. You can also turn on the Windows or OSX firewall.

[neos1]

Originally Posted by lotuseclat79

Insecure plug-ins pose danger to Firefox users
by Robert Lemos, SecurityFocus 2007-05-30
Article (2 pages) here.

-- Tom

Thanks for this information. I've removed all third party add-ons until this is corrected.

[lotuseclat79]

Originally Posted by neos1

Thanks for this information. I've removed all third party add-ons until this is corrected.

Hi neos1,

You may have a long wait. My post was informational. Your action of removing all third party add-ons, while extreme, is your choice.

In the relative comfort of not exposing my disks to the Internet (they are unmounted) and I web surf from a Live CD which mounts a file system in memory, i.e. any malware that could enter my system from the Internet gets only as far as the file sytem in memory, and when I power down my system, they are negated - its my opinion that everyone should surf in this manner, so I use all of my third party add-ons to my advantage.

-- Tom

[neos1]

While your post was for information purposes only. I would present this question. Is not the definition of stupidity "knowing the correct course and rejecting it anyway?"
I use my computer for banking and other sensitive business. Those with deep pockets may smirk and smile knowingly. I've been to the curb. So I live by the credo: "If I cannot afford to replace it ~ then, I cannot afford to lose it".

It may be convenient to have and use all of those add-ons but when convenience and shortcuts trumps security then disaster soon follows. I can wait for the code writers to step up and do the right thing, or I can do without.

Clarification: After rereading your post I think the best advice is surfing via live cd. I may sound a bit paranoid but I would rather err on the side of caution than allow an unlocked back door into my personal space.

An excerpt from the link Lotuseclat79 provided:

"n April, Soghoian decided to use a network sniffer to capture the data that Firefox sent out over the network as it was starting up. He quickly noticed that several extensions sent requests to check for new updates using plain Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) packets, without any sort of security.

"The insecure update requests stuck out like a sore thumb, and within a couple of hours, I had a working demo which proved that it was possible to hijack the extension upgrade process," Soghoian said."

[Cookiegal]

Thread reopened as request.

I don't believe there's any way we can exempt one specific thread from the 45 day closure rule.

[lotuseclat79]

Firefox Tip - Easily Copy Your Bookmarks dated November 5, 2008.

A useful tip I was not aware of heretofore!

My bookmarks are over 2000 and increasing, so my bookmark organization needs a new tool - I dread having to reorganize them manually.

In that regard does anyone know if there is a tool that can read all of your bookmarks, create tags for each and reorganize the category folder names to be more useful to the user - and interact with the user for final approval or present alternative organizations again while interacting with the user? I desperately need help and an interactive tool to do these sorts of things would be just what the doctor ordered in my case.

-- Tom

[hewee]

Originally Posted by lotuseclat79

Firefox Tip - Easily Copy Your Bookmarks dated November 5, 2008.

A useful tip I was not aware of heretofore!

My bookmarks are over 2000 and increasing, so my bookmark organization needs a new tool - I dread having to reorganize them manually.

In that regard does anyone know if there is a tool that can read all of your bookmarks, create tags for each and reorganize the category folder names to be more useful to the user - and interact with the user for final approval or present alternative organizations again while interacting with the user? I desperately need help and an interactive tool to do these sorts of things would be just what the doctor ordered in my case.

-- Tom

I used years ago acqurl but never paid for it so stopped using it because it knew it was not paid for and would not work right.
http://www.acqurl.com/

But it was cool all you could do. Look at the screen shots also.
Now don't know if it works with Firefox 3 or not.
Works with multiple browsers too and it does not change the Firefox or Netscape bookmarks file that I was using back then.

But it cost $35

[sayhi2shefali]

some realy nice links....thanks for all!!