Browser Privacy Test

lazyforker writes "A NYTimes blog post reports the results of security researcher Kate McKinley's tests of various browsers' (FireFox, Chrome, IE, Safari) privacy protection mechanisms. Specifically she tested their cookie handling. She also examined their handling of Flash's cookies. In summary: Safari on Mac OS X (in the 'private browsing' mode) is not so private ('quirky'). Safari on XP is not private at all. Flash behaves awfully everywhere."

Comments

One word

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash behaves awfully everywhere

FlashBlock

NoScript works too but I find it sort of annoying because it stops half the web from working.

If you are that worried...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you delete your "flash cookies" at http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html

IT allows you to access the flash Settings Manager and delete things one by one.

Fundamental flaw in survey

[QuietLagoon]

Since it appears that the author of the "study" chose the browsers to test based upon popularity, the "researcher" based the survey upon the mistaken assumption that popularity is an indication of security perception.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer, as the mos tpopular browser, disproves tha tpopularity does not equate to the perception of security.

A better basis for the selection of browsers would be to select those thought to be secure. That would eliminate IE and Safari at the start, and it might even add Opera.

Re:Fundamental flaw in survey

[Anonymous Coward]

How about you RTFA.
She claims to have tested Opera. Of course the NY Times and Slashdot don't RTFA.
Then agtain, TFA is a piece of shit without any value whatsoever.
And Google Chrome is hardly a major browser, fuck, it's hardly a browser. You're a fucking idiot.

Clean out the '\Flash Player' folder

[schwit1]

For windows users you should delete everything in this folder: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash Player

Re:Clean out the '\Flash Player' folder

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Actually for Flash you should take a look at these instructions which will work cross-platform.

Re:Clean out the '\Flash Player' folder

[gnud]

In case someone takes this at blind faith -- the ~/.adobe folder also contains Acrobat data.

But kill ~/.macromedia, and ~/.adobe/Flash_Player =)

Re:Clean out the '\Flash Player' folder

[Anonymous Coward]

Or use the Objection Firefox extension.

cringe-inducing bug in konqueror

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting this anonymously, for reasons that will soon be evident.

Here's a really nasty privacy bug in konqueror. Let's say you visit gaymidgetsex.com. Then you go to View : View Document Source. Well, on my default install of Ubuntu, this doesn't actually show you the html source code of the web page. Instead, it downloads the html file to /tmp and opens it in OpenOffice, which attempts to render it as an OpenOffice document -- it doesn't actually show you the html source, which is what you asked it to do. Okay, so now you have gay midget porn open in an OOo document, which isn't what you wanted. So you close the OOo window.

Now the next time you start Ooo, go to File : Recent Documents. Oops.

Re:cringe-inducing bug in konqueror

[ScrewMaster]

Posting this anonymously, for reasons that will soon be evident.

You do realize that you didn't have to use your real sexual preferences as an example, don't you?

Re:cringe-inducing bug in konqueror

[slash.duncan]

WTF gave you the idea that's a konqueror bug? Why would opening a document in OOo, which isn't even developed/shipped by the same (upstream) people as konqueror, be a konqueror bug?

No, rather, as AC already posted, konqueror will with default associations as shipped by upstream (KDE), using the "view source" function, open pages using kwrite or kate or kedit. Assuming it's not a PEBCAK issue of the local sysadmin or user, OOo at least as shipped by Ubuntu appears to change that default by associating HTML (or possibly XML) files with itself, at a higher priority than kwrite/whatever-else. That's either Ubuntu's fault or OOo's (or the sysadmin/user for overriding the distribution defaults, if that's why the associations are set the way they are), but it certainly isn't KDE/Konqueror's, as KDE isn't what setup those associations, it's just doing what it's supposed to and following the file associations config as setup on the system it's installed on, as overruled by the config of the user running it, if they have chosen to do so.

Looked at a different way, it would be either OOo's bug, for having a recent documents history that can't be disabled (if that's indeed the case), or a user PEBCAK, for not disabling said history or wiping it out after opening a document they don't wish to appear in said history.

Re:Konqueror and Safari should not be left out.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Now, I'm posting this from Konqueror on Linux as god intended and all that; but http://windows.kde.org/ is the place to look if you want Konqueror goodness on Windows. Quite possibly still in the rough edges stage, but a large amount of KDE 4 stuff is being brought over to Windows.

solution on Firefox ..

[rs232]

clear private data on close ..