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

Flash

[NoobixCube]

Under what circumstances does Flash not behave awfully? Despite being a Linux fan, and more than a little cold on Microsoft (though I did buy an Xbox 360 - matter of price at the time...), I almost hope Silverlight takes off so Adobe have some serious, commercially driven competition for Flash. Maybe then they won't take their user base for granted and; oh I don't know, maybe put some work into making Flash GOOD?

Re:Flash

[howlingmadhowie]

SWF is open

every time someone repeats this lie i end up posting a link to this film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoNvsiBTQDE

Pragmatically, is there a really important reason why you want the Flash Player to be entirely open? Would an open source Flash Player really be a better working piece of software than what we've got now?

it would allow me to do everything a wanted with a non-intel architecture. flash is the last bastion of hardware (and operating system) lock-in for me.

Re:Who is Kate McKinley?

[Klootzak]

Who cares who she is? The paper she's credited with writing is by no means revolutionary...

Here's a couple of easy tips to help maintain a minor level of privacy while browsing:

- Disable Third-Party cookies (Option under "privacy" tab under Firefox versions >3.0).
- Add entries to your local hosts file fudging the DNS of known "WebSpy", sorry, I mean "WebAnalytics" domains.

My current hosts file contains entries similar to the following (but a few more than I list here):

--- Hosts File Example ---
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 ths.news.com.au
127.0.0.1 adsfac.net
--- End Hosts File Example ---

Host File Locations:
Windows - %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Most Unixes - /etc/hosts
Mac OS X - /etc/hosts

The reason for utilizing the hosts file is to prevent such things as uniquely-generated transparent images (GIFs for instance) being used as inserts in pages to track your browsing in the advent you disable cookies, just add new domains/hosts to the file as you find them.

In any case, the point is more or less moot, you can minimize your privacy issues, but as any good security professional knows, where there's a will there's a way... and you can be tracked in a number of ways, understanding of how HTTP, DNS and other transfer protocols (also lower-level protocol layers) work will help you minimize your exposure though... if you're concerned, read up on the OSI/ISO network model and how IP and TCP work.