Why use Firefox
It looks like Firefox is steadily holding at or above 20% marketshare. This isn’t too much of a surprise to me seeing as how I am a devout Firefox user and have been for a while. When I talk to people who are not using Firefox their excuse is usually compatibility issues. If this were 2004 I would buy that as a valid excuse, but come on people! There are very few sites that I need to use IE for. There are some, but it is not the majority.
Why do I use Firefox? The biggest reason is NoScript and it seriously kicks ass!!! Those of you who use NoScript know what I am talking about. For those that don’t here is why you should.
JavaScript is alive and well on many websites. Some of this is good but some of it is bad. Your browser of choice can not tell the difference between good or bad javascript. Malicious JavaScript can do a host of things to your machine, included but not limited to: exploiting a vulnerability, installing a virus, stealing information, forcing your browser to visit other sites, etc.
NoScript allows JavaScript, Java, Flash and other plugins to be executed only by trusted web sites of your choice and can protect against XSS, CSRF, and Clickjacking. I have chosen to block all javascript by default. When I visit a site that has javascript a prompt alerts me that scripts were blocked. I am then able to see what was blocked, where it was from, and decide whether or not to allow it permanently or temporarily. I recommend you temporarily allow the script you think is safe, because tomorrow could always be a different story. There are other configuration options I use such as blocking iframes but start with the default settings and go from there.
If you are not using Firefox I recommend you download it and start. But before you start, install NoScript. You can thank me later.
Filed under: Security | 2 Comments
Tags: browser, Clickjacking, CSRF, Firefox, marketshare, NoScript, XSS
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