Firefox Sponsored Tiles Advert Strategy: Do You Object?

Mozilla Firefox nightly builds now include Sponsored Tiles on the 'New Tab' page

Here is the issue:  Firefox has survived on Advertisement revenue right along.  Yes?   Most of their revenue is based on a contract with Google which has been confirmed will end in November 2014, unless Google has a change of heart and renews.

Consequently, Mozilla is looking at contingency planning and has now added Sponsored Tiles to their nightly Firefox builds.  Sponsored Tiles appear on the 'New Tab' page and won't appear in your regular browser stream.  Being found on the New Tab page means they won't get blocked by tools like Adblock.

Remember, Mozilla is an Open Source company and this will help them to continue to fund Firefox development and continue to expand Mozilla Corporation at the same time.

So, I am fine with it, as long as Firefox remains Open Source.  What say you?  -- Dietrich

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WARNING: Google Chrome UNSAFE FOR GENERAL USE

by Dietrich Schmitz

You read that right.  I deem Google's proprietary Chrome (Freeware License) browser UNSAFE FOR GENERAL USE .

I can't make it any clearer than that.

Why is Google's Chrome browser unsafe?

It's pretty simple.  Google chose to not allow Chrome's code base to be shareable to the general public.

For your purposes, that means it doesn't operate under Open Source Gnu General Public License v2 (GPLv2) license terms which would allow the entire code base to be independently vetted by external audit for hidden vulnerabilities and exploits that may be resident much like HeartBleed in openSSL and NIST's Eliptical Curve Cryptography (ECC) which was discovered to have been weakened by the NSA.  The aforementioned rogue bugs lay hidden for quite some time, exploitable to those who knew of their presence.

The only ray of sunshine is that their source code is open source, which allowed discovery and corrective action to be taken.

Sadly, one has to draw the line in today's world.  We know the score with the NSA.  The Fox is in the hen house and now it's time to take action.

Severe action is needed.  

Accordingly, I am putting Google on notice and charging them with knowledge that their code base is 'closed' to the general public and must be 'opened' for independent external audit to assure no vulnerabilities exist of any kind (excluding discovered defects in Chrome's upstream dependencies).

It's no more Google Chrome for me.  And I hope you will follow suit.

Take action.  Switch to a 100% open source browser, like Mozilla's Firefox or Midori or Gnome's Web or KDE's Konqueror today.

I would remind the readers that despite assurances from Google to consumers that their privacy remains intact, it turns out last year that the NSA were able to drill through Google's SSL firewall and pitch camp on the inside for an unspecified period of time, unbeknownst to Google, as they sampled the clear text unencrypted Gmail and Drive meta data belonging to you.  Of course, publicly Google expressed outrage for what the NSA had done.

But actions speak louder than words.  You see, Google has had ample time to formally announce and roll out strong encryption for Gmail and Drive for their consumer-facing services.  To date, they have done nothing.  

Yet, on their commercial service side, they quickly reacted to the Fox in the Hen House last year and put in place FIPS governmental standard strong encryption.  

Corporate America is 'big business'.  Consumers play second fiddle, and because Google state in a revised language TOS agreement that they parse your clear text meta data to generate advertising revenue, the message to the consumer is that 'profit' takes precedence over their privacy.  

That is simply unacceptable and quite worrisome despite the 'lip service' they have given on tightening up their SSL standard.

No, consumer data, yours, is still sitting in clear text drive storage medium in the Gmail / Drive cloud where it can be read at will if/as/when it suits Google and/or any other governmental agency.

And, with Chrome being closed source, there is no way to know for sure what is or isn't happening during your Internet browser sessions is there?


Dear Reader, switching to open source is the only way that Security through Transparency can be achieved.  Do it today.

Google Chrome is UNSAFE FOR GENERAL USE.


-- Dietrich

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Consider Yourself Properly Corrected

by Dietrich Schmitz

You know, I thought years ago when I was using WordPerfect 4.2 for DOS in the early 1980's, how great that we can have our documents scanned for spelling errors and correct them from a computer dictionary.  Marvelous technology then and now ever so common place, pretty much part of the landscape everywhere you go.  Today, we accept as the standard that, even your browser, will dynamically highlight spelling errors. (Image right credit: Wikipedia.org)

Still, one must manually take corrective action for those words with a squiggly red underline.  Sometimes, I forget and they go unnoticed until after I publish a story--which is embarrassing, and I quickly go in and correct them hoping they won't be seen.

Now, even better, Google Chrome 26 will automatically correct spelling errors.

Go to url chrome://flags to enable Chrome's new Automatic Spelling Correction feature

How cool is that?  Very, I'd say.

So, type into your Google Chrome omnibar this url: chrome://flags

Then, per the depiction above, scroll down a bit to find Automatic Spelling Correction, click on the 'Enable' link, then at the bottom extent of your browser's canvas press the 'Relaunch Now' button to restart your browser and have fun watching Chrome correct your silly absent-minded typos, on the fly.

Consider yourself properly corrected.

-- Dietrich

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Google Chrome Tricked Out

by Dietrich Schmitz

Alright.  I've been a long-time Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox devotee, but, the time came and went (months ago) when I decided that the value of using Chrome exceeded anything that Firefox could muster.

Today, I share with you some of the things which will improve your Chrome experience.

Graphics Hardware Acceleration

It has become popular for browsers to support 3D graphics--that is when a graphics cpu is detected, the browser will send work to the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) vs. letting your Central Processing Unit (CPU) do all of the heavy lifting.  This greatly speeds up screen writes to the canvas.

Checking your system's support is simple enough:

Override software rendering list (blacklist)

Now, restart your browser and type into the omnibar: chrome://gpu

It should look like this:

All green is good.  That last one isn't supported yet by the graphics driver on my Netbook so otherwise we are now 'firing on all cylinders' and the GPU will handle graphics primitive calls instead of the CPU now.  Good deal.

Security Sandbox

With Linux, you know that security is being taken seriously.  In fact, now as of Linux Kernel 3.5, support for seccomp-bpf is baked right into the kernel.  Any application can take advantage of it and the good news is Chrome will see and use this security sandbox feature.  To check if your Chrome is sandboxed type chrome://sandbox and you should see this:

This is a good thing.  Be sure it is set on your Linux system.  Microsoft Windows does not have it.

Google Chrome Extensions

Visiting the Google Chrome Web Store is a right of passage for every newcomer to Chrome.  It's exciting and you'll find a vast array of Apps, Extensions, and Themes a click away from adding to your browser.

Here are a few that I recommend every user consider adding to Chrome.

Tabs to the Front

Awesome Screenshot

Save to Google Drive

TweetDeck

Chat for Google

Checker Plus for Gmail

Do Share

The above extensions will automatically appear on your Chrome toolbar (right of the Omnibar)

In addition, there are some Apps which only appear in your 'New Tab' Chrome menu that I recommend.

Chrome Remote Desktop

Blogger

Feedly

Don't get carried away.  Remember each extension is going to consume some memory.  The above are what I use day to day and minimally really provide some good features and value.

I hope you enjoy Google Chrome and get the most out of your browsing experience.

-- Dietrich

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