I am a Firefox user and I use very minimal extensions to avoid conflicts and also any possible slow downs during web browsing. Yesterday I was doing a little research on privacy during searching in Google and found out that it is possible that a lot of our computer information gets leaked out by just visiting a page. From Google’s Privacy FAQ, they mentioned that their servers automatically record the page requests made when we visit their sites. These “server logs” typically include our web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of our request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify our browser.
Well that is what they stated but if you go to BrowserSPY.dk, you will find that A LOT of information about your computer can be retrieved from your browser by simply using javascript, java and flash.
That’s when I started thinking even using VPN or elite anonymous proxy won’t even give you full anonymity. Fortunately there is a very popular addon for Firefox called NoScript which is able to protect your browser from leaking your computer’s information.
You can try it yourself by first going to http://browserspy.dk/ and click on any tests listed at the left hand sidebar. Then install NoScript extension from the link at the end of this article, restart your Firefox browser and again visit BrowserSPY to run the tests. You will notice that most of the information are not revealed and that is because JavaScript, Java, Flash Silverlight and possibly other executable contents are blocked by default.
Most websites today uses Javascript and they are considered important for websites to function correctly as they should. If that is the case, you can easily put the website into whitelist by right clicking on the page, go to NoScript and select “Allow website.com” from the menu.
Other settings in the NoScript Options are pretty straight forward allowing you to configure the notification bar, appearance, restrictions, whitelist, and etc.
Other than able to protect your computer’s information from leaking and also against Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities on whitelisted sites, NoScript also cleverly blocks advertisement since most if not all advertisements uses Javascript. You will notice that websites loads much faster as the advertisements are not even downloaded to your computer in the first place, saving both bandwidth and time. I have even noticed that those nasty pop-under that cannot be blocked by Firefox popup blocker are also blocked!
You should definitely give NoScript a try if you haven’t. This addon has been around for quite a long time but I’ve only realized the importance of this extension yesterday after researching on browser leaking computer information.
[ Download NoScript Extension for Firefox ]
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