Web sites are embedding bugs into your computer that track you even after you have cleared your browser's privacy settings.

These bugs are called Flash Cookies, or Local Shared Objects. Web sites use them to track you because they know that most people don't know about them and that they can track you even after you have cleared your privacy settings.

Web sites that use Flash cookies to bypass users' cookie privacy settings should be publicly flogged.

In Ubuntu's Gutsy Gibbon Release, the Firefox Profile Manager is broken. If you try to run the profile manager with the following command, it just opens up a new Firefox window with the same profile; not the profile manager:

As seen on DesignByCSS.com, Walmart is blocking people who try to view their video download site with Firefox. Apparently, their designers were not able to make a CSS file that would load in Firefox, so they sniff the browser with JavaScript and if it's Firefox, they block access with the following screen:

I haven't used the Greasemonkey Firefox Extension much, but was recently introduced to a Link Highlighter Script on JohnBokma.com and I installed Greasemonkey to try the script.

It's a 16-line Greasemonkey script that you can customize and drop into your Firefox Browser so that all links to your site appear highlighted. It makes it really easy to pick out links to your site on Web pages, especially when checking referrers.

Here is a screenshot of checking my referrers with the Link Highlighter Script:

The tutorial on how to make the script is here.

In the continuing research on the Microsoft and Firefox issue, I came across a story about how Microsoft adCenter doesn't work correctly with Firefox.

According to the article, Microsoft's response to the problem was "switch to IE6".

What a surprise.

The Story Continues

In yesterday's post, I wrote about the recent dubious claims of Firefox security holes. Today I've found some additional reading on the subject.

As mentioned in the article titled Firefox Flaw a Hoax, Admits Speaker, these Firefox vulnerability announcements at a Microsoft-sponsored hacker convention were not factual:

"The main purpose of our talk was to be humorous," admitted Mischa Spiegelmock, in a statement made through Mozilla.org this afternoon.

"As part of our talk we mentioned that there was a previously known Firefox vulnerability that could result in a stack overflow ending up in remote code execution. However, the code we presented did not in fact do this, and I personally have not gotten it to result in code execution, nor do I know of anyone who has.

"I have not succeeded in making this code do anything more than cause a crash and eat up system resources, and I certainly haven't used it to take over anyone else's computer and execute arbitrary code," Spiegelmock added.

As the article points out, the bio for the other perpetrator states that "Andrew Wbeelsoi ruins things on the Internet professionally."

It was recently disclosed that Firefox has critical security vulnerabilities:

The flaw is specific to Firefox's implementation of JavaScript, a 10-year-old scripting language widely used on the Web. In particular, various programming tricks can cause a stack overflow error, Spiegelmock said. The implementation is a "complete mess," he said. "It is impossible to patch."

[...]

The hackers claim they know of about 30 unpatched Firefox flaws. They don't plan to disclose them, instead holding onto the bugs.

Impossible to patch? The hackers won't disclose the bugs?

A follow up article sheds some interesting light on the subject:

But Spiegelmock has now backpedaled on those claims. In a statement provided to Mozilla, which coordinates development of Firefox, Spiegelmock said that the computer code displayed during the presentation does not fully compromise a PC running the browser.

"I have not succeeded in making this code do anything more than cause a crash and eat up system resources, and I certainly haven't used it to take over anyone else's computer and execute arbitrary code," he wrote in the statement, which was posted on Mozilla's Web site on Monday.

[...]

He pinned the claim that the hackers know of 30 yet-to-be-fixed flaws in Firefox entirely on his co-presenter, Wbeelsoi. "I have no undisclosed Firefox vulnerabilities. The person who was speaking with me made this claim, and I honestly have no idea if he has them or not," Spiegelmock wrote. Wbeelsoi could not immediately be reached for comment.

As mentioned in comp.os.linux.advocacy, it should be noted that the conference where these dubious claim were made was sponsored by Microsoft:

Firefox allows you to set up different browsing profiles, each with different extensions and settings.

I'll quickly explain how to use profiles in Firefox on Linux, and if you want information on how use Firefox profiles in Windows, check out Mozillazine.org's Firefox Profile Manager page.

To open the Profile Manager is Linux, type firefox -ProfileManager in a terminal. You can manage your profiles there. If you want to see the Profile Manager every time you start Firefox, then uncheck the box that says "Don't ask at startup".

There are many ways to save web pages and web sites for offline viewing. These methods will work on Linux, Windows and/or Mac OS X. These tools will save entire web pages and web sites. If you are looking for a way to take screenshots, try this page instead.