And double duh: As you're using what is now an ancient and wholly
deprecated version of Windows (XP), known to be full of holes, I'd say you
are better off having every possible protection you can get, unless you're
running it fully virtualized, where reverting to an uninfected version is
relatively trivial.
On Sat, Jul 4, 2015 at 1:44 PM Scott Gomez <sgomez.baja@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Duh. Forgot tthe link to the transparency report:
> https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/safebrowsing/
>
> On Sat, Jul 4, 2015 at 1:43 PM Scott Gomez <sgomez.baja@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Google's SafeBrowsing API is generally a good thing. The Transparency
>> Report for it might ease your mind a bit, Chris. It is not "added by
>> Google" as much as it is "chosen by application developers". See info on
>> the API here: https://developers.google.com/safe-browsing/
>>
>> Judging by a brief reading of the Wikipedia article about it, version 2
>> and above haven't got significant immediate privacy concerns, as a hashed
>> value is used for destination site lookup (not originator lookup). However,
>> it's been alleged that the NSA exploits the stored cookie for
>> identification purposes. See here:
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Safe_Browsing
>>
>> As the NSA has many, many alleged ways of tracking one's computer, I
>> expect Google's SafeBrowsing preferences cookie is the least of your
>> worries.
>>
>> Re: "hosts" file (and associated "networks" file) in Windows: They were a
>> borrow from the Unix world, and have been used in that arena for decades.
>> In fact, setting up an Ethernet network in early days required editing both.
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 4, 2015 at 1:12 PM Chuck Norcutt <
>> chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> Mozilla runs on a shoestring. Perhaps Google is paying Mozilla to embed
>>> the Google function in Firefox.
>>>
>>> Chuck Norcutt
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/4/2015 3:51 PM, Chris Trask wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> Isn't Opera supposed to be the most stripped down browser? Would
>>> that run better on dialup?
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> > Hmmm... I'll look into that.
>>> >
>>> > In the meantime, I recalled that there already is a URL-blocking
>>> function built into Windows. It's a text file named "hosts", with no
>>> extension. In WinXP it's in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\etc folder.
>>> You can edit it yourself to include URLs that you want to block. It's been
>>> a part of Windows since day one, but hardly anyone is aware of it. You can
>>> download a large version of it from the web.
>>> >
>>> > My firewall has a number of editable URL blocking files, and I
>>> make good use of those.
>>> >
>>> > I don't like the idea of this Google safebrowsing as it gives
>>> them the opportunity to eavesdrop on your internet usage, which is no
>>> different than keylogging malware.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Chris
>>> >
>>> > When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
>>> > - Hunter S. Thompson
>>> >
>>> --
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>>> --
>> ---
>> Scott
>>
> --
> ---
> Scott
>
--
---
Scott
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