Top Six Google Chrome Extensions for a Much Secure Browsing Experience

At first, I thought he forgot a word there, but after looking at his suggestions, I’m more inclined to believe that he couldn’t decide between “Much the same Secure Browsing” or “Much false sense that you are Secure Browsing”

Here’s his suggestions for protecting yourself from the villains that reside on the web:

1) Web of Trust: Because anonymous people telling you whether the site you are visiting is safe or not can not be manipulated by malicious entities.
2) McAfee Site Advisor: Favorite quote FTFA – “…you can definitely rely on ratings by McAfee for the most part.”
3) KB SSL Enforcer: Because such an incredible amount of data theft goes on due to unencrypted web page viewing.
4) Flash Block: So few attacks are based on flash apps, that you would call this more of an adblock than a security measure.
5) Last Pass: Finally something we need for these browsers that don’t store passwords.  Wait…. what?
6) View Thru: Discover where shortened URL’s really direct you.  We’ve seen malicious files on the most trusted of sites and servers, so seeing the URL doesn’t help as much as you think it would.

I’m not giving the author a hard time about his choices.  Instead, I’m pointing out the fact that there are so few decent security addons for Chrome that he had to choose these.  Let me explain with a single picture:

This picture gives you a pretty good idea of the most dangerous aspect of browsing the web.  Visiting techdrivein.com results in 14 different domains trying to execute javascript on my computer. That’s the thing about javascript.  It’s payload can be delivered from any domain, not just the one you’re visiting.  The most popular methods of malicious infection on the web utilizes javascript to accomplish it’s task, whatever it may be.  Asking nameless people(or McAfee, of all companies) if they trust a website, blocking a flash app and browsing a site via a non-signed SSL connection is going to do you absolutely no good if the site is indeed reputable, but has had it’s code hijacked with a malicious script via either XSS, Iframe, or other method.

I tried using Chrome a little while ago, but due to it’s lack of ad and javascript blocking addons, I wasn’t willing to make the transition.  The very simple fact of the matter is that aside from user ignorance and stupidity, javascript is the single most dangerous aspect of browsing websites.

If you’re concerned enough about security to use any of the addons above, you shouldn’t be using Chrome.

Let me just say before starting this that I love Firefox.  The ridiculously large number of addons are the biggest draw for me with standards compliance coming in at a close second.  Recently though, the ballooning of the browser has been getting in the way of my productivity.  It’s become fucking slow, for one.  The browser is beginning to take as long to start as the operating system itself.  Secondly, I’ve started having problems with flash inside the browser.  Other browsers are using the same flash plugin without issue, so I have to assume that it’s Firefox botching the implementation of it.

As often happens with me, I began grazing upon browsers in search of greener pastures.  Almost always, this ends up with me back at the application I started with, but this time may be different.

First, I tried Opera 10. I’ll summarize.

NO.

My sweet Jesus.  For a bunch of super geniuses, they’ve designed the absolute worst UI I have ever been subjected to in a browser.  I might as well use Conkeror.  At least they had the balls to just go ahead and intentionally design a browser around all the things about vi that piss you off. Instead, Opera teases you with buttons and menus then waits until you’ve got seven pop-ups open before you realize they don’t really do anything.  Sucker.

Seriously, since all of the people using Opera are too busy telling you how cool the browser is to develop a single decent ad blocker, you have to add the filters yourself.  Trying to do so in the preferences pane is an exercise in frustration.  Want to copy and paste from an established list on a page in the browser?  Don’t make me laugh.  There will be no interaction with other parts of the browser when this pane is open.  Want to paste more than one at a time?  Don’t make me laugh.

Kazehakase: I think this is a cool browser.  Unfortunately it’s just another open source project with a community too small to develop the things I need.  The core of the browser seems quite buttoned down but I don’t fly without ad blocking and I don’t like not having the ability to turn off j/s based on host.

Chrome:  Here’s the deal.  I tried Chrome a while ago but to be honest, I feel that I already give Google too much information.  If I’m not going to use their nameservers because of this, I’m sure as hell not going to use their browser to parse all content I view on the web. So I downloaded the latest version of Iron, described as Chrome stripped of all it’s data mining abilities. I may have found my new browser.  For starters, it’s incredibly fast.  First start with 15 tabs from previous session is almost immediate. Compare this to the 15-20 seconds it takes Firefox to do the same. Secondly, it’s missing all the useless crap that the Firefox developers have recently begun throwing into their browser in an attempt to make a browser that can do everything up to and including folding your laundry.  Don’t get me wrong, I love features.  I just don’t like the repercussions of when you have too many.

So, I liked Iron, but like I said, I won’t browse the web without ad blocking… Which leads me to Adblock and Adblock+ Element helper. These are not nearly as refined as their Firefox namesake, but they get the job done. The thing I’m having the most problem with is the fact that there is just too much crap in regards to extensions for Chrome.  Everyone has half-assed developed something, they’ve all named it the same thing and all of them used a different Chrome extension site to host it.  Just like adding modules to your Google home page, finding extensions for the browser can be a royal pain in the ass due to the sheer volume of useless shit you have to wade through.

That being said, I’m on day three with Iron.  I’ve not had any of the problems that I have been having with Firefox lately, but there are definitely some foibles.  I sometimes find myself having to refresh certain pages that initially render as completely blank.  It’s happened probably 5 or 6 times in the last three days.

I’m going to miss the remaining extensions that I often use in Firefox.  Time will tell if I miss them enough to take that blimp of a browser back.

There’s still no easy way to block ads.  But you can now play basketball with it.

Opera has stated that it won’t implement an ad blocking measure into the browser for altruistic reasons.  They don’t feel that they  have the right to strip content providers of income.

In reality, it wasn’t too long ago that Opera was forcing you to look at ads that they embedded in their own browser if you opted not to pay for a web browser.

So, it’s simple.  They feel a kinship to people serving ads.

For those that missed it though, you can now play basketball in Opera.

Just what we needed.

For me, Google Chrome(the browser) is not one of them, however that might not be the case for others.  So I present to you the Iron Browser.  It’s Google Chrome stripped of all the aspects of the application that exist simply to identify and track you.

The two reasons I never even tried Google Chrome as a browser is because it was made by Google and it didn’t block ads.  If I was hurting for a browser, I would rest on my laurels and try it if it had the ad blocking ability, but you’re going to have to build a pretty whizz-bang browser to unseat Firefox with my favorite addons. Nonetheless, with the the stripped “features” and the addition of ad blocking, I’ll give it a shot when it’s available for linux.

So that’s why you might want to start reading this post from the bottom.

But no adblock. Oh, and the return key moves the cursor above the written text and not below.

Opera does have widgets though.  You can get clocks, tetris, clocks, calandars, word of the day, clocks, panic buttons that do nothing, clocks, more clocks and then clocks in the shape of Big Ben.

Spell check?  Default on Firefox.  In Opera, typing as;dflkjasbndf doesn’t sound off any alarms.  Seriously.  as;flkjasfhg.  See?

Well, it’s no Firefox.  I like being different as much as the next guy, but I don’t want to do it at the cost of having to view advertisements.  Want to block ads in Opera?  Well, you need to grab the filter lists that the Adblock add-on (for Firefox) uses and input it into your exception list into Opera. Because we all know that you like to hand code your filter lists.

Aside from this slightly humorous and quite hard to miss shortcoming of the browser built by guys that once thought it a good idea to charge for what everyone else gave away for free, what else do I think about it?

Genius, guys.

That’s right.  Hitting return starts a new paragraph above the  previous one.

So why are you reading this backwards? Well, you’re reading it backwards because this is how Opera handles it when I hit the return key  while entering a post into a WordPress blog.

I’m into the third day on my third trip of the month and it’s midnight.  I’m too tired to work any more but not tired enough to go to bed.  Looking at my to-do list, I see that I haven’t tried Opera 9.5 since it was released. I decide to upgrade my Opera install and give it a spin.