- ARTS
- COMPUTERS
- INTERNET
- HOME
- RECREATION
- SOCIETY
- PRIVATE
- PROJECTS
Subscribe to RSS feed
The above message just showed up in my gmail.
Holy cow! my Google gmail is checking my installed Firefox plugins 1/1,816….uh… scary! (Then again Google probably knows already everything about me including the hidden Johari window Submit parts).
But… pretty pro-active of a web application, absolutely, thumbs up. It gave me this 1/65 advice (disabling the Net feature), which I can’t do because I use it pretty often. Maybe there is a workaround to turn it off for gmail specifically?
I wonder how many websites will start displaying messages like these based on installed plugins starting … now.
The reason this is somewhat more scary for some than for others is depending on the plugins a user has installed. If you have a plugin specifically created by your company and you surf to a website of e.g. a customer or the competition it could be used for all kinds of interesting things.
I do realize that this information is already used but when it just pops up in your face it has a whammo in-your-face effect!
[...] all the details here [...]
What about disabling it only for gmail like it stands in that HowTo?
1. Click the green or red icon in the bottom right corner of the browser window to open Firebug.
2. Click the bug icon in the top left corner of Firebug and select ‘Disable Firebug for mail.google.com.’
Google is the new Microsoft, even surpassing it……
Well, since firebug is (among other things) a javascript debugger, it’s really no wonder that it is visible from javascript code…
I don’t know the details, but the detection of this add-on is highly likely to be a simple matter of object introspection. No such thing as generic plugin detection.
To sum up, if you don’t want Google (or anybody else) to know something, just don’t tell them. The problem is more about people not knowing what information their tools are leaking. Javascript (hence Web 2.0) is really not about privacy.
ut: you are are right, I read over it, it can be disabled per site. duh.
[...] Consultant, IT Architect, IT Specialist, Father, Indo, Bright” en el que gritaba alarmado que google analizaba tu firefox y que sabia que plugins estan instalados y que habia que quemarlo con leña [...]
Google IS the AntiChrist… No shit! No one believes me, but that’s cool.
you can disable it for each site by going Tools>Firebug>Disable Firebug for {The website you are currently on}
Its really simple to detect firebug and even the version. If firebug is enabled, window.console will not be undefined. console.firebug will return the version number. I don’t know if other plugins allow themselves to be detected so easily but its necessary for firebug.
it’s not really checking what you have installed. Firebug puts a hidden element in your html with the id “_firebugConsole” and gmail just checks to see if that exists.