AVG linkscanner 2012 OK w/ Firefox 6

[davidh]

I had temporarily replaced AVG linkscanner 2011 with McAfee SiteAdvisor because Firefox 6 was incompatible with AVG linkscanner 2011 extension in Firefox 6.

The download for AVG linkscanner 2012 was much smaller than for AVG linkscanner 2011.

My somewhat uneducated hope is that AVG linkscanner is better than SiteAdvisor since it's supposed to be based on a live real time evaluation of a web page / search engine results rather than possibly "stale" results from web crawling such as with SiteAdvisor.

There are probably other page scanners somewhat equivalent to Linkscanner out there somewhere, but I don't know who they are.

Incidentally, in Firefox 5 (and earlier) it disabled an earlier version of SiteAdvisor because the latter was "unstable".

Sort of like walking thru a "fun house" at an amusement park?

[Peter Creasey]

David, I have always used AVG Free without LinkScanner. It is too intrusive and ponderous.

[davidh]

David, I have always used AVG Free without LinkScanner. It is too intrusive and ponderous. I suppose it might slow browsing down. OTOH I have had it catch things. Presumably not all false positives. So I figure the strategy of blocking suspicious stuff BEFORE it "lands on both feet" has some merit. YMMV

Noscript extension of Firefox is also a nuisance, maybe more than Linkscanner. I still figure it's worth the bother. YMMV

[davidh]

AVG linkscanner 2012 not OK w/ FF 11

but actually it's not much of a problem because "surf-shield" still works regardless of whether the AVG linkscanner "safe search" extension works with FF.

The only problem is that the green, yellow, red icons won't appear in search engine results.

Since I like to see the colored (rating) icons appear in my search engine results, I am trying WOT in addition to Linkscanner for a "2nd opinion".

"Surf shield" is based on trying to detect "dodgy" javascript code in real time.

OTOH, WOT is based on non real time "live person" ratings (we hope).

FWIW, I'm a newbie to WOT, but I suspect there's some degree of political / financial bias in the ratings.

I also noticed that the WOT rating icons appear in my yahoo web mail.

It does appear that while "search as you type" (or whatever it's called) works ok in FF search box with google as search engine, but not with WOT as search engine.

[davidh]

Further remarks:

The WOT ('Web of Trust' Firefox extension) rating icons also appear when another search engine besides WOT is chosen, such as Google, so "search as you type" does not have to be sacrificed if one also still wants the colored rating (trustworthiness) icons.

WOT icons do also appear in links in Google web mail messages, in addition to Yahoo web mail. I don't use Hotmail, so I haven't tried that webmail with WOT.

Tentative conclusion:
If I don't find problems with WOT, maybe I'll just use it but also keep AVG Linkscanner running and forget about bothering to update the AVG 'safe search' FF extension. I guess WOT is more likely to be kept up to date as a FF extension since it's only apparent 'market' is Mozilla users.

[davidh]

AVG linkscanner 2012 not OK w/ FF 11
...
Possible general solution to this type of problem, namely incompatible FF extensions:
Firefox 3.6 EOL [end of life]
Published: 2012-03-27,
Last Updated: 2012-03-27 00:52:18 UTC
by Johannes Ullrich (Version: 1)

Ever since Mozilla started its controversial new versioning scheme, ...

... plugins and extensions have never quite caught up to the new versioning scheme.

A Firefox add-on XPI file is a "zip" file, that once unpacked reveals a number of components, including a "install.rdf" file, which among other settings governing the install of the extension lists the range of version numbers for which a certain extension will work. Developers usually do not include future major versions as changes to the extension API and to the Firefox feature set will make it necessary to adapt the extension. This will require extension developers to consistently maintain and update extensions as Firefox releases new major versions.

In some ways, this may be a good thing as this will remove unmaintained extensions. In other ways, developers of valuable extensions may get discouraged by this practice. As a user, you could edit install.rdf file, and modify the range of supported versions. I have done this in a couple cases myself, and had decent succes. However, there is a good chance that this will fail in some cases.
...
------
Johannes B. Ullrich, Ph.D.
SANS Technology Institute http://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=12844&rss
I haven't tried the above suggested method (and maybe never will) :D

[ndebord]

Possible general solution to this type of problem, namely incompatible FF extensions:

I haven't tried the above suggested method (and maybe never will) :D

David,

Editing the install.rdf files works most of the time. I've done it a lot.... when it fails, however, it can muck up Fx completely and the only solution then is to manualy find the folder of the offending extension and remove it.

BTW, I am using Fx 11 with no problems that I can see and for every extension that has gone bye bye I have found a substitute, with only a couple of exceptions.

XP PRO SP3, Outpost Firewall 2009l Free, DropMyRights, Avira 12, MalwareBytesPro, WinPatrol

[davidh]

Further remarks:

The WOT ('Web of Trust' Firefox extension) rating icons also appear when another search engine besides WOT is chosen, such as Google, so "search as you type" does not have to be sacrificed if one also still wants the colored rating (trustworthiness) icons.

WOT icons do also appear in links in Google web mail messages, in addition to Yahoo web mail. I don't use Hotmail, so I haven't tried that webmail with WOT.

Tentative conclusion:
If I don't find problems with WOT, maybe I'll just use it but also keep AVG Linkscanner running and forget about bothering to update the AVG 'safe search' FF extension. I guess WOT is more likely to be kept up to date as a FF extension since it's only apparent 'market' is Mozilla users.
Upon further evaluation of Web Of Trust (WOT), I decided to disable the FF extension, because the ratings show 'reputation' more than 'security' or 'privacy'. I figure that sometimes I want to visit a stupid or disreputable web site for whatever reason, without having to click thru a 'red alert' warning from the WOT extension.

If AVG LinkScanner Safe Search extension becomes incompatible with FF 12 whenever the latter is released, maybe I'll temporarily re-enable WOT.

If I don't have any rating icons in my browser on search result pages, I feel sort of 'naked', even tho' whatever realtime page scanner (e.g. AVG LinkScanner) might still be checking http pages for exploits 'under the hood'.

I haven't yet actually bothered to try to really evaluate competitor real-time http page scanner software. Partly discouraged from doing so by the concern that competitor extensions ALSO might not keep up to date with the FF release schedule.