Google Chrome Browser Security Features
Posted: July 31, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Currently, IE (=Internet Explorer) is the most popular Internet browser. As such, malicious hackers made it their number one target and set out to exploit its flaws. It also has the disadvantage of relying on ActiveX technology, which allows web sites to run executable programs on your PC via your browser. Although there is an improvement in security in IE7 and IE8 compared to older versions, this technology is still vulnerable.
In order to improve security you may choose to use a less popular browser such as, Mozilla’s Firefox or Google Chrome.
Both Firefox and Chrome use a different technology from Internet explorer. They both built on open source code from other platforms. Chrome browser is based on the open-source Webkit engine, which is an open-source web browser layout engine developed by the WebKit Foundation. Firefox is based on the open source Gecko engine, which is a layout engine currently developed by Mozilla Corporation.
For now the most popular alternative to Internet explorer is Firefox. I have a lot of respect to Mozilla and the open source community, but when I have tried to use Firefox 3.5 I had a frustrating experience. It has kept crashing down on me, crashing my PC along with it.
As result of this experience I have decided to give Google Chrome a chance. Google Company has stated in many occasions that Chrome browser has innovative security features.
When investigating these announcements I have noticed four major security features in Google chrome.
If you use Chrome browser and you have safe browsing mode enable, then Google Chrome will contact servers at Google, approximately every half hour, to download updated lists of suspected phishing and malware websites. These lists are being stored on your PC so when you surf the Web each site you browse to is being checked against these black lists locally (This is designed to offer performance). If the requested site is in the black list a warning message will appear stating that the requested site is suspected to be a phishing site or a malicious site and the user can choose to go back to safety.
This feature seems to help the fight against malware and phishing, but there is a disadvantage. A few bloggers have raise questions about privacy implications. Bloggers have notice that every few hours when an update of the black lists is being done, two parameters are being sent to Google servers – “machineid” and “userid” – both computed information based on machine/user information. This information is sent along with a bunch of other browser information to ask Google if they should download an update. This information can be used for tracking. Google is of course obligated to privacy agreement with Internet users stating it will not use any of the personal information being collected, but would this obligation stand against a court order? I really don’t know. In short, safe browsing seems like a great security feature fighting phishing and malware attacks, but users who are passionate regarding their privacy should think twice before using it.
You can still create bookmarks, and these will be retained when exiting incognito window.
A similar feature exists also in Internet Explorer 8 browser and Firefox 3.5 browser. These features probably make live easier for Internet users who want to keep their surfing habits to themselves, but in the same way it helps the adults in the group it also may allow children to surf unsupervised. Internet savvy k
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