Firefox Browser Firefox Browser and Extensions Thunderbird (maybe) Danbury Area Computer Society October 3, 2006 Jim Scheef, Immediate Past President

Firefox Browser

Is it really more secure? 1. No, not really 2. Yes, way more secure

Firefox Browser No, not really more secure 1. It has scripting for good and bad things 2. It has vulnerabilities like zero-day html html 3. No active anti-phishing 4. No software is perfect 5. It’s run by a human

Firefox Browser Yes, way more secure 1. The smaller foot-print argument 2. Patches come faster (maybe) as update releases (forces you to update everything rather than individual patches)

Firefox Browser Yes, way more secure 1. The smaller foot-print argument 2. Patches come faster (maybe) as update releases (forces you to update everything rather than individual patches) 3. Does not run Active-X

Firefox Browser Yes, way more secure 1. The smaller foot-print argument 2. Patches come faster (maybe) as update releases (forces you to update everything rather than individual patches) 3. Does not run Active-X 4. Displays target URL of any link 5. Firefox users are smarter

Firefox Browser Features I like 1. Automatic updates 2. Extensions, thousands of extensions! 3. Helpful little details

Firefox Browser Extensions, Add-ons and Themes ● Customization is what makes Firefox great ● Extensions are small programs written to run in a Firefox interface (API) ● There are thousands of extensions: ● Installing the wrong extension can blow your security – read before you click ● Add-ons are programs like Acrobat, etc. ● Themes (skins) change the overall appearance

Firefox Browser My Top Five Extensions 1. Plain Old Favourites – use IE favorites in Firefox 2. Roboform Toolbar – works just like the bar in IE 3. Yahoo Toolbar – Yahoo just a click away 4. Duplicate Tab – so handy you won’t believe it 5. Adblock – does just what it says

Firefox Browser More Extensions 6. For developers: ColorZilla, Copy Plain Text, DOM Inspector 7. For usability: IE View, Firefox View, PDF Download, Tabbrowser Preferences, Sort Extensions and Themes 8. For fun or just plain weirdness: Leet Key 9. For the paranoid: DNS Toolbar

Firefox Browser How to make Firefox your default browser 1. Check boxes in Firefox preferences and Internet Options 2. Change behavior of the.htm and.html file extensions (also changes the icon) 3. Change the Start Menu (cosmetic only)

Firefox Browser Change for Thunderbird Uncheck for Firefox

Firefox Browser

Firefox 2.0 ● Yes, it’s coming ● Currently in RC1

Thunderbird Client

What is it? ● Standards-based (RFC compliant) client ●

Thunderbird Client Is it really more secure? 1. No, not really 2. Yes, way more secure

Thunderbird Client Is it really more secure? ● The same arguments apply – I really don’t know ● Less market experience due to less publicity due to smaller user base due to less market experience due to less publicity due…

Thunderbird Client What standards? ● POP3 – post office protocol – Most common – Messages stored on receiving computer ● IMAP4 – internet message access protocol – Messages remain on server – Optionally copied to local computer – Really useful when you use many computers – Protocol Protocol – Supported by Exchange

Thunderbird Client What standards? ● SMTP – simple mail transport protocol – Used for sending to an MTA (message transfer agent) server – MTA finds the destination domain’s server and delivers the message also using SMTP

Thunderbird Client Why I think it’s cool ● Support for IMAP ● Free ● Many extensions ● Seems to work well with AIM Mail (also free)

We’re done Questions and Discussion