Chrome worries
I, like many others, have been playing around with the Chrome browser for a couple of days now and I feel there is one element of the browser that needs to be addressed to avoid possible future issues.
For those that haven't used the browser yet, there is a feature in Chrome that allows you to add shortcuts to your Desktop/start menu/quick launch bar. It's a nice way to add links to applications and favourite websites into your operating system desktop.
It all sound rather good and looks great when you click these shortcuts it pops up a Chrome browser window and displays your stored favourite. The only problem is the window that appears is stripped of all interface tools including the URL “omni” bar.
Not a problem you may think, but considering that continual phishing attempts occur on a frequent basis, is this shortcut a path to dangerous destinations?
The Chrome browse will highlight the main website of a url when used in full mode, but this feature isn't even visable if opened from a shortcut, plus there appears to be no way to force it to appear.
Now the shortcuts that are added are effectively only application shortcuts that open a browser window:
Example:
“chrome.exe” –app=http://www.mybank.com/
With increasingly more creative cyber-villains around at the moment, is there a chance that a nasty virus could alter this shortcut, pointing it at a lovely bank clone website?
Or even worse call home for a continually changing phishing website URL making them harder to track, block and blacklist.
To further add to the problem there is no indicator on these shortcut browser windows to show you are on a website that is encrypted!
The lack of a url (omni) bar and an encryption indicator means there is no way of telling if you are infact pointing at a real or fake website.
Hopefully these issues will be squashed as the Beta moves forward, but it's certainly one to ensure gets fixed.
Shiny Shiny Google Chrome
Well considering that most of the interweb was buzzing with talk of Google browser today I thought I would just on that bandwagon and throw in my 2 cents worth. Before I start there is one thing to consider when reviewing this software, it's still in Beta which means anything can change before it's released fully.
- Middle mouse button on tab to close it
- I wish the “undo close tab” was available on the tab context (right-click) menu, sadly it's on the 'speed dial' page, similar to the new IE8 feature.
Ubiquity for Firefox
A very interesting tool that wraps Web 2.0 functionality up and houses it within the firefox browser. At first the thought of a command line driven tool in this interactive/Drag & Drop era is one that is set to generate a good ammount of interest.
So what is it about?
Well the phrase that this project is labelled with is “An experiment into connecting the Web with language”. This indicates what the application hopes to reach in terms of long term goals, using command keywords to perform various actions when the user needs it.
This experimental Firefox extension that could allow you to reclaim time spent looking up that address on Google Maps. I for one like the wikipedia functionality as it's a daily stop of mine. So will the time needed to perform online tasks be reduced overall? Hopefully, but I think there are some steps in learning that will need to be mastered before you'll see any benefit.
There are some dangerous with such a system becoming bloated and full of useful functionality that nobody wants or finds useful. I'll keep my fingers crossed that it remains that way, currently the functionality appears limited to a set of tools that I'd happily use on a daily basis.
There is a video here that displays the functionality:
http://www.vimeo.com/1561578
Some screenshots can be found one this tutorial:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Ubiquity/Ubiquity_0.1_User_Tutorial
