[LINK] Firefox security settings invoked by google??

[David Lochrin]

On Saturday 10 January 2009 15:13, Antony Barry wrote:
> Also I didn't know that google was checking for nasties when it  
> trawled which seems like a good community service provided they are  
> accurate. Any comments of how well google is doing on this? Also what  
> advice should I give my friend?

I'm sure many Linkers can give a better response, but here's a first pass with apologies to those who are already well aware of this stuff.

Firefox does a few things in the background which are not obvious to the casual user, even via the "Preferences" menu.  Typing <about:config> in the URL field of V2.0.0 & later will give a long list of Firefox parameters, and their definitions are given at http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config

For example, one of these picked more or less at random is <browser.safebrowsing.enabled>.  This has a couple of associated options, which may involve regular download of a list:
  Whether to determine if a site is a web forgery or not.
  True (default): Check visited sites
  False: Do not check any sites
  Note: This can be changed in Firefox via "Tools → Options → Security / Tell me if the site I'm visiting is a suspected forgery".

Firefox may also be enabled to check for websites with suspect content.

As for the site in question, Norton have some information at https://safeweb.norton.com/report/show?url=indomedia.com  It's said to have three (?) threats, consisting of 1x virus and 1x security threat.  Definitions are given, along with links to information about the threats.

Antony, I think your advice is pretty sound, though your friend should have a browser with the latest security updates.

David