Or was their aim purely to detract from the release of the latest beta of IE8? Anyway, that list is:

• No plugins
• No profile roaming
• No full screen ability (unless I’m missing it)
• A separate search box (call me a Luddite if you want)
• No status bar
• No RoboForm integration
• It breaks my Gmail customisations
• And I’m sure there are more I’ve forgotten….

Also I’m very much not alone in my feelings - though equally there are those whom have gone OTT about the product. I’ll not link to it because I disagree with the language used, but do a search for Googasm on The Register and you’ll see what I mean. Alternatively have a read of this article over at CNet where you’ll notice Josh’s ideas mirror some of mine (or mine his).

Furthermore it still has security issues that have been fixed by other users of the webkit platform - read all about that over at ZDNet.

Another thought… my once, almost favourite web app was greenborder, a sandbox app that allowed me to wall off the internet and all its badness was purchased by google and appears to have disappeared never to resurface. Or has it? I wonder if this is what they are using to power their separate ‘walled off’ processes for each tab? Hmmm.

One last thought and then I’ll stop my bashing and leave it alone for a month or two… one of Chrome’s much discussed good things is its speed, especially with its own mail, apps, etc. Well I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t. However, Firefox latest build(s) has a new java rendering engine at its heart called TraceMonkey which is faster than the Chrome offering. As a default TraceMonkey is not turned on but can be - Mozilla are looking to release the new version by year end….

I’ve been awol for a while from this blog and I apologise but there are things afoot in my life that sometimes one just can;t control. Along with being super busy with my family and work these things have all conspired to  keep me away. Anyway, things have gone quiet and I hope to restart some of my commentary.

The other thing that’s gone quiet is my PC. I just this week upgarded my motherboard, CPU and RAM and along with the upgrade it has brought less noise which is a very welcome bonus.

Anyway, look for more news as and when I can.

Then according to a former vice president of Mastercard you are more likely to suffer from identity fraud than anywhere else in the UK. The full article can be found over at SC Magazine. The ex vp was head of their security and risk departments so should know of what he speaks. He lists the top 20 risk areas with only one being outside London and then not by much.

So is ID theft a problem? Well certainly if it happens to you it is but the better question might be is it a widespread problem or how likely is it to happen to me?

Certainly the issue is on the rise and since CIFAS started keeping figures (1999) it has gone from a reported 9,000 cases in the UK to a peak in 2006 of 80,000 an a marginal drop off last year to 77,500. Out of a population of 60 Million (give or take) it isn’t a huge number. However, with the push towards everybody doing everything digitally my guess is that this will become a much more common thing.

So is there anything we can do to prevent it?

Reading up on the subject matter will help us to be aware of the means and methods of those that attempt to defraud us. It’ll perhaps help us not to be as casual with handing over our credit cards to pay for meals. But rather than lecturing you, go read the “How ID Theft Occurs” page over at the appropriately named Stop ID Fraud site. If you prefer your advice with political bias then pop on over to Identity Theft and read their “Protect Yourself” advice.

I don’t apologise for the British bias in the above articles, but the advice is valid wherever you are just substitute passport for identity document or similar. If you prefer a more international flavour then of course you could always stop by wikipedia and read their variant. Though it doesn’t really matter what your nationality is, this is a global problem that is only going to get worse until we, the potential victims, wise up and make sure we are ready for the brave new world we all face.

For the last three years Bruce Schneier has run a movie plot threat contest. The idea being to generate fear, but specifically in this case to alleviate a fear one could resolve by selling a product - all in under 150 words.

Well Bruce has just announced the winner and it’s “Tommy Tester Toothpaste Strips” - the link will take you to a brief intro, the top 5 entries as selected by Bruce’s readers and a link to each. All a bit of fun, but it also raises an awareness, I think, of some of the junk we fall for. Also, Bruce’s blog and newsletter on security matters are top reading. I don’t always agree with him but mostly I do.

The basic premise is that contrary to popular opinion video games do not increase the risk of your child becoming violent or going on one of the well publicised real life responses. In fact, the research actually points to the children that don’t play video games are statistically more likely to be the ones whom indulge in later real life.

I also like the additional side finding that came out of the research - that children like to play games with their parents and especially where they feel they are teaching the parent.

Not a rant or a nerd in sight in the vid and before you think this is some crank look into whom has done the research then take a look at Dr Kutner’s home page and at Dr Olson’s bio and at the staff page at the Center for Mental Health and Media, Harvard Medical School.

Read he rest of this excellent article over at: http://www.lockergnome.com/shausha/2008/03/17/free-wifi-network-security-scan/ Let me ask you some questions:

Then pop on over to Pure Networks and make use of their free wireless network security scan - make sure you ignore any prompts tempting you to download their full product - though it will give you 7 full days to test that as well - and this site and scan will give you a scorecard of any issues found including whether you have changed the routers default password.

Give it a go and see what score you get then let me know with a comment here.

But how many have heard of the word “phishing” which is pronounced exactly the same but means an entirely different thing?

Now, the latest in a line of ‘ishing’ words is “vishing” or VoIP Phishing. With VoIP being “Voice Over IP” for those unfamiliar even with this term. Note, the term is aimed specifically at VoIP services rather than traditional voice. You may ask why and the simple answer is that it exploits our trust in the traditional fixed line voice line.

The longer explanation is that we tend to trust land lines because we know they can be traced back to an origin and a bill payer - if not by us then certainly the Authorities can do so. With VoIP we have no such guarantee and whilst there is CLID available for voip it is easy to spoof the number and by extension makes it very easy to be anonymous.

There’s nothing concrete I can say except that my surfing can freeze for no particular reason and only one thing restores normal surfing - that is shutting down Firefox and re-opening it. Because I typically have four or more tabs open I’ve taken to crashing out so I get the option to restore my session.

To prove a point I’ve even fired up IE and that is still able to surf. Normally I might put it down to just my setup at home, but I’ve noticed my work setup is the same and secondly a friend I visited the other day showed the same symptom. Upon checking he had 2.0.0.12 and the resolution was to restart Firefox.

Am I alone? Will shortly check the Firefox support site just in case.

Well this is only partially true. I don’t monitor or log their keystrokes or any other form of intrusive monitoring but I do use a URL filter. In keeping with wanting to use the best and, if possible, for free (personally I donate money to folks that do this), then I utilise K9 from Bluecoat Systems. Bluecoat offers corporate filtering appliances that cost many hundreds if not thousands of pounds to purchase and maintain (and I troubleshoot these things as part of my day to day job). On the back of this, they also offer a free product for individual per PC use called K9 - this is a Web-based service in that you install a local client that talks to Bluecoat’s backend systems. I think it is excellent and for a free product does what it says on its tin. It does have drawbacks and the one that bugs me is not being able to set individual filter preferences for each user on my PC - but that is small and, I am told, in the pipeline of development.

I also use a personal sandbox or virtual PC to do my surfing from within and have tried to educate my children to do so but I haven’t been forcing them to do so. But after last week’s Vundo infection I am now forcing them to use a sandbox to surf from within and my personal choices came down to two. One was (note I say was) GreenBorder and the second is Sandboxie.

Unfortunately for now, GreenBorder has been purchased by Google and its current product is no longer available. When it was, it was a $20 piece of software that did what it said. I remain hopeful that it will re-surface from within Google Apps as a freebie, but as yet no news that I can find out The other option is free and still very much available and does a nice job of protecting the PC.

In short, you can open, run, and install anything within the sandbox environment and even return to it after a PC reboot if needs be. However, because it is shut off from the PC in its own virtual environment any infection or other nasty you get stays within that virtual environment. So testing of new software, etc can be done within this virtual area and if it is deemed clean after a week or so of usage, then it is a simple enough operation to transfer the install to your actual PC. And now, I’m forcing any use of Firefox or IE to have to go through the sandbox - so for now, I don’t care what they end up clicking on as I only need to restart their infected virtual environment to get a clean session back.

I love it. What do you do, I’d love to hear?