Firefox privacy but lets others see where you've been visiting [my title]

Mozilla.org ^ | 2006-03-17 | anonymous

[antiRepublicrat]

Oops.

[Panerai]

Hmmmm .... this is just dumb, ofcourse Firefox ( or any other programs ) must save somewhere it's preferences. This is what this is, it's not a privacy issue.

[TommyDale]

"This privacy flaw has caused my fiancé and I to break-up after having dated for 5 years."

Somehow, I think there a much deeper reason for the breakup.

[AntiGuv]

As someone posted there, the solution is clear: Never share your computer with your girlfriend. ;^)

[Fighting Irish]

Honey, take me back!

[contemplator]

Hmmmm .... this is just dumb, ofcourse Firefox ( or any other programs ) must save somewhere it's preferences. This is what this is, it's not a privacy issue.

This is the sort of thing, which if it must be tracked, should be stored in the users profile itself, not in the settings for the software. For geeks that would be the HKEY\Current User (Specifically their ntuser.dat) and not under the HKEY\Local Machine. It's a simple enough fix, and surprising that Firefox let it slip through.

[jdm]

Actually, porn shows up for no reason on my computer all the time. I have no idea how it gets there. Must be them buggers at Mozilla trying to do me in!!!!

[Red Badger]

She should be thanking Firefox for alerting her to the possibility of being married to a jerk...........

[Dark Skies]

This privacy flaw has caused my fiancé and I to break-up after having dated for 5 years.

The privacy flaw is this: when he went to log-in under his dating sites (jdate.com, swinglifestyle.com, adultfriendfinder.com, etc.),

lol!

[js1138]

Hmmmm .... this is just dumb, of course Firefox ( or any other programs ) must save somewhere it's preferences. This is what this is, it's not a privacy issue.

Sure it is. Windows has completely separate folders for each user, capable of holding their settings. These folders can be password protected, although Windows doesn't require this.

Programs have the choice of whether to save settings in the program folder or in the user folder.

[RogueIsland]

Hmmmm .... this is just dumb, ofcourse Firefox ( or any other programs ) must save somewhere it's preferences. This is what this is, it's not a privacy issue.

If I read this right, there is a privacy issue in that a user logged in under one account is able to view information of a user under another account. That should not happen on a secure system. Whether that's a problem with how XP handles accounts or an issue with Firefox is not clear from this amount of info though.

[jdm]

adultfriendfinder shows up on my PC all the time. I have no idea what it even is. Spyware probably.

[Heatseeker]

So basically she broke up with him due to an undocumented feature.

[mkjessup]

Hey it could have been worse, your fiance' could have been visiting sites like "hotguys.com", "hotgayandproud.com", etc. and then you would have even more to worry about, depending upon the intimacy of your previous relationship. ;)

[FreePaul]

Thanks to Firefox this couple won't be visiting Dear Abby, a Psychologist/Psychiatrist, or divorce (defense?) attorneys. I think I'll stick with Firefox.

[G.Mason]

"This privacy flaw has caused my fiancé and I to break-up after having dated for 5 years."

Engaged for five years? Just how long were you going to "try it"?

Just as well you broke up. Neither one of you is very good at decision making.

[facedown]

You can simply delete them.

[antiRepublicrat]

So basically she broke up with him due to an undocumented feature.

It's documented, it just has implications nobody thought of.

[contemplator]

Going into geek mode for a moment. The software settings unique to a specific user is typically stored in their profile (Legacy 16 bit apps, or poorly written ones excluded ). A users profile in XP is stored by default in the C:\Documents and Settings\XXXX\ntuser.dat file (where XXXX= the persons userid). By default this folder and file have their security permissions set to allow only that user to be able to access it. In practice of course, everyone tends to be made an administrator of their home PC and could reset the permissions on anything they want to. Although not impossible, it is highly improbable and very unlikely that Firefox was written to scan other ntuser.dat files during its' startup in order to pull it's settings for the current user. Instead, they are either caching the information in the actual program folder Firefox was installed in or what is more likely are storing it in the registry under the HKEY Local Machine.