December 2008

The Ultimate Greasemonkey Script

Oh baby! Where have you been all my life!

Greasemonkey has always been a killer add-on for Firefox. Little scripts that work within Firefox to address many of the issues folks have with various websites. Simple things like adding easy to print pages to sites that have so many graphic ads that printing was a paper and ink nightmare.

The problem was that one had to go to the giant repository of Greasemonkey scripts at Userscripts.org search for the one that might address your specific problem and install it.

Well, a new script called Greasefire does all this for you. Once installed the Greasemonkey icon appears, in a slightly different form then you are used to, in the Firefox taskbar.

From then on if you browse to a site that any Greademonkey scripts that are related to it the icon turns a lovely shade of red.

If you then right-click on the icon it will further inform you of how many scripts are available. In this case our example shows the enormous number of scripts available at the uber-geek site slashdot.org.

Clicking on the top line (the one indicating how many scripts are available) opens up a window giving descriptions of the scripts. Clicking the giant grey button on the right towards the bottom initiates the usual Greasemonkey install routine.

So, if you have not yet installed Greasemonkey and Greasefire get thee hence to Userscript.org and help yourself to some great Add-ons.

IE Patched in Record Time

Microsoft has patched the critical flaw in its Internet Explorer browser in mere days. Good job! If you have Windows Automatic Update turned on you should already be patched depending on when you have set your PC to download and install the fix.

With more and more people aware of the problem it was incumbent upon Bill to fix the problem before even more folks ditched IE for more secure browsers such as Opera or Firefox. Either you're part of the problem or part of the solution and although Microsoft was late in embracing the Internet it seems they are moving towards being less of a vector for malware, spyware, viruses, etc. Let's hope the upcoming IE 8 is an even better experience for the vast number of users who, for some reason, never get the itch to try other browsers.

Severe IE Vulnerability

An unpatched vulnerability in Internet Explorer 7 (which also affects older versions of the browser as well) is on the loose. Microsoft has stated that IE 5.01 with SP 4, IE 6 with or without SP 1 and IE 8 (Beta 2) on all versions of the Window OS are affected. To complete the horror IE 7 on Windows XP SP 2 and 3 and Windows Vista with or without SP 1 are also vulnerable. Web sites are now actively exploiting the vulnerability. One has to merely view a Web site in order to have a Trojan horse program automatically downloaded to their machine. Once downloaded the evil doers can manipulate the rogue program to download other software which could perform actions such as sending spam emails or steal data. Since Microsoft's next patch is not due until January 13, 2009 one would be wise to use an alternative browser such as Firefox or Opera. Just sayin' . . .

Firefox Greasemonkey Targeted

A new type of malware that collects passwords for banking sites is in the wild. In this instance it only targets Firefox browser through the popular Greasemonkey script. The malware uses JavaScript to identify some 100 financial web sites (including PayPal). It then harvests logins and passwords which are forwarded to a server in Russia.

So, short of disabling or uninstalling Greasemonkey your best defence is the usual: do not download anything, including Firefox add-ons, from any site other than Mozilla's, do not visit dubious sites located in dubious domains (such as .ru) and always have your firewall, anti-virus, router and brains active ;)