Security of Browser extension

IBozz1861

 

I’ve been using Freedome for a long time and F-Secure more recently.

 

This latter has a Browser extension but it seems to lose all security by showing sensitive traffic.  Surely this is a breach of security and is what F-Secure should, in part, be guarding against?

 

Does this mean that you can see the sensitive information of merely that the application on my iMac can “see” it but not transmit it or allow access to it other then on my own machine?

 

If the former then it appears to be a security breach and risk and if the latter then the wording needs to be better expressed so that it is absolutley clear as to wehat happens to passwords, credit card details, etc. etc.

 

Or am I being stupid and totally misunserstanding what it all means?

nanonyme

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@IBozz1861 wrote:

 

I’ve been using Freedome for a long time and F-Secure more recently.

 

This latter has a Browser extension but it seems to lose all security by showing sensitive traffic.  Surely this is a breach of security and is what F-Secure should, in part, be guarding against?

 

Does this mean that you can see the sensitive information of merely that the application on my iMac can “see” it but not transmit it or allow access to it other then on my own machine?

 

If the former then it appears to be a security breach and risk and if the latter then the wording needs to be better expressed so that it is absolutley clear as to wehat happens to passwords, credit card details, etc. etc.

 

Or am I being stupid and totally misunserstanding what it all means?

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Hey, 

In one way you're exactly correct. Any plugin that has that text has to be carefully considered whether to enable. You are basically trusting that plugin with your secrets almost as much as the browser itself so it's good to be a bit paranoid.

 

The text comes from browser and doesn't depend on whether the plugin has a good reputation or not. There is no possibility for F-Secure to affect it.

 

I would trust F-Secure to follow its privacy policy with their dealings and as a result I keep their browsing protection  plugin enabled. 

IBozz1861

Thanks, nanonyme, very much appreciated.

[Deleted User]

Hello IBozz1861,

 

That wording about sensitive information comes from Apple, not us, we have no choice in what it says there.

 

Technically, our extension needs to be able to read the contents of web pages in order to be able to check the safety of search result links. We never transmit any of that information outside the customer's computer though (only encrypted hashes of URLs get sent to F-Secure for rating lookup purposes).