Data miners, LSOs .... what risk?

nithig · 20 Jan 2013

As my technical ability is limited I tend to err on the side of security when it comes to my computer.
Recently a friend purchased a new laptop and asked me to set it up for her as she simply uses and has little or no idea of what's in the background.

As we both use FireFox I put on the addons which block LSOs, data miners etc. These include:
Adblock Plus
Better Privacy
Do Not Track
Facebook Disconnect
Google Disconnect

Now she can't access the game "Word with Friends" a version of online Scrabble which I have noted requires the downloading of over 20 commercial data miners (who no doubt on-sell their info)
She wants to know the danger of not having the protection and I was not that successful at explaining.

Can anyone help me here. What are the dangers (if any) and are there some classes eg LSOs which ought to be totally avoided? On my own computer I forego such games and maintain blocks against such data miners; am I being over-cautious?

gigagiggles · 21 Jan 2013

Now she can't access the game "Word with Friends" a version of online Scrabble ...

One thing about using obstacles to forestall criminals is one has to go through the obstacles. You may have to walk her through your preventive measures.

She wants to know the danger of not having the protection ...

She, herself, is the best protection. She would have to know what the preventive measures are and their limitations. She, then, has to know how to work with the preventive measures for them to be effective.

For all we know, it might not be your preventive measures that caused the hiccup.

nithig · 21 Jan 2013

thanks gigagiggles (yes yr name is infectious :)

I'm pretty sure that the Add-ons are blocking such data miners, especially Better Privacy.
Because I lack the technical language I tend to react a bit and just undo the add-ons and
then want nothing more to do with keeping her computer safe. That's not totally
satisfactory but I get tired of trying to explain and justify each step ... often because i researched it
myself ages ago and forget the details.

Borg 386 · 22 Jan 2013

NoScript has a "temporarily allow" setting. This is helpful if you wish to allow a site to temporarily run for the duration of a game or just to see the content.

You may wish to consider installing this also as it can prevent "drive-by-attacks" (Code hidden on a page that automatically d/l s malware/viruses). A

On some pages, you do have to temporarily allow cookies and some things blocked by NoScript (& other blockers). However these reset to the default setting when you close FF (Do Not Allow).

AdBlock Plus stops ads & banners. Better Privacy should delete all LSO's when you close FF.

Unfortunately when it comes to games & some websites, you have no choice but to allow these items if you want to play. On Silvergames for example, you have to allow Silvergames & ajax.googleapis in order to play. However if she is only allowing those cookies/trackers while playing the game, and then clearing everything after she is done (shut down FF, clear cache/cookies), then the information should be limited to what she did while the game was running.

I also have Cookie Monster installed, which also gives you the option to temporarily allow a cookie for a site.

You're not being over cautious, being careful is just another layer of security.

nithig · 22 Jan 2013

thanks Borg 386 ...appreciate yr post.