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02-04-15, 17:30 | #1 |
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Uninstall (or Disable) Your Browser Plug-ins to Make Your Browser More Secure
Browser plug-ins are the biggest target on your computer. Java is a gaping security hole, but Flash has seen a stream of 0-day attacks recently. There’s even been an increase in attacks against Silverlight. These plug-ins have also become less necessary over time. For example, YouTube recently dumped Flash, and Netflix has dumped silverlight. Your browser is capable of doing this stuff on its own — as long as websites cooperate. Why Browser Plug-ins Are Bad Web browsers are becoming ever more capable, and the functions that once required browser plug-ins — various video playback features, video chatting, animations, in-browser games, and more — are now built into modern browsers. It’s just up to websites to switch over to the in-browser features from those old plug-ins they’re still using. And plug-ins really are old. Firefox still uses the NPAPI plug-in system created for Netscape Navigator. Internet Explorer uses ActiveX, which is notorious for its security problems. Chrome uses PPAPI, which is designed to provide additional sandboxing — but even it isn’t ideal. If an attacker finds a hole in your browser plug-in, they can generally exploit that hole to gain access to the system. They aren’t sandboxed — except on Chrome, and even that sandbox won’t protect you from everything. Note that browser plug-ins are different from extensions, or add-ons. An extension or add-on adds a new feature to your browser that you can use, if you like. A plug-in is a program that websites can require. They were necessary when browsers weren’t evolving fast enough — like back in the Internet Explorer 6 days — but now need to go away Popular Plug-ins You May Not Need Plug-ins will likely never vanish completely from the web. Even now, if you dug deep enough, you could probably find web pages that required you install RealPlayer to view their old videos. But, at a certain point, we all uninstalled RealPlayer because it just wasn’t necessary. Plug-ins like Java and Silverlight have already hit that point for most people, and even Flash should get there one day soon.
Seeing Which Plugins You Have Installed To see which plug-ins you have installed, check the list of plug-ins buried in your web browser of choice.
Uninstalling or Disabling Plugins If you see any ancient plugins you don’t need, you should head to your Control Panel and uninstall them — you can’t uninstall them from inside your browser. If you’d rather just temporarily disable the plug-ins, you can click the Disable button on your browser’s plug-in manager page. Leave it disabled for a while and see if you really need it. If you don’t notice you need it, you can head to the Control Panel and uninstall it later. Note that disabling a plug-in in one browser only disables it for that specific browser. For example, if you disable Flash in Firefox, it’ll still be enabled in Chrome and Internet Explorer. You could also set up different browser profiles, with the plug-ins disabled in one browser (or profile) and the plug-ins enabled in another browser. This would let you isolate the plug-ins from your normal browsing experience. Assuming you don’t uninstall every single plug-in — and you probably won’t — you should head to the Firefox Plug-in Check page. Don’t let the name fool you — this tool will work for any web browser. It’ll let you know if you have any old, vulnerable plugins that you need to update or get rid of immediately. HTG Geek Chris Hoffman
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