Spyware in Firefox?

Is there spyware in the Firefox for Android browser?

I started using Firefox several years ago because it had far better privacy protections than Safari or Internet Explorer.  The desktop version still has.

I recently acquired a new Android tablet and went to  Google Play  [aka Android App Store] to download Firefox.

Link to Firefox on Google Play

To Google's credit they show what permissions an app takes if you install it [Apple do not]. When you look at some of these lists of permissions it is clear that many of the apps in the Play Store are little better than spyware.

I checked Firefox's permissions but I did not expect to find anything untoward.

The apps description emphasises privacy as you can see below.

However, when you look at the detailed list of the permissions the app would take it is clear that it provides anything but privacy.

 

 Particularly alarming was what Firefox wanted to do with my tablet's cameras.

Anybody who installs Firefox gives it permission to take photographs or video [from either camera] whenever it likes. The users permission is not required.  Nor are users told when the cameras are operating. Think of the implications of this.  Even if users were foolish enough to trust Mozilla [producers of Firefox] what would happen if some malign malware was able to get control of your browser and start the cameras rolling?

How can Mozilla  justify including this in Firefox?  If it is not spyware it is hard to imagine how else it could be defined. It would be interesting to know what has gone wrong at Mozilla for this to happen.

I didn't download Firefox [though over 200,000 idiots have done]. I took a look at Google's Chrome browser and it does not seem to need to operate my tablet's cameras. These are the permissions it wants. They are not trivial but at least they exclude the permission for rectal probing that Firefox wants

Now that I have seen what Firefox for Android wants I wonder what the desktop versions of Firefox are up to.

Another reason to sell Apple

From the MIT Technology Review.

"Few large technology companies are more stingy with their R & D spending than Apple. Focused on developing and improving a handful of products, Apple lacks the sprawling basic research divisions that, for example, recently led IBM scientists to a breakthrough that could further shrink the size and cost of computer chips. While Apple's total $3.4 billion R&D budget in 2012 is indeed growing, it's still only a sliver of the company's vast cash reserves. Viewed as a percentage of Apple's sales revenues, its R&D spending remains steady over the last few years at 2 to 3 percent. These percentages put its spending far below its peers, including Microsoft, Google, and Samsung.

Tablets are becoming  commodity products and Apple can no longer expect to enjoy the high margins it has had in the past. Its share of the tablet market has already fallen below 50%. Now that the tablet market is so competitive we can expect prices and margins to continue to fall.

Apple needs innovative new products, but where are they to come from? In the past the company has relied on good design but the latest tablets from Google and Microsoft show that they can do good design as well.

Apples shares are already well below their peak. I expect them to fall much farther.

iPad v Nexus 7 updated

If your trying to decide between an iPad and a Nexus 7 you have probably read some of the many  reviews on the web. I have both devices and the table below compares them on the features that matter to me.

	iPad	Nexus 7
Battery Management - Nexus 7 better	Cumbersome.	Easy to prolong battery life by toggling Wi-Fi, GPS and other battery guzzlers on/off with home page widget.
Apps available - iPad better	Lots	Poor selection that does not include most of the apps I use on my iPad.
App Permissions - Nexus 7 better	No info given on what an app gets up to after you install it.	Before you install an app you are told what permissions [eg access your browser history, read your location, read your address book]it will use. Have rejected several apps because they wanted far too much.
Book Reading - iPad better	iBooks allows you to buy ebooks from Apple and read your own epub books.	Can only read books bought from Google. Cannot read epub without buying a third party app. Google charges for old out of copyright books that Apple provide for free.
Music - about the same	Buy from Apple or import your own	Buy from Google or import your own
GPS - Nexus 7 better	Not on Wi-Fi version	GPS included. You can download Google maps for an area of several hundred square miles and your GPS will tell you where you are as long as you stay in that area.
Do I trust them with my usage info - Apple better	Maybe	Are you kidding?  Trust Google? Their ethical reputation is long gone.
Video - iPad better	Buy from Apple or import your own	Can import your own videos but I have only been able to get the  Nexus 7 to play MP4s. Does not support many formats. Otherwise, you can only watch videos bought from Google.
Value for money	Overpriced	Will be excellent when it can do more.
Use	I continue to use my iPad a lot	I only use my Nexus 7 occasionally. Not enough secure apps. Many Android apps contain spyware and malware. Cannot read my own epub books.

Google has an opportunity to break into the tablet market because Apple has started to stumble now that Jobs is not there. However, it needs to move fast.  The main problem with  Android apps is that so many of them contain malware. Google has started to clean up its apps store but it needs to move much faster and harder with a spectacular purge of malware apps that will improve the image of Android apps.

It also needs to improve its own video and book apps, and produce some killer apps of its own. It cannot rely on third party developers to come up with stuff that will make the Nexus 7 a must buy.

The lack of a forward facing camera in the Nexus 7 rules out some useful apps.  For example, augmented reality apps need a forward facing camera.  I have 'The Night Sky' app on my iPad. If I point the camera at the sky on a clear night the app can identify planets, stars and satellites for me. It would be nice to have an app like that on the Nexus 7.

iBooks Author

After reading this I de installed my copy of iBook Author.  Why does Apple think they can get away with this crap?

The pros and cons of moving from Windows to Mac

Last year I made the move from the Dark Side of home computing to a world of happiness, light and gamboling bunny rabbits. In other words, I replaced my Windows XP desktop with an Apple iMac. I got a desktop iMac with a 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 24” screen, 1GB of ram and a 320GB hard disk.

First impressions 

Delivery took about three days and the system arrived in one easy to move box. Thank God for flat screens. When I got my last PC I nearly broke my back carrying its 19” CRT monitor.

Assembly was just a matter of putting the combined screen/systems unit on my desk, connecting the power cable, plugging the keyboard into a USB port and the mouse into the keyboard. Goodbye to the rats nest of cables and jumble of boxes that I had before. When I connected an Ethernet cable to my router the iMac recognized the router immediately and established an internet connection.

The onscreen registration process was short but annoying. Part way through Apple insisted on me completing a form which asked for my full name, address, telephone number, email address, inside leg measurement etc. There was no explanation of why Apple needed this information or what they were going to do with it. It would not let me proceed until I filled in the form. Here is a tip for Apple. When I buy some expensive new kit I don’t like it to start bossing me around.

Then I noticed that the built in camera had turned itself on and was videoing me. WTF! The lens now has tape over it and Apple has succeeded in pissing off a new customer. Well done Steve.

Help needed 

I looked for some online help on converting from Windows to Apple. The best that Apple could offer was a few videos and the suggestion that I take my old and new machines to an Apple shop and a ‘genius’ [this is what Apple calls its technicians] would help me. That might work for two laptops. How is it going to work for two heavy desktops? Does Apple expect me to hump them both down to the nearest Apple shop? Which happens to be in a city center, a long way from a car park. If Apple is serious about getting people to convert it needs to do a lot, lot better in providing online help for apostates. What they have at the moment is just pathetic.

Stuff I like

I like the large screen but it would be nice if it could be rotated to be viewed in either portrait or landscape mode.

The iMac came with a surprising amount of software I would have had to obtain separately on a Windows machine. Some of it is  better designed than the average Windows application, but the difference is not as great as some Apple fanboys would claim.   iCal and Mail are adequate but I would have liked a better feature set, particularly in iCal.

At first the dashboard seems cool and useful. You can add third party widgets to the dashboard from a stock of several hundred on the Apple site. I started with two countdown widgets, two weather widgets, a calendar + clock, a dictionary, a language translator, a unit [e.g. Fahrenheit to Celsius] converter and a few more.  After a while I found I rarely used dashboard.

I don't use Spaces [multiple workspaces]. I do use Stickies [post-it notes] and Quick Look [look within a file without opening the associated application].  Quick Look is very useful.

Safari is certainly a better browser than IE, but it does not have third party extensions. I have installed Firefox. I could not give up the Adblock Plus and Customise Google add-ons. I also use tabbed browsing a lot and it is much better on Firefox [with the TabMixPlus extension]. The privacy protections on Firefox are also much better.

You can use Safari to create web clips. This means that you select a section of a web page and place the clipping on your dashboard. Safari creates a dynamic link between the web page and the clipping, and the clipping automatically updates whenever the web page changes. This sounds handy but I have not yet found a web page I want to ‘clip’.

Apple allows you encrypt your entire home folder [the equivalent of Documents and Settings on a Windows machine] and have files decrypted as you need them. That’s an all or nothing solution. I would have preferred to be able to use on-the-fly encryption on selected folders. Fortunately, there is now a Mac version of the excellent TrueCrypt.

It took me a while to grasp the idea of folder actions, but now I have I occasionally find them useful. Folder actions allow you to attach a script to a folder. When anything is added to the folder, the folder is opened etc the script runs. For example, I have a folder for converting image files to jpgs. When a drop, say, a TIFF file in the folder the attached script makes a .jpg copy. I would use folder actions and the Automator  more if Apple had bothered to provide proper instructions. As it is a rarely bother with them.

Stuff I don't like 

I don’t like the iMac mouse and keyboard. The keyboard has a ‘dead’ feel to it that makes typing unpleasant. If you buy an iMac plan on spending some more money to buy a decent keyboard and mouse. I am surprised Apple is selling such crap. It has put me off the idea of buying a Mac laptop.

USB ports at the back!!  That's just putting style over function. Also, there are not enough USB ports.

There is no right click menu on the Apple mouse. To access the functions that would be on the right click menu on a Windows machine you have to CTL – Left Click. That was annoying. I have replaced the Apple mouse with a standard Windows mouse and now have a right click menu.

File management is much harder on a Mac. Windows Explorer makes it easy to move or copy files between folders.  There are three different ways to move and copy files. All are easy to understand and easy to use. Copying and moving files on a Mac is hard work. OS X has a copy function but no move function. If you want to move a file you have to copy it to its new location and then go back and delete the original [WTF!]. As a result cutting and pasting is a real hassle. Even copying works in different ways in different circumstances. I have still not mastered the absurd set of rules that apply to simple copying. If you have lots of files and need to organise them efficiently don't use a Mac.

Spotlight is Apples system search function. I played with it for as while but it is poorly presented and explained. I now ignore it.

Windows has a Send To command that allows you to send a file(s) directly to a device, folder or application. Its very handy. The Mac has nothing like it.

Installing new software on the Mac is a bizarre, counter intuitive process involving image files and dragging and dropping. I have managed to install several new programs but I have still not managed to work out what is happening, or exactly what I should be doing. Apples Help is no help at all.

Why isn't there a hot key combination, or even a dedicated key, for putting the Mac to sleep?

OS X offers no way of renaming multiple files in one easy operation. Why not? It is something a lot of people want to do, especially if they keep their digital photos on their computer. I have had to install a Mac program called Name Mangler. It works well enough but this capability should be in the operating system.

I find copying and moving a real hassle on the Mac. Apple need to sort this out.  There are also lots of other little niggles that Apple need to deal with. I know writing instructions is not as much fun as writing software, but Apple needs to take a few shovelfuls of doubloons from their huge cash pile and pay somebody competent to write an adequate Help function.

Office on the Mac 

MS Office for Mac has worked ok so far, but be aware that the interface is sufficiently different to create a significant learning curve for anybody moving from the Windows version of Office.  I have not done a feature by feature comparison between the Windows and Mac versions of MS Office but the Mac version seems a crippled poor relation of the Windows version. If you are an Office power user I think you should stick with Windows.

External Drives

If you have a small [under 32gb] external drive [USB or hard disk] you can format it as FAT32 and you will be able to read from it and write to it with both  Windows XP  and  Apple OS X machines. FAT32 has a volume size limit of 32gb and a file size limit of 4gb. You do find some larger external drives formatted with FAT32 [I have one of 320gb] but the hack is accomplished by the drive manufacturer putting software on the drive which splits it into a number of volumes though it appears as one volume to a user.

If you have a large external drive which is already formatted with the NTFS file system your OS X machine will be able to read from it  but not write to it.

Resizing image files

I often include my own photographs in this blog. My camera’s current settings produce image files of about 1.5mb. I could post these as they are but it seems rather wasteful to do so since a file size of 100-150kb is adequate for a image that is going to be viewed on a computer screen. To reduce upload and download times I prefer to reduce the size of image files before they are posted.

This post describes three ways you can reduce image sizes on a Mac OS X computer and one way on a Windows machine. All the methods can resize a batch of image files as easily as they can process a single file.

Resizing image files on a Mac OS X computer

The three methods are

1. Use iPhoto
2. Use Preview
3. Use an AppleScript

Resizing files with iPhoto

Import your image files into iPhoto using the File/Import to Library command. You will now have two copies of each image; one in its original location and one in an iPhoto database. The iPhoto copy will appear in a new ‘Event’ [or folder] in iPhoto.

Select the images you want to resize by holding down the CMD key and clicking on each in turn. Then select the File/Export command. Click on Kind and select jpeg. Set the image quality and size [you can also rename if you wish].

High quality and large size reduces a 1.5mb file to 468kb.

Medium quality and medium size reduces a 1.5mb file to 80kb. I use these settings for my blog images.

Low quality and small size reduces a 1.5mb file to 16kb

Maximum quality and small size reduces a 1.5mb file to 132kb.

Click Export and you will then be asked where you want iPhoto to put the reduced copies. Choose Desktop. You will now have three copies of each file. A 1.5mb copy in its original location, a 1.5mb copy in iPhoto and a reduced copy on your Desktop.

Resizing files with Preview

Copy your images to a new folder.

Use the File/Open command and select the files in the new folder. Click Open.

Select all the files and then use the Tools/Adjust Size command to resize the entire batch. You will need to experiment with the various settings to get the image size you want. I usually use a width of 7 inches and a resolution of 72.

You will now have two copies of each file. One full sized copy in its original folder and a reduced copy in the folder you created earlier.

Resizing files with an AppleScript

Open the AppleScript Script Editor and paste in the following script [credit].

-- save in Script Editor as Application
-- drag files to its icon in Finder

on open some_items
 repeat with this_item in some_items
   try
     rescale_and_save(this_item)
   end try
 end repeat
end open


to rescale_and_save(this_item)
 tell application "Image Events"
   launch
   set the target_width to 120
   -- open the image file
   set this_image to open this_item
  
   set typ to this_image's file type
  
   copy dimensions of this_image to {current_width, current_height}
   if current_width is greater than current_height then
     scale this_image to size target_width
   else
     -- figure out new height
     -- y2 = (y1 * x2) / x1
     set the new_height to (current_height * target_width) / current_width
     scale this_image to size new_height
   end if
  
   tell application "Finder" to set new_item to ¬
   (container of this_item as string) & "scaled." & (name of this_item)
   save this_image in new_item as typ
  
 end tell
end rescale_and_save

Select the File/Save As command.

Enter ‘Reduce’ as the Save As name.

Choose the Desktop as where to save the script.

Choose Application as the file format.

Click on Save.

You will now have a ‘Reduce.app’ icon on your desktop [see the screen capture].


To use it drag and drop any file or files onto the Reduce.app icon. The script will process each file and put a reduced copy in the same folder as its original.

To get a larger or smaller reduction use Script Editor to change the ‘720’ in the script to some other number.

Resizing image files on a Windows computer

I use the IrfanView application. This free program is an excellent image viewer. It can also quickly and easily resize a batch of image files.

Download Irfanview from here.

Copy the files you want to resize to a new folder and then use the File/Batch Conversion Rename command. You can change file name, image quality and image size. Look at both the Options and Advanced Options menus. Irfanview offers far more options than any of the Mac methods but most of them can be ignored if all you want to do is shrink image files.

One final point. The iPhoto and AppleScript methods produce resized copies and do not change the original image. Irfanview and the Preview method both work by resizing the file they are given. For that reason you should only resize copies of your original files. You will want to keep the original images at their full size in case you need them for some other purpose.