Blocking Mozilla/Google Prefetch...

General Topics
1

Hi malware fighters,

Read about the aspects of this here: http://www.petefreitag.com/item/312.cfm
and
http://www.yafla.com/papers/Block_Google_Prefetching/block_prefetching.html
and in a larger framework:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+makes+unrequested+connections

polonus

2

Hi Pol,

Am i missing something here or does just disabling the prefetch stop this without the other steps?

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+makes+unrequested+connections#Link_prefetching
I always have this disabled…
It can also be a security risk IMO…think of the threads here about Fx getting alerts when simply doing a google search…

-Scott-

3

Hi spg SCOTT,

You are right.
Another nice link for Dictionaries and Language Packs, good for translators and the like:
https://addons.mozilla.org/nl/firefox/browse/type:3

polonus

4

I wasn’t aware that you had to disable pre-fetch as I believe that is the default (certainly on my system), rather you have to enable pre-fetch if you want it to happen (which being on dial-up I don’t want).

Now google pre-fetching that is a whole different ball of wax.

5

Hi DavidR,

Google does more than Google-Prefetching - http://imadethisdesign.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-to-fix-google-chrome-resolving-host.html …when DNS-prefetching a host (GoogleChrome resolving over and over the first time a page is being visited, a nag until you disable this feature) - disable DNS Pre-fetching and it’s much better -
Inside Fx it is less of a problem, but can be fixed too:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/controlling_dns_prefetching

Yes, DavidR, you cannot use a browser out of the box, still needs a bit of configuring/tweaking to behave as you like it set…
The use of NS helps against tracking - but Also if you use Fx or Flock and you want an add on to add Bing as the default search engine in the in built search engine, please go to

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/downloads/latest/10434/addon-10434-latest.xml?src=addondetail

polonus

6

I have already disabled prefetch in about:config

It is really a boon to low speed internet users also

Bing is now my default search engine even though it is not as good as Google on certain searches