Mail via port 80!

General Topics
1

Hi malware fighters,

Firewalls filter on ports, but nowadays the traffic that passes through these ports is not always that clear-cut. Traditionally port 25 is for mail, and 80 for html. But Gmail enters on port 80. Because of all this administering a firewall is a lot harder than it was in the past. What do you think?

polonus

2

Doesn’t avast! scan files on reading and before writing them?

I don’t us Gmail but I do use Hotmail that scans attachment before they arrive I believe.

3

But GMail at port 80 is webmail, isn’t it? Is like any other webpage, isn’t it? ???
Sorry, I’m just guessing, maybe totally wrong.

What is much more difficult, as I’ve read, is the way Vista and Windows 7 works with Home/Commercial/Public environments at the firewall level.

4

Yes, Tech, a lot of firewalls and firewall configurations have not lived up to general developments here.
“The firewall is getting old(er)”. So it is not a strange thing to experience that a lot of youngsters do not use an active software firewall on a PC any longer since XP. But it is still a security application one cannot go without. A firewall is still a must for protection against attackers from outside and those trying to call out!

But as we have seen with the newer web-threats, just securing ports and protocols etc. is not enough. Snort-like capabilities, like FireKeeper has in the Mozilla browser, should come to to-days firewall and also black- and white-listing should come in, and from another point of view where thousands of legit sites are being hacked to serve as malware download redirects the traditional firewall cannot keep up with all the developments on this recent world wide web ocean, floating with malcode all sorts,

polonus

5
But Gmail enters on port 80
So what ? Port 80 is scanned so if something comes in that's nasty, it will be caught. It would be a problem if google used an unscanned port.
6

Hi bob3160,

It is not that. It is that they are sort of “bending the curves” all the time, it goes for protocols, it goes for standards, even IE8 has an escape for old IE7 pages not rendering right, so much spaghetti (code), you’d better not eat it without a spoon and fork, now HTML-5 phased in with some competitive cross-browser solution development there also (java -flash etc. etc.).
Things that we cannot welcome so far is a browser that does not run on your PC but somewhere else and again this would be really, really fast, this is what Google would like to see and where they could cash in, and MS does not want to see that at all cost, that is why we have their slow browser having to half start up together with the OS to keep competitive browser vendors at bay, and everybody crying wolf when the browser has to be taken out of the Operational System to offer room for diversity. I think they will drag their feet a long, long time to come, and understandably so, their vendor lock-in is their best asset, it is a jewel…

polonus

7
you'd better not eat it without a spoon and fork,
I usually cut up my spaghetti and eat it with a spoon.... :)

I just signed up with google for that new browser you mentioned.

8

I use elbow macaroni noodles in my spaghetti instead of spaghetti noodles.

Elbow noodles hold much more sauce than spaghetti noodles, that makes the spaghetti taste better. ;D ;D ;D

I’m very happy with Opera. :slight_smile:

9

Hi bob3160 and rdmaloyjr,

That fantasy new GoogleBrowser gonna be something for you two, full of animal crackers in the browser-soup, goes well with the spaghetti,

polonus