FireFox Disables Old Security Protocols

I received an error today when I tried to access a SSL protected website. According to FireFox;

Firefox can't connect securely to because the site uses a security protocol which isn't enabled.

It seems that FireFox has removed the support for older/insecure SSL sessions. Some research showed that these setting are accessible through the 'hidden' configuration in FireFox. Just type about:config in your addressbar and it shows the advanced settings of FireFox. Put security.ssl3.rsa_rc4_40_md5 in the filter bar, so that all other settings are removed from the current view. After that set the parameter to true (default is false). After this you're able to access the website. If not try enabling the other encryption parameter to true (which are set to false). Filter on security, and the parameter are quite similar to the one discussed in this entry. Note that there might be some security issues when you enable old(er) security protocol support in FireFox. These are disabled for a reason!!!.

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chacha.com

There's a new (beta) search engine on the Internet. It's called chacha.com. The new thing about chacha.com is that it offers an alternative search method. Normally you enter the thing you search for and press submit (or whatever). This engine has the impossibility to search with a guide. What happens is that you get contacted by an actual person (a chat interface like thingy) and he/she does the search for you, and returns the thing you actually needed. No more thousands of pages to dig through. Note that there are some rules you need to follow. As mentioned by Leo Laporte in the Net@Night podcast, it's a girly-search-engine.... Guys don't (or won't) ask for 'directions'.

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Firefox 2.0 removes third-party cookie blocking

In the older FireFox versions (<2.0), it was possible to allow cookies from sites you visit, but to disallow cookies which do not originate from that site (e.g. advertisements etc.). These cookies makes it possible for the advertising sites to track your movements on the Internet (amongst other things). Somehow, the FireFox developers removed that functionality from the user interface, and it seems to be disabled by default. It can be enabled by using the about:config command (just type it in the URL bar in FF). This opens the registry/configuration of FireFox. Search the config for network.cookie.cookieBehavior (you can search by using the filter), and set the value to "1" (without the quotes).

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Internet Explorer 7 annoyances

I noticed today that Internet Explorer v7 showed up as a critical download (according to Microsoft). Since I like to experiment (I know... it's wrong), I decided to give it a try. What can happen? I use Firefox as the default browser. I played with IE7 in Vista RC2, and seemed (!!!!!) to work fine. After installing it, I might have lost all my bookmarks, or perhaps I didn't have any to start with in IE6 :) . Anyway, that's something to remember when I upgrade IE on my laptop from work. Here are some annoyances I ran into:

• Clearview Lame ass anti-aliasing. I thought I had some sort of eye-disorder. (can eventually be switched of in the advanced options, and it needs a restart of the browser).
• Anti-phising More pop-ups asking stupid questions... Somehow it wanted to check my own website against a phishing list.... disabled it immediately.
• Flickr bagde Can't get it to work in IE7. Not even if I remove all security restrictions. So if you don't see any pictures in my flickr badge, it means you're using a fucked-up browser. Solved: I needed to install the Flash player component AGAIN especially for IE7 (/me wonders why IE7 doesn't mention that it doesn't have the necessary components to view the page correctly)
• Menu bar Is disabled by default, and if you enable it, it's not at the top of your window (???)
• ....

Strangely enough, WordPress seems to work fine, since I'm using IE7 to write this post. (correction: when I wanted to submit this post, there was an error on page according to IE7....) Well, back to good-old Firefox 2.0, and leave all the IE7 annoyances behind me :D. Conclusion: Microsoft created a great (visual) copy of Firefox. Too bad that they had the urge to add bugs and annoyances to it. I can hardly wait for Vista and the new Office suite :)

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Google bought YouTube

Earlier, Google announced that it had bought YouTube (the site where you can upload your personal videos, and stuff). The amount of money paid was around 1.6 BILLION dollars.... (in Google shares). Since YouTube was founded in February 2005, that makes way over 2 million dollars a day... There are days that I don't make that kind of money :( /me calls his manager for a raise.....

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Free ADSL upgrade

A while ago, I mentioned that my ISP is XS4ALL. I also mentioned that they do a lot off things for their users. OK, they are a bit more expensive than most other ISP's, but they offer more and more additional (free) services. Today I received a letter (good oldfashioned snailmail) from XS4ALL, mentioning that I'm able to upgrade from Fast ADSL (1024kbps up/12Mbps down) to Ultra ADSL (1024kbps up/20Mbps down). Well, more speed is allways welcome, but the nice part is..... it doesn't cost anything. The upgrade is completely for free, and to make it even more interesting they also give (!!!!) a new ADSL2+ modem/router with WiFi (worth about €90). The only "downside" is that I need to renew my XS4ALL account for a full year. Well, since I've been using them for the last 6 years, that shouldn't be to much of a problem. An other thing might be that my IP address changes with this upgrade (it happened in the past with upgrades etc.), so expect downtime in the near future.

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Cisco 876 router

Today I got a Cisco 876W router to play with at home. The router has an ADSL interface, wireless, and several fast ethernet ports. So it's an ideal replacement candidate for my Thompson ADSL modem. Since I'm a software nerd, I'm not that familiar with hardware devices (understatement), but since the router has a web interface for the configuration, I thought... "how hard can it be?".. Well, damn hard. I had the LAN part up and running within minutes (well almost :) ). I even got my WAN interface up after two hours (the dialer interface received my "almost-static-IP adress" from my provider). The only problem I have at this moment is that there's no routing (or whatever) being done between my LAN and the Internet. I SHALL NOT GIVE UP! HELP!!!!! b.t.w. I'll be posting my basic (future) working config later on (If I don't throw that piece of crap out of the window first).

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XS4ALL goes IMAP

XS4ALL is the quality (security/privacy) ISP in the Netherlands (I'm using them for years now). In the last couple of months they've introduced a number of (beta) services for their customers like;

• Blogging
• secured POP3 and SMTP access
• Webdisk (based on WebDav)
• Wiki's
• VoIP
• IPv6
• 5 POP mailboxes (each 500MB in size)
• etc.

Last week, they announced the support for IMAP. This makes it possible to store all your e-mail on the server. The mailclient synchronize the mail on the server. This means that you have all your mail available all the time. No matter what (IMAP) mailclient you use.

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