Phoronix: Kubuntu 12.04 To Drop KDE Support For Firefox

[gnomek]

IMHO, mandatory access control systems like Apparmor and SELinux don't really do much to raise the security posture of desktop systems. The debate over which of these two is "better" is tedious and eternal; I avoid it by not using it

Do you have the same opinion about using sandfox? I wish you could refer me to some articles or something about it.
Forgive me my ignorance in this topic, I know that I should be careful about what I click on but sometimes I read that even well known sites like youtube or sourceforge get compromized. On every Linux forum I read opinion that Linux is secure and I just don't need to worry. But all risk for my PC comes from internet. I am careful, I use all this well known security add-ons for Firefox and I don't type my passwords to whatever pops-up, I don't go to some suspicious sites but I do my banking transfers from my home PC and I'd like to know if I do this from the same web browser that I browse other sites it is secure or not and I shouldn't do that. I even considered using Qubes OS when it is ready.
Have you heard of Qubes OS.?
http://qubes-os.org/Home.html

[GreyGeek]

Actually, I purge Apparmor from all my systems:
.....
IMHO, mandatory access control systems like Apparmor and SELinux don't really do much to raise the security posture of desktop systems. The debate over which of these two is "better" is tedious and eternal; I avoid it by not using it

I agree. I've found that apparmor actually slowed my system down during certain activites. So, I removed it from Lucid and Precise. I use chkrootkit and rkhunter in cron to watch my system. I get emails if something is amiss.

Rkhunter also uses unhide.rb, if it is installed, which it is on my system. Unhide.rb:

Is a forensic tool to find processes and TCP/UDP ports hidden by rootkits, Linux kernel modules or by other techniques.

unhide detects hidden processes using the following six techniques:
• Compare /proc vs /bin/ps output
• Compare info gathered from /bin/ps with info gathered by walking thru the procfs.
• Compare info gathered from /bin/ps with info gathered from syscalls (syscall scanning).
• Full PIDs space occupation (PIDs bruteforcing)
• Reverse search, verify that all thread seen by ps are also seen by the kernel (/bin/ps output vs /proc, procfs walking and syscall)
• Quick compare /proc, procfs walking and syscall vs /bin/ps output


unhide-tcp identifies TCP/UDP ports that are listening but are not listed in /bin/netstat through brute forcing of all TCP/UDP ports available.


This package can be used by rkhunter in its daily scans.

I also have installed unhide so I can use it independently.

[SteveRiley]

Do you have the same opinion about using sandfox? I wish you could refer me to some articles or something about it.
Forgive me my ignorance in this topic, I know that I should be careful about what I click on but sometimes I read that even well known sites like youtube or sourceforge get compromized. On every Linux forum I read opinion that Linux is secure and I just don't need to worry. But all risk for my PC comes from internet. I am careful, I use all this well known security add-ons for Firefox and I don't type my passwords to whatever pops-up, I don't go to some suspicious sites but I do my banking transfers from my home PC and I'd like to know if I do this from the same web browser that I browse other sites it is secure or not and I shouldn't do that. I even considered using Qubes OS when it is ready. Have you heard of Qubes OS.?

I had not known of Qubes OS before. Thanks for the pointer.

Interesting how they characterize it as more of a "Xen distribution" than a "Linux distribution." I suppose that's a fairly accurate statement, given the architecture they're building: isolation domains managed by Xen. Xen's paravirtualization is something of a different beast than the more familiar techniques employed by VMware, VirtualBox, and Hyper-V. I would quibble with Qubes's description of Xen being a bare-metal hypervisor; indeed, their architecture document explains Xen better than their FAQ page. Xen's Dom0 frequently causes I/O bottlenecks; it's difficult to get much more than 2 Gbps of real layer 7 throughput without resorting to an alternate mechanism for I/O virtualization. Hm, I feel like I've drifted away from an answer to your question

I use the same browser to do everything: conduct banking, access corporate and personal email, watch videos, read news, and interact on forums. I let KWallet manage all my passwords and I don't worry about them leaking. I rely on my my script that creates the ad-blocking host file to keep crap off my browser windows. I don't use any security software and I dont run a firewall. I am, of course, speaking of my Linux PCs. The only thing I'd do differently on a Windows PC is allow the built-in firewall to remain running (which it does by default). I don't lurk on torrent or pr0n (or religious) sites, so my exposure to malware is overall pretty low.

[sumski]

why isnt this on a ppa pr something though at the very least, the file dialogs in firefox now look horrible thanks to this foolish mistake.

I already posted this here - http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...ox-KDE-support
Uploaded firefox with KDE patches re-enabled. I'll try to track firefox releases, as long i'll have the time, and upstrem (SUSE) adapts to new releases.
There's a slight difference between SUSE's firefox-kde.patch and how firefox packagers applied it - suse's patch entirely creates "browser/base/content/browser-kde.xul", and in the firefox packaging, files are first copied from upstream version "browser/base/content/browser.xul" and then applies the remaining diff.
Also, there are a few more patches for a little smoother KDE experience.
https://build.opensuse.org/package/v...roject=mozilla
https://build.opensuse.org/package/v...roject=mozilla
https://build.opensuse.org/package/v...roject=mozilla

[ti_tux]

I try out your ppa... and I must say thank you very much !

[Mr_Bumpy]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I can't say it enough. I am grateful for people like you who are willing to take the time to make open-source software better for the rest of us God bless!

[ardvark71]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I can't say it enough. I am grateful for people like you who are willing to take the time to make open-source software better for the rest of us God bless!

Absolutely! I couldn't agree more!



Regards...