Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Thu, 05 Oct 2000 01:44:10 -0600
From:      Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>
To:        Alfred Perlstein <bright@wintelcom.net>
Cc:        chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: new netscape6 is awesome!
Message-ID:  <4.3.2.7.2.20001005013823.00c80840@localhost>
In-Reply-To: <20001004233628.X27736@fw.wintelcom.net>
References:  <4.3.2.7.2.20001005003157.00d4de80@localhost> <20001004232105.W27736@fw.wintelcom.net> <4.3.2.7.2.20001005003157.00d4de80@localhost>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
At 12:36 AM 10/5/2000, Alfred Perlstein wrote:

>Urm?  What port/subnet do i need to block?

The earlier versions for Linux complained if they couldn't "phone 
home" to Netscape every now and then; newer versions are probably
no different. When you first start the browser up, it tries to 
signal Netscape/AOL that you've installed it by hitting a particular 
page on their site. It also gets a permanent ID cookie that identifies 
you to Mr. Steve Case and his minions (Do I sound cynical tonight?
Maybe it's because I am....) whenever you visit a site within his 
empire.

The "What's Related" feature snitches on your browsing habits,
as does the "SmartDownload" feature. So, disconnect the machine
from the Net until you've turned these things off and reset the
start page to something other than Netscape's. If you have a
packet sniffer, you might want to watch for other spying activity
and block the relevant addresses.

--Brett



To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?4.3.2.7.2.20001005013823.00c80840>