News Firefox add-on lets surfers tweak sites, but is it safe?

Firefox is still gaining popularity - that's a given. And as more people use FF, the more people are coming across the trendy browser's extensibility. The latest of these new extensions is becoming wildly popular amongst 'Foxers' in the know, as it allows users to tweak how the browser renders the page being displayed. It has however got the Security community's knickers in a knot. News.com gives the low down:

A new Firefox extension that lets people customize their experience of the sites they visit is stirring excitement among Web surfers and consternation among security experts.

Greasemonkey, a new extension to the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser, lets people run what's known as a "user script," which alters a Web page as it's downloaded.

That capability has gained the extension an avid following of Web surfers who want to customize the sites they visit, removing design glitches and stripping sites of ads. But the extension comes with substantial security risks, and could stir trouble among site owners who object to individual, custom redesigns of their pages.

More here, as long as GreaseMonkey lets it through.

 

sounds neat enough for me to give ff a second chance, at very least just to see the add-on in action

 

Allowing users to change the appearance of a website with scripts, not just CSS manipulation... if this becomes popular, websites are going to end up as just huge RSS files!

Nezuji

 

This just sounds like some computer conglomerates bitching because people have found a way to turn off banner adverts.