This week I’ve got two very serious freebies for you.
Security, as some of you may know, is near and dear to my heart.
In my day job, I’m a system administrator and constantly worried about security. It’s a huge issue. Lately, you all may have been hearing news stories about the “Heartbleed SSL vulnerability” which, in theory, could endanger your personal login information, as well as other account credentials or other things you’d want to keep private. It’s not entirely clear how bad that particular vulnerability actually is, but it’s pretty universally recognized as “not good”. So, what to do? Well, if you use Firefox, like I do, you can install the Heartbleed extension, which automagically checks every site you go to and lets you know if the site may be vulnerable to the Heartbleed SSL security hole. Just follow the link, click on “Add to Firefox”, then restart your browser. After that it will display a little green or redicon letting you know if the site you’re on is okay or not. Or, as the author puts it, “GREEN is GOOD, RED is BAD”
The second plugin comes in two flavors, one for Firefox and one for Google Chrome. More importantly though it’s from the EFF. This little beauty is called Privacy Badger and it’s meant as a preventative step in keeping you safe and private. In the EFF’s words, Privacy Badger “… is a browser add-on that stops advertisers and other third-party trackers from secretly tracking where you go and what pages you look at on the web. If an advertiser seems to be tracking you across multiple websites without your permission, Privacy Badger automatically blocks that advertiser from loading any more content in your browser. To the advertiser, it’s like you suddenly disappeared. ”
And, remember, these are both free, for your safety and protection!
So, go and download these and make the system administrator in your life happy by giving them one less thing to worry about when you’re on-line!
