[tor-talk] Invaded by disconnect.me

[Mirimir]

On 05/31/2015 09:41 PM, Mirimir wrote:
> On 05/31/2015 08:55 PM, Paul A. Crable wrote:
>> Perhaps someone could help me here.  On version 4.5.1 of the Tor (Firefox)
>> browser, the search field, to the right of the place to enter the URL, now
>> has a symbol on it that is proprietary to disconnect.me.  I have also
>> found that while working on the WWW, from time to time a screen comes up
>> from direct.me asking me to enter search terms and to select the search
>> engine to use.
>>
>> It appears that disconnect.me has hijacked the search field in Foxfile,
>> and also found a way to interpose it's own search screen when URL's cannot
>> be found.  I have done nothing to make this happen, and unfortunately
>> don't know what I can do to make it go away.
>>
>> Can anyone explain why this is happening?
>>
>> Until now the default search engine for Tor was Start Page, but that's
>> gone.  Is Tor no longer using Start Page as the default search engine?
>>
>> I expect this kind of thing with a standard browser, but I thought Tor and
>> Foxfile had pretty well locked things down to prevent this kind of thing
>> happening.
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>>
>> Paul
>>
> 
> At first, I was just going to say that disconnect.me is the default
> search option in Tor Browser 4.5.1. But then I see on the blog:[0]
> 
> | Last comment for the disconnect search add-on on on mozillas
> | add-on pages does not sound good.
> |
> |
> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/disconnect-search/reviews/678756/
> |
> | >This plugin should enhance security, but in fact is doing
> | quite opposite.
> | Disconnect-search is regularly uploading plugin settings and
> | usage data, along with unique user ID, browser Agent string
> | and IP address not only to the developers website, but to
> | third parties as well (amazon servers of unknown account and
> | adobe stats servers).
> |
> | That is confirmed in the discussion about a different bug:
> | https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1166692#c1
> 
> Some clarification would be good.
> 
> [0] https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-browser-451-released

Looking in Tor browser 4.5.1, I see that the disconnect search add-on is
not installed. And so there's presumably far less of an issue. I should
have checked before replying.

But official clarification would still be good.