Browser plugins most popular point of attack

We could have expected it. According to a recent ISS (IBM now) X-Force study, all these nifty browser plugins, have become the biggest point of attack for hackers.
The major source of vulnerabilities is the browser:

And the most important source of vulnerabilities within the browser are plugins:

Surprisingly only exploits for internet exploder active-X plugins have been reported, while I thought the firefox plugins were the most popular.
Maybe their vulnerabilities don't get reported because most are small projects run by individual freeware contributors? There is a list with officially recommended add-ons, but these recommendations are probably more related to stability than to security.
Maybe they don't count extension exploits?

Installing Vista

Installing Vista on our new PC. My first Dell. Good price and swift service.
Experiences:

• no builtin support for mounting DVD images. Downloaded virtual clone drive. Once installed, just double click and your .iso file is mounted just like a real DVD.
• to edit system files (like etc/hosts) you need to start your editor in admin mode first

docX converter

Creating a new Office 2007 file format (.docx, .xltx) is a good way to push people to buying the new release. After all it is embarassing having to confess you work with old software and asking your partners to send stuff int the old format.
You can download a converter from Microsoft (if you have a valid legacy Office licence). It's been out for a while, but I notice many people don't know it.

Favourite Firefox extensions

Nicest thing about firefox these days are its extensions.
Internet explorer is also jumping on the bandwagon but somehow this seems to pollute the field with all kinds of nagware.
Anyway, here are some of my favourites

• Adblock

Filter out ads to make you pages lighter and more zen. And you can subscribe to filter sets, filtering out the common ones (I got one for belgian/dutch sites).

• IE tab

Lets you render firefox tabs using internet explorer (on windows), so you can browse pages that don't follow standards (e.g. Sharepoint)

• printpdf

Convert a web page to a pdf. Usefull if you want to send a html report page or such to someone.

• search buttons
• SearchWP: Convert search words in the search box into buttons that let you immediatly search in the web page you found. Great, with a drawback: you have to take care to click next to the buttons when you want to modify the searchbox.
• Searchbox Sync: Update your search box (left top) with search terms entered on search engine pages like google etc. By the same author as SearchWP and a great match.

• mousegestures.

No need to move to the menu's or keyboard anymore,
use the mouse to command your browser.


This one takes you forward in your browsing history. Press right mouse button, move left. As you see it highlights the command you draw.




This one does the same, but only by clicking. Keep left button pressed and press right. Obviously right button, then left takes you back



There's a standard set of actions and you can import your preferred actions from sets made by enthousiasts (plugins of the plugin), or add your own. I added this one from the gesture exchange site:



This mod opens my current page in a new tab. Handy when you want to "branch off" while browsing and still keep the main flow available.