Adobe Issues Final Linux Flash Player Release

[vertexSymphony]

I'll rather talk about Chromium instead of Chrome ... remember that the article cited ( http://chromium.hybridsource.org/the-iron-scam ), compares the open-source base for Chrome, not Chrome itself (which is proprietary, and because of that, I won't accept or deny anything of it)
The browser is fine, but people tends to dislike the involvement of Google, so a lot of the """"arguments""" come from there, no proofs though (honestly, as developers is that hard to inspect the source of an open source software? really?)...

Regards.

[crazycheese]

It is. And someone once dug through the code to find out the differences compared to Chrome (well, Chromium): http://chromium.hybridsource.org/the-iron-scam. Basically, the differences are very minimal. Stuff is removed that's configurable in Chrome anyway, or isn't actually tracking you. The only difference since then, Iron now has a built-in adblocker. That's it. That's the big secret behind the "safe" Iron and the "big bad spying on you" Chrome.

Basically, this person is counting on people believing in the boogeyman to get ad-revenue. That's the "scam" part about it. Nothing illegal, so not a true scam, but there's deceit and hypocrisy. Deceit, because you're not any safer with Iron, there's no special sauce in it that makes it harder for ad companies to track you (an adblocker is not special sauce, every browser has adblocking extensions available). And hypocrisy, because he's using adsense. So apparently, Google's browser is evil but nothing wrong in taking money from Google's ad platform. Ironically, it's actually the ad platform that really is tracking you.

Yes, all correct. He is making money and not hurting anyone. He has his own tiny private chirch hehe.

[Gusar]

Is SR Iron opensource?

It is. And someone once dug through the code to find out the differences compared to Chrome (well, Chromium): http://chromium.hybridsource.org/the-iron-scam. Basically, the differences are very minimal. Stuff is removed that's configurable in Chrome anyway, or isn't actually tracking you. The only difference since then, Iron now has a built-in adblocker. That's it. That's the big secret behind the "safe" Iron and the "big bad spying on you" Chrome.

Basically, this person is counting on people believing in the boogeyman to get ad-revenue. That's the "scam" part about it. Nothing illegal, so not a true scam, but there's deceit and hypocrisy. Deceit, because you're not any safer with Iron, there's no special sauce in it that makes it harder for ad companies to track you (an adblocker is not special sauce, every browser has adblocking extensions available). And hypocrisy, because he's using adsense. So apparently, Google's browser is evil but nothing wrong in taking money from Google's ad platform. Ironically, it's actually the ad platform that really is tracking you.

[crazycheese]

http://neugierig.org/software/chromi...9/12/iron.html

I have found nothing "scam"-like in his IRC responses. He makes money by Ads, and he makes some event - this is nothing new or illegal. This site works partially with this method.

The only claim that stays is: can you trust third party? This is not easy question. Is SR Iron opensource?

[gordboy]

strace tells all

The mechanism is irrelevant.
What matters is what bad apps look at.
In other words which files they read.

The way to know what files an app looks at is strace.

strace -e open -o BADAPP badapp

will create a file called BADAPP containing details of all the "open" system calls, that the badapp makes. If you do this for skype you will see that it looks all over your mozilla profiles, and a host of places it has no right to look.

One way to manage this is to create a seperate user for each dodgy app and run it as that user. Lock down all the permissions on all the /home/* and users cannot read each others' files.

[Gusar]

The parts that "phone home to the mothership"

Seriously?

How about some specific examples, like which parts exactly and what kind of info do they send when "phoning home"?

[DeepDayze]

What nasty parts?

The parts that "phone home to the mothership"

[Gusar]

Iron is basically Chrome with the nasty parts ripped out

What nasty parts?

[m_gol]

What makes you believe its a scam? I use it and its not really a bad browser. Iron is basically Chrome with the nasty parts ripped out

http://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2009/12/iron.html

[DeepDayze]

SRWare Iron is a scam so good luck with using it because of privacy issues with Google Chrome.

What makes you believe its a scam? I use it and its not really a bad browser. Iron is basically Chrome with the nasty parts ripped out