Google disrespects my freedom to choose what content I see in my own browser. In fact, it attempts to deny me it.
Despite having had a Google account for many years, I can see this relationship coming to an end. Big Tech abuses its users in order to stay profitable… and there’s a word for that.
So, if you use #Firefox, best to expect information leakage back to #Google anyway.ย If you value your privacy and want a functional browser, check out Pale Moon!
It takes heroes like Edward Snowden to reveal how malicious governments can become. The Snowden revelations during the summer of 2013 showed that not only does everyone have to be wary of internet-based “threats”, but that those threats could be in the form of legally-appointed agencies seeking to catch out anyone who accidentally clicks something they shouldn’t.
Worryingly, despite the big players’ assurances of high levels of security, a post on Ars Technica discusses (and links to) slides created by the NSA, and leaked by Snowden, showing how Google’s international internet traffic was intercepted, analysed and understood – for a variety of its services. Thankfully, more heroes have recently stepped forwards with updates of their own.
My heroes today are +Brandon Downey and +Mike Hearn, who have voiced their contempt for the authoritarian misuse of power with, as we like to call it, the two-fingered salute (this would be one finger in the USโฆ).
Google, too, has a data-collection objective
Let us not forget who Google is and what it does.ย Yes, while its employees might be upset that their systems’ security has been brought into question, their employer’s mission “is to organize the worldโs information and make it universally accessible and useful”.ย So Google, too, has a data-collection objective.
The good thing about the Snowden revelations, if indeed any of them can be “good”, is that it has revealed how much work still needs to be done and how much we assume our data won’t be intercepted and inspected. It’s no longer safe to think like that, and the use of encryption should be mandatory between two end-points.
But now that the larger players are catching up with better security implementations, who is there to help the smaller players? Running a hosting outfit myself, I know how much time is required to stay informed with regards to common exploits and vulnerabilities, as well as implementing working solutions when certain zero-day exploits are revealed. Every internet service provider, hosting company and other entity transacting business via the internet has a responsibility towards safeguarding confidential data. How many take it seriously enough?
It’s time the larger players stepped up and started working collectively in a security community designed to help the smaller players in the market, rather than try to pwn the market itself; if that were to happen, the purpose of the internet would be destroyed and the argument moot.
Although Google Chrome is a very fast browser, it lacks one key feature which seems designed to lock users in – any account migration facilities to support moving to other browsers.ย This post is intended to help you move your saved passwords from Chrome to Firefox.
While following the instructions in that post,ย take note of these steps below before you close your browser. If you have also set up a separate encryption password for your browser, don’t worry – this method still allows access.
Disconnect Google account in Settings
In Chrome settings, as a precation, I disconnected my Google account before closing the browser. Therefore, any changes I could make to this temporary session wouldn’t ever be uploaded back to Google.
Password Exporter allows you to import passwords too, so you can avoid the need to install any third-party workarounds like LastPass (which again require you to upload all your browser data).Firstly, though, using Password Exporter in Firefox (Tools > Add ons โฆ Extensions > Password Exporter > Preferences), we can export a sample CSV file to see how Password Exporter expects its import data. Simply click “Export Passwords” and save the file to your home directory.
NOTE: This requires that at least one password is saved in Firefox already.
We need to match up the firefox CSV headings with the corresponding Chrome CSV headings. To do this quickly, use a spreadsheet tool I used LibreOffice Calc.
Once the fields are mapped, there’s a couple more important steps to undertake.
Export in the right format!
Firstly, when you come to exporting from your spreadsheet application, make sure you choose to edit the output filter. In the Export Text File dialog, make sure “Quote all text cells” does not have a check (tick) in the box.
For good measure, I also selected ASCII/US in encoding type,ย as that is the format used by Password Exporter when exporting.ย ย I think the importer should handle ISO-8859-1 and/or UTF-8, but your mileage may vary.
Now export it.
Remember seeing the additional header in the exported CSV file? It might have looked something like this:
# Generated by Password Exporter; Export format 1.1; Encrypted: false
In order to tell Password Exporter what format to expect its data in, this heading needs to be added back. Howeverโฆ the best way to do this is via a text editor, not in a spreadsheet program.
Open up GEdit, Emacs, Viโฆ whatever. Add that line to the top, but remove any trailing commas! It should now look like this:
# Generated by Password Exporter; Export format 1.0.4; Encrypted: false
"hostname","username","password","formSubmitURL","httpRealm","usernameField","passwordField"
One more step before you import!
A side-effect of exporting your CSV in LibreOffice is that empty cells are not quoted. In other words, the comma-separated values may appear like this:
Did you see those two commas with nothing between? The Password Exporter won’t like that when trying to import, so do a quick search-and-replace:
Search for ,, and replace with ,””,
Finally, save the file.ย Again, ENSURE the file type is US/ASCII.
Successfully importing passwords!
Now open up the Password Exporter dialog from Firefox and click Import Passwords – you should see progress in the dialog shortly.
CAVEAT #1: BUG WHEN IMPORTING v1.2-EXPORTED DATA
There is an import bug when the version header is declared as 1.1. However, you can get around this by “fudging” the import header to an older version (I used 1.0.4). If you have trouble importing, adjust your header in the file to look like this:
If you have a curious bent – and you bought a Chromebook thinking it would be the answer to all problems, then chances are you probably gave up on that notion fairly quickly and installed a variant of GNU/Linux on it.
If so, well done. Thankfully, Daniel Berrange – a Red Hat fellow and Fedora users, posted some instructions on how to get Fedora 18 (Spherical Cow) installed on a Samsung series 3 (XE303C12) Chromebook. This is the route I decided to take, having been a Fedora user for many years. But I digress.
If you have GNU/Linux installed on a Series 3 Chromebook, you may want to remap those Google-inspired function keys that run across the top. You know, those keys with the arrows, reload, window-size/position, brightness and volume icons… Yeah. Actually, they’re function keys: F1 to F10.
A good read for how to identify what each key is can be found here, on this askubuntu post which details the xev command. ย xev displays the numeric keycode of the keyboard key (!) you just pressed.
Keys F1-F10 use the following keycodes:
Key
Keycode
Equivalent
Back
67
F1
Forward
68
F2
Reload
69
F3
Resize
70
F4
Stacking
71
F5
Bright down
72
F6
Bright up
73
F7
Mute
74
F8
Sound down
75
F9
Sound up
76
F10
Using xev, you can remap the function keys to something more appropriate to your environment.
To remap these keys, we now need to identify what extended functionality the XF86 multimedia keyset provides.
