Google to close blacklist support for anti-phishing feature in Firefox 2.0

Google will soon be 'disabling' the anti-phishing feature used by many versions of Firefox 2.0. According to Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox, Google will be shutting down the blacklist that the anti-phishing feature in Firefox 2 relies on.

Mozilla warned users in December 2008 that Firefox 2.0 would soon drop support and would lack the anti-phishing feature, as Google wanted to discontinue the obsolete blacklist protocol. Though the two most-recent builds of Firefox 2.0 (2.0.0.19 and 2.0.0.20) have, as requested by Google, omitted the anti-phishing feature, earlier versions rely on a query to a Google server for a list of sites suspected for hosting identity theft scams.

Although Firefox 3.0 has been out since June of 2008, many people are still using old versions of Firefox 2.0 and have not updated. Mozilla say "If you’re using an old version of Firefox 2, even though the feature is enabled in your browser, as of January 20th no new data will be sent to your computer. We strongly recommended that you upgrade to Firefox 3."

If users wish to continue using Firefox 2.0, Mr Beltzner recommends "turning off the preference titled – Tell me if the site I’m visiting is a suspected forgery – in the Security preferences." Users of Firefox 3.0 are not affected as phishing and malware protection are included in all versions of Firefox 3.0 and these protections will continue to function normally.

(crve)