Posted by John Williamson on 05/22/07 19:40

nappy wrote:
> Could that be Firefox's "Automatically check for updates to search engines"
> feature?
>
> What IS that link you provided?
>
Both links quoted, if you strip them down to the bit between the colons,
point to a basic Google interface, without the current customisation. It
seems from this machine to hold a partial list of recent searches you've
done, if you just click on the empty dialogue box.

This may be a list on the user's local machine or a list held related to
a known IP address. It may be possible to check this by changing your
IP address.

Which I just did, by logging on through a different ISP. It comes up
with the same list of searches carried out. So it appears the list is on
my local machine, but is not a full list of recent searches. The login
used a different interface adaptor, & a different account & username, so
the list is not connected with those.

Backtracing the connection comes up with the following end point:-

OrgName: Google Inc.
OrgID: GOGL
Address: 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
City: Mountain View
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 94043
Country: US

NetRange: 72.14.192.0 - 72.14.255.255
CIDR: 72.14.192.0/18
NetName: GOOGLE
NetHandle: NET-72-14-192-0-1
Parent: NET-72-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS1.GOOGLE.COM
NameServer: NS2.GOOGLE.COM
NameServer: NS3.GOOGLE.COM
NameServer: NS4.GOOGLE.COM
Comment:
RegDate: 2004-11-10
Updated: 2007-04-10

RTechHandle: ZG39-ARIN
RTechName: Google Inc.
RTechPhone: +1-650-318-0200
RTechEmail: arin-contact@google.com

OrgTechHandle: ZG39-ARIN
OrgTechName: Google Inc.
OrgTechPhone: +1-650-318-0200
OrgTechEmail: arin-contact@google.com

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2007-05-21 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.


The list disappears when logging onto the URLs using Internet Explorer,
so it's probably being held in the local settings files for Firefox. I
don't reckon there's any spying going on, by that check.

I get the same list of recent searches on both URL's.

If you want to know more, mozilla.org or google should be the people to ask.

HTH.
>
> "John Williamson" <johnwilliamson@btinternet.com> wrote in message
> news:OvqdnfzzsIjVjs7bnZ2dnUVZ8sqjnZ2d@bt.com...
>> Frank wrote:
>>> On Tue, 22 May 2007 08:51:15 GMT, in 'rec.video.desktop',
>>> in article <Firefox has build in copy right spy>,
>>> Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Well I found this typing 'netstat', allmost all the time I found
>>>> tcp 0 0 my.ip.address:40337 po-in-f91.google.co:www
>>>> ESTABLISHED
>>>>
>>>> So Firefox is all by itself connecting to po-in-f91.google.com
>>> Indeed, it is. I've noticed this also. It makes me want to put Firefox
>>> in the spyware category, but I haven't had the time to actually
>>> capture and analyze the traffic, so it might be quite benign for all I
>>> know. OTOH, I still don't like the fact that it establishes this
>>> connection to begin with. In fact, I very strongly resent it.
>>>
>> My copy doesn't do this to that address (Version 2.0.0.3, on XP
>> Professional Service pack 2, connecting from the UK)
>> It may be that this connection is part of the anti-phishing settings
>> (Options>Security)
>> "Check if the site is a forgery"
>>
>> The equivalent on my system is bu-in-f93.google.com:http It reads either
>> ESTABLISHED or TIME-WAIT
>>
>> My system runs on the downloaded database setting. The help file says that
>> the main anti-Phishing database used is held at Google.
>>
>> We could always ask the Firefox people. It's supposedly open source.
>>
>> Tciao for Now!
>>
>> John.
>
>

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