urlclassifier3.sqlite gets absurdly large?

[rsteves]

There are two checkboxes in the Tools>Options>Security.
* Tell me if the site I'm visiting is a suspected attack site
* Tell me if the site I'm visiting is a suspected forgery

Does anyone know what effect (if any) unchecking these will have on the size that urlclassifier3.sqlite grows to?

My feeling is that anyone with the technical ability to find urlclassifier3.sqlite, determine its purpose, and choose to delete it probably has sufficient ability to identify potential attack/forgery sites without FF's help.

[Dorus]

I believe that unchecking those 2 options completely disable the urlclassifier3.sqlite, it shouldn't grow any more, or come back after you delete it.


On the other hand, if you think you can identify every random phising site on the net, you serious overestimate yourself. Most phising sites are easy to catch, but there are also those that are damn hard. If those 50-60MiB for the urlclassifier3.sqlite worries you, you got a serious disk space shortage. 1 uncaught sphising site could cost quite a amounth of GiB's hard space at the current exchange rate of about 12cent/GiB.

[oorwullie]

Strange thing! I do not have urlclassifier3.sqlite in my working profile but in a new, clean profile I have one. In my working profile I have only a small urlclassifierkey3.txt file. Am I missing something?

[steviex]

I think it got moved elsewhere, to Local Folders, in some versions of Firefox... If you updated from Firefox 3.0.* then it might be in an alternate location....

[oorwullie]

Yes, that's it. Found it in Local Settings. Thank you.

[mundivagante]

I've just started looking at firefox - could someone tell me why I want the urlclassifier database if my antivirus/internet protection software is functioning & uptodate? Isn't this unnecessary duplication?

Thanks

[Dorus]

No, it's additional. Beside, a virusscanner won't protect you against phising attacks, not to mention that virus scanners aren't 100% perfect.

[ndebord]

No, it's additional. Beside, a virusscanner won't protect you against phising attacks, not to mention that virus scanners aren't 100% perfect.

Dorus,

It's not that I don't want anti-phising capability, it's just that (thank you very much) I want to control the anti-phising, malware, virus, rootkit apps that I use to handle the dark side of surfing on the worldwide web. Which is why I have disabled Google's anti-phising tie-in to FireFox 3.5. If I wanted close integration with Google, I'd use Chrome as my browser, not FireFox. Add in the occasional uncontrolled growth of urlclassifier3.sqlite as this is Mozilla's first time out of the box attempt to use a real dbase program to handle its various modules (bookmark, cookies, history, anti-phising, etc.) and you have the potential for some mightly large sqlite files sitting around in your profile sub-folder.

Let's see what happens when FF 3.5.1 comes out in a couple of weeks in terms of what kind of bugfixes make it to Gold.

[BigWillyStyle42]

No, it's additional. Beside, a virusscanner won't protect you against phising attacks, not to mention that virus scanners aren't 100% perfect.

Dorus,

It's not that I don't want anti-phising capability, it's just that (thank you very much) I want to control the anti-phising, malware, virus, rootkit apps that I use to handle the dark side of surfing on the worldwide web. Which is why I have disabled Google's anti-phising tie-in to FireFox 3.5. If I wanted close integration with Google, I'd use Chrome as my browser, not FireFox. Add in the occasional uncontrolled growth of urlclassifier3.sqlite as this is Mozilla's first time out of the box attempt to use a real dbase program to handle its various modules (bookmark, cookies, history, anti-phising, etc.) and you have the potential for some mightly large sqlite files sitting around in your profile sub-folder.

Let's see what happens when FF 3.5.1 comes out in a couple of weeks in terms of what kind of bugfixes make it to Gold.

Bookmarks and history were migrated to SQLite as part of 3.0... and I'm pretty sure the phishing data has always been in SQLite.

EDIT: this thread is pretty old, but I was right, SQLite was used back in 2.0 for the anti-phishing data so this is hardly their first time using it.

[LoudNoise]

Moving out of Builds to General.

[geeknik]

My urlclassifier3.sqlite is 37.9MB and it was first created 4/15/09. I don't see why it's a problem for people. Oh wait, yes I do...

ZOMG, Google is inside your pc, stealing your datas!#%

Whatever. Your ISP knows more about you than Google ever will.

[VanillaMozilla]

It's not that I don't want anti-phising capability, it's just that (thank you very much) I want to control the anti-phising, malware, virus, rootkit apps that I use to handle the dark side of surfing on the worldwide web. Which is why I have disabled Google's anti-phising tie-in to FireFox 3.5. If I wanted close integration with Google, I'd use Chrome as my browser, not FireFox.

What close integration? By default, Firefox downloads a list of suspicious Web sites from Google. If you try to visit one of those Web sites, it warns you. That's all. There's nothing sinister, and you can't get any less intrusive spyware protection that that. It doesn't send Google ANY information about what Web sites you visit, unless you choose to do so.

You've been around here long enough to know better, or at least ask first. Now stop trolling and spreading FUD.

ZOMG, Google is inside your pc, stealing your datas!#%

You've been misinformed. No such thing is happening.

[ndebord]

What close integration? By default, Firefox downloads a list of suspicious Web sites from Google. If you try to visit one of those Web sites, it warns you. That's all. There's nothing sinister, and you can't get any less intrusive spyware protection that that. It doesn't send Google ANY information about what Web sites you visit, unless you choose to do so.

You've been around here long enough to know better, or at least ask first. Now stop trolling and spreading FUD.

Sorry i wasn't clear in articulating my concerns. I gather you don't see any conflict of interest between Google running the blacklist and Firefox using it to determine which sites are potentially dangerous to web surfers and which sites are theoretically safe? This, after all, is a private list, not monitored or evaluated by an open source community.

[Bluefang]

The same can be said for the vast majority of all phishing/malware/antivirus software.

[ndebord]

The same can be said for the vast majority of all phishing/malware/antivirus software.

Bluefang,

Absolutely correct. Case in point, IE8. The question one should ask is what makes the blacklist (or not) and why and who decides what is safe for the whitelist and is it actually safe.