Reported Attack Site! Firefox + Google = The New Internet Vigilantes? (no thanks)
ATTENTION WEB SURFER: WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!?!
Is basically the message I was greeted with after restoring a Firefox session following a version update for a few of my saved tabs on sites I visit regularly. It seems that with its most recent version, Firefox has teamed up with Google in an effort to protect presumably unscrupulous users from accidentally stumbling upon sites that they seem to think will maliciously install software on your system (or, at least, try to). Seeing a few of my tabs load with a “NO” icon instead of what I would normally expect was quite a shock as these sites it had flagged are not any that I’ve ever considered particularly malicious. (I’ve been accessing them with no issues for some time now, though my continued use of Adblock Plus and No Script may be the reason for my lack of suspicious activity).
My initial thought was that a random addon would be the cause of this alert, but upon clicking the “Why was this site blocked?” button, I was surprised to see the real answer
One of the new features that will be introduced in certain skews of Windows 7 is an application knows as XP Mode, a virtualized install of (generally) Windows XP that allows users to run Windows XP apps side by side with programs running on Windows 7. This seemingly opens up a whole new world of potential when it comes to using virtualization as security. Having a program running streamline with your main operating system while being completely isolated from the system itself would be quite a boon. Unfortunately, however, Microsoft may come through and chose convenience over security and leave a few holes open.
