Using JonDoFox

Table of Content

CSLite, Adblock Plus...

JonDoFox Features

In the following, the main features of our JonDoFox extension will be explained. They allow the user to surf the web in a more secure and convenient way:

Stay flexible and switch proxy

If you would like to surf the Web with a different (local) proxy than JonDo or without any proxy, just use the button integrated in JonDoFox (down right) in order to switch between different proxy configurations:

• No Proxy: If no proxy is set, JonDoFox directly connects to the Internet. Attention: Your IP address will be sent in plain and is not hidden!
• Custom: Using this setting, you may use your own proxy configuration. Choose Preferences in order to create an individual proxy configuration. However, this is only recommended for experts.
• Tor: If you have installed and started the program Tor you may use it as an alternative to JonDo with this setting.
• JonDo: When this setting is active, JonDoFox sends the browser's communication data to JonDo. JonDo needs to be separately installed and started.

Whenever you like to bypass the proxy without completely deactivating it (e.g. when downloading large files to save time and money), just open the context menu with a right mouse click on the file and choose Bypass JonDo/Tor/Proxy and Save Link As...

Referer-Management

The Referer is one of those HTTP features that allow to distinguish different users while surfing the web and therefore, to reduce their anonymity. But that can be avoided activating our Referer management:

With it, the Referer is not simply deleted as some webservices are not available without it. Rather, the Referer will or will not be set depending on the context of a particular request. E.g. it will be set as long as a user is surfing within the same domain and will not be set if a bookmark is used to request a particular web page. This context dependent behavior ensures that no web pages will break while at the same time the Referer cannot be used to gather information to identify users.

User Agent-Management

Information regarding users surfing the web may not only be gathered analyzing the Referer but examing the individual User Agent header as well. Therefore, we built an uniform User Agent which all users of JonDo are sending along while requesting pages on the WWW. If a user wants to connect to the Tor network instead of using JonDo the User Agent is rebuilt again, this time matching the one issued by the Tor project and its browser add-on, Torbutton. And, additionally, if someone wants to configure a proxy manually then she has the opportunity to choose between different User Agents, i.e. Unchanged (leaving the default setting), JonDo and Tor:

Mitigating cache attacks

Besides the possibility to obtain user related information examining the Referer, the User Agent and other HTTP headers, the browser cache can be exploited as well to achieve this goal. An attacker may, for instance, try to get some information out of the fact that web pages saved in the cache are loaded faster than the same, non-cached ones. Or she might try to set so-called cache cookies to identify a particular user across different domains. In order to better protect our users against this kind of attack we included the slightly modified code of the SafeCache extension into JonDoFox. In the preferences panel (within the privacy tab) you will find a corresponding hint:

Detecting faked SSL-Certificates

In order to provide a better protection against faked SSL-certificates we enhanced the functionality of the Certificate Patrol extension and included it into JonDoFox (as can be seen in the JonDoFox settings panel):

...

On the one hand, this allows users to check the fingerprint of a certificate very easily. On the other hand a helpful dialog is shown to the user indicating whether there could be something wrong with an updated certificate, thus supporting the user to avoid information leaks due to faked certificates and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Using JonDoFox

Table of Content

CSLite, Adblock Plus...