Microsoft IE, Proxies and Sandboxing

I switched from using Internet Explorer to Firefox about a year and a half ago, with no regrets. The only downside has been using sites that require ActiveX controls, such as Windows Update, Sharepoint intranet administration and sites that distribute software using Microsoft .Net "click-once" deployment. And damn these sites for forcing me to use IE! The reason to avoid IE (widely known) is poor security. Despite this, I know people who are still using it and think nothing of it. It makes increasing sense that open source solutions such as Firefox help with security. The source code is reviewed widely by people both inside and outside the organization, and vulnerabilities are identified and corrected regularly as a result.

Since I made the switch, my anti-spyware has shown a remarkable drop in my acquisition of spyware/malware while surfing. In fact, the only things I regularly see are the odd tracking cookie. Between good habits like not opening email attachments, setting mail readers (Windows-based and web-based) to not display graphics in HTML email, running a software as well as a hardware firewall, keeping my systems updated and fully patched and running anti-virus software (AVG free edition currently), I have happily avoided infection. And not just obvious infection, but any infection. People who may not know this should be aware that increasingly, malware can run without obvious symptoms while intercepting information you are entering in various places.

You can further lessen your exposure to bad things by installing your own proxy server, such as Proxomitron, which is installed and configured on your machine. By piping all web requests through this local HTTP filtering program and configuring it in various ways, you have another useful means of blocking bad content. The details of this would require an entire article, but their website is a good place to start.

And speaking of proxy servers, IE has or had (it may have been patched) another issue with using the auto-detect proxy settings option. Steve Gibson described this on a recent TWIT security podcast. Even without the vulnerability, you want to uncheck this option to avoid the performance hit it causes.

The other issue that concerns me is web surfing on machines that other people have access to. I would like to be able to buy something online and do things like log into my work email without leaving cached information on the machine's browser. The solution may be sandboxing, which Steve Gibson also recently discussed. Using a tool like Sandboxie, you can avoid leaving typical artifacts of browsing on the machine you're using. Sandboxie basically creates a virtual sandbox in which it runs any application (such as IE), and all caching is done in the sandbox. When you're finished, these files are deleted when the sandbox is shut down. That is brilliant.