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New secure browser Browzar is fake and full of adware

web3.0log.org — Social news rave about Browzar - they claim it a new secure browser leaving no footprints. After looking at it closer, I found out that it's not a browser at all, and moreover, this software thrusts search via it's own PPC-SE full of ads on user.

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  • LecherousVenom, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Hah, this other story was posted a minute later....

    http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2010991,00.asp?kc=EWWKNEMNL090106EOAD

    eWeek, of course, reprinting press releases....
    • Xiol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7*blatent top thread whoring, read before modding*

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5305250.stm?ls

      You can complain about this article here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/feedback/default.stm

      I have, and I'd like to see if we can make a difference.
    • rkettner, on 10/12/2007, -15/+3I really don't understand why this article is getting any diggs at all. I mean... should we list every app that is dumb or useless? The software doesn't actually do any HARM does it? If dumb people want to use it... great for them. I'm sure we all could list better solutions for this, and about 95% of other apps out there... but that doesn't mean we should make a "digg story" for everything.
    • BitSlash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15rkettner: This story is referring to an earlier digg story that heralded this browser as a secure and safe portable browser.
    • Hurricane, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Told ya so.
    • djlosch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0hurray for the media at large (including the dingbats who dugg the original praise stories over the last few weeks) for not investigating the blather that they spew. then again, i wouldn't be surprised if those diggs were inflated by browzar or overture/yahoo.

      and browzar (as a company) is laughing all the way to the bank as people are scared of the aol search release happening to them.

      what do we learn from this? if i want to make a successful media company, all i have to do is play on people's fear and not bother to verify sources. WOOT!
  • Mousefinger, on 10/12/2007, -1/+49Hmmm...well, this would be interesting if true. I believe even Cnet has a story praising Browzar. Hmmm....the Cnet story does also look to be a vomit of the press release. Browzar people are quote as saying this:

    ' "We get revenue share from the (embedded) search engine (provided by Overture) and other products we'll be coming out with in the future," he said on Thursday.' "He" being one of the Browzar people.

    I wouldn't like something directing me to a ”pay-to-click" search engine either, but then, I wouldn't use IE for much of anything to begin with (not that this couldn't happen to Firefox or Opera as well). I’m not so sure that’s “Spyware”, but maybe it is. It’s Friday and I started drinking at 9 AM.

    /mouse finger
    • jawbreaker4fs, on 10/12/2007, -2/+41Mod up for drinking at 9am!
    • Dawnspire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23The morning really is the best time to drink, you have your hangover at night while youre sleeping! Then wake up and do it all over again.
    • Seumas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Don't confuse some random person's blog on CNET with actual CNET news content. I for one bury a story every time it links to a "blog" on CNET, because it's usually just the author trying to impress CNET and rank up in their list of "contributors".
  • zackz, on 10/12/2007, -5/+130How can a browser be safe if it 'requires' IE to run?
    • samlo, on 10/12/2007, -25/+10Very nice note!
    • Waterrat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20 Good point...
      I'm staying with Firefox...
    • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18"How can a browser be safe if it 'requires' IE to run?"

      I considered submitting this story, but as soon as I saw it ran on IE I knew it had to be some kind of crap. No self-respecting dev would claim to have made a "secure" browser by using the IE engine.
  • hansamurai, on 10/12/2007, -5/+47The public won't even use Firefox, why would they use Browzar?
    • ilyag, on 10/12/2007, -6/+24Everyone I know (the vast majority of whom are NOT computer geeks) use Firefox. Tabbed browsing converted all of them.

      If you use a computer on a REGULAR basis, and you're an average person, chances are that you use Firefox. It's the people who RARELY use computers (and who incidentally make up the majority of all computer users) who are the ones that stick with IE, for the simple reason that they don't care.

      At least this is in my experience, and the people I associate myself with have very different backgrounds and experience with technology.
    • exabytes18, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I'm forced to use IE at school. Some kids found a way to install Firefox on the school computers, but the admins frown upon that practice greatly. Outside of this, everyone I know uses Firefox.
    • fatdog789, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10In law school, everyone* uses...IE, even though the computers that you can buy through the university are preloaded with Firefox.

      Why?
      Because IE is familiar, and it's obvious that it connects to the internet. Firefox isn't. After all, what does a fox or fire have to do with the internet?

      * except for the 3 or 4 people who were computer science majors or worked in technology fields before returning to school.
    • NtHammer, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7i convinced the admin at my highschool to install firefox and notepad++ :P

      and i finally got them to install php, and hopefully mysql soon
    • davodavo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@exabyte
      www.portableapps.com
    • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10"and i finally got them to install php, and hopefully mysql soon"

      And then you plan to hack them? :)
    • hammydude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11My admins got ***** off that I had firefox installed. I ended up buying a flash drive and just load firefox off of it, there really is no slow down and there is no hassle on trying to get it to work without them noticing.

      Also, with firefox I can set the connection settings to whatever I want, so I just set it to what the admins use and now I have unrestricted internet! (can you believe they blocked digg! Apparently "bulletin boards" are not allowed)
    • ilovenicotine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The kind of people that use IE are the same ones that leave their homepage on msn.com or use the ~$25/month dial-up AOL and think that yahoo is a sweet search engine. They also bought a $1500 computer from gateway so they could print out "lost dog" flyers and use mapquest to get directions to disneyland.
  • Noah0504, on 10/12/2007, -14/+6Well, it looks like their "developing" a Mac and Linux version. It will be interesting to see if they actually ever due... and if they do, what it will be built upon...
    • metacarter, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4It's already available on a Mac. You can do this in Safari by checking 'private browsing' in the Safari menu, no? Guess it shows how much they really know about this.
    • Nothlit, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12their? due? Looks like somebody slept through Homophones 101.
  • cullenw, on 10/12/2007, -1/+29From the download page:

    "System Requirements
    Minimum requirement: Windows 98 Second Edition (SE): with Internet Explorer (IE) 5.5."

    That should have been the first clue.

  • AcidBath, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13All it is is a IE wrapper that turns the history off and sets a default search engine.

    If you want a secondary browser for surfing without leaving a history or cache just download Portable Firefox (http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable) and crank up the privacy options.
    • samlo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8what do you think about Stealther extension - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1306/ ?
    • AcidBath, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Just had to comment and say thanks for turning me onto Stealther. I was looking for something like this about a year ago and had no luck. For a while I was actually using a batch script to swap out my history, etc. This is awesome.
      Thanks again.
    • samlo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I just heard about Stealther when surfed in trackbacks and comments to my article :)
  • anchorman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I tried it just yesterday. I noticed right away that it was using the IE engine. It will not allow you to change your home page. So your stuck with its built in search page which no doubt is designed to make the browzar people a boatload of cash. Then by the design of their home page they try to pass it off as the latest web 2.0 offering. Its garbage. STEER CLEAR!
    • CBTF, on 10/12/2007, -14/+4It's only a homepage.. it may not be honest but is it THAT big of a deal? Firefox makes cash for every search you enter into the built in search area at the top.. so does opera.. chances are that's a lot more income than the folks at browzar see.
    • Reap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12And yet- the difference? Firefox gives you an option to NOT see their search when you start up.
    • diggeasytiger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2firefox on ubuntu and debian comes with no default search engine, so you consciously have to choose.
  • mateja, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Where did they find such unscrupulous programmers to write this?
    • 10scott10, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6somewhere where they needed alot of money
    • FreakTrap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25"programmers" should be "programmer"...

      I could re-make this browser in about 5 minutes with visual basic and photoshop.
    • MikeyJW, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5
      Yeah, and 4:45 of that would be using Photoshop, since the VB part would only take about 15 seconds. Just open a new project, drag the IE control onto the main form, click some properties to set the start page and disable changing it, then hit the Run button.
    • actionscripted, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5All windows programmers are unscrupulous. :)
  • madinga, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Even the BBC has picked up on it - and its now listed as one of their "most popular" stories

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5305250.stm?ls

    It doesn't suprise me, the guy behind it started Freeserve, which was another rubbish company. Also AKQA, although I always thought they were an okay agency. Mind you, I think his greatest skill is marketing vapour
  • motang, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Hmmm...I am not one bit suprised.
  • netwurkpunk, on 10/12/2007, -8/+9It's called ***** BROW-ZAR...do you really want something called BROW-ZAR on your PC anyway?
  • rkettner, on 10/12/2007, -13/+6I may be unpopular for stating this... but really, what's wrong with a company making a browser like this that uses their own search engine. Did anyone really think somebody would put something like this out that is free (with no means to make money)? The title of this thread is a little misleading IMO, as I don't consider this adware at all.

    Surely most Digg users know that firefox is a google affiliate and makes money everytime a user searches with the standard google search box (I've heard rumors of up to $72 million a year).

    http://www.calacanis.com/2006/03/06/firefox-mozilla-corporation-mozilla-foundation-made-72m-last/

    And really... at a few hundred kbs... who really thought this was a stand-alone browser? I can understand the reasoning behind raising awareness about the downsides of this browser... but all out bashing? Come on...
    • razei, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11They advertised it as a browser that completely private. All it is is a watered down skin for IE.
    • samlo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16It isn't search engine. It's advertising engine.
    • Xiol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You can't change the search engine or home page.

      Please tell me what's wrong with the Clear Private Data option in your Tools menu in Firefox.
    • rkettner, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2My guess is... you can't change the homepage cause that would leave at least that page as history (being as it shows it was opened).

      Don't get me wrong... I'm not supporting this software or saying I would ever use it... NOT at all. But for people to be bashing something like this at random, when it isn't really doing anything BAD - is lame. Sure it's no special solution... but is it infecting your computer with spyware or something? NO It's just useless software. Why all this free PR for it anyway?
    • wadabalabadi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1rkettner, you have to understand that the cache is always recoverable to someone that has basic recovery tools. That means it is not securely deleted. Maybe your mom, you little brother or your hamster wont find out, but many other people can.

      There's absolutely no difference if you use Browzar instead of Internet Explorer, other than the auto-complete doesn't work, the homepage is not your decision, and there are a lot less features in it (not even proxy options)
    • rogerka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Who wants to use a web browser, so crippled that you cannot even set your own homepage without using a hex editor?

      http://rogerkarlsson.com/blogs/misc/change-browzar-home-page/
  • madinga, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7And this is his site... he loves himself quite a lot

    http://www.sosavvy.co.uk/
    • riven0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Your serious? Is that really his site? How come I can't get past the first page?
  • source3, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3Who ever put 'Browzar' on digg earlier, is a douchbag :P
  • anti-net, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3If you don't want to leave tracks on the computer, Use portable firefox off a USB stick, the search history will be on the USB stick, not the computer.
  • Technopundit, on 10/12/2007, -13/+2Is this the fate of all "Open Sores" software? Somebody has to make some money from this stuff somewhere along the way...
    • noamsml, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I don't think it was ever open source.
    • Xiol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9It's not open source and uses IE for rendering.
  • CBTF, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Okay.. so is it just redirecting to it's own pay per click search engine as a homepage?

    That's not ideal but its not as terrible as it's made out to me.. am I missing something here? What else is it doing?

    To me this seems like the way they're making money, because otherwise they'd be releasing this product with no way of paying for things..
    • Ubermensch423, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3the point of complaint is that the description provided for the browser is disingenuous to the user. other than discreetly in the system requirements, they do not reveal the connection to internet explorer. the devs also do not reveal that the browser is limited in its capabilities by not allowing users to use a legitimate search engine. also, as someone pointed out earlier, the browser does leave a history on your computer. its not that the devs wish to make money that outrages people, its the fact that the devs are disingenuous in attempting to make money. firefox makes money, yes, but they also work to serve their users best interests and don't deceive users.
  • noamsml, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Not surprised. No IE shell is ever truly secure. Even if it wasn't full of *****, browsing to porn sites would fill your machine with ***** just like it does with IE.
  • lowerlogic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I'm sorry, but with a name like 'Browzar' I just can't take it seriously, nevermind use it! The name itself looks like a 2nd grader's spelling mistake.
  • ThirdPrize, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Ha, ha!
  • ogre2112, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1@freaktrap

    Agreed. I don't see what the big deal is.

    This is like people getting all excited because HelloWorld.exe gives a popup ad payload.
  • redxii, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4Get Ubuntu and it'll never happen again.
  • Seumas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Oh, gee. None of us saw that coming. Durrr.
  • ddbdfl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Funny, it appeared on Bruce Schneier's Security Blog touted as a secure browser... guess he's getting soft in his old age...

    http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/09/new_anonymous_b.html
    • LecherousVenom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Schier says he doesn't know anything about the product - he's only notated that it was released and quoted the press release. I don't think of that as an endorsement....
  • EyeDoc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5My favourite trick is deleting the IE icon on the desktop and replacing it with Firefox. I then put a shortcut for Firefox on the desktop and change the icon to the IE icon!

    Some people seem to think that if there is no IE icon then they can't get the internet and I have found they don't 'trust'(!) the Firefox icon!
    • Bamborzled, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Remember, Microsoft once labeled the IE icon "The Internet".
  • sonyx, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1Well, when the founder is named Ahmed it should ring a bell or two.. Brainwashed muslims have noe ethics whatsoever.
  • joesnow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3go google search portable apps to get portable firefox ;-p lol
  • mikeswi, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Just tested it.

    1) Yep, homepage is a PPC search engine. You cannot change the home page. In fact, there are no options of any sort.
    2) Signed into Google, closed it, reopened it. I was *not* recognized. No MSIE cookies, temp files or history were saved.
    3) No ads, except that page it starts with.
    4) The user agent is default MSIE. Which is EXACTLY what you want, since it is identical to a hundred million other browsers.
    5) ActiveX is NOT enabled. Java is enabled. Flash is enabled.
    6) Contrary to a post I saw somewhere, you CAN use Google.

    Nice looking skin, but not very useable. No options at all. But it does what it claims to do - nothing was saved that I could see. I wouldn't use it and I don't like the hardcoded home page, but calling it adware is a bit extreme.
  • ravenofwinter, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2OMG! I just downloaded and converted all my PCs to this browser based solely on the DIGG headline earlier today!

    See: http://digg.com/software/New_no_installation_browser_enables_cookie_free_and_history_free_browsing

    I think I'll have to sue rockontop.

    • Xiol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4So you put software on all your PCs that you hadn't tested first (I'm not talking about corporate-style testing, just, you know... making sure you like the damn thing), AND you're not happy with Clear Private Data in Firefox?

      Right. Nice one.
    • OutcastJiob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Xiol, "based solely on the DIGG headline" leads me to believe that ravenofwinter is being sarcastic.
    • ravenofwinter, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm hoping Xiol's reply was sarcastic too.

      It's hard to tell though.

  • andersonmanly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I knew it - crap.
  • techbum, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Want a secure browser? Try the Ubuntu based VM using the VMWare Player.

    1) Download and install VMWare Player (http://www.vmware.com/products/player/) free.
    2) Download the Browser Appliance VM (http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/browserapp.html) and run it using the VMWare Player.

    From the VM's description:

    "The Browser Appliance allows users to securely browse the Internet using Mozilla Firefox. Run the Browser Appliance with VMware Player to:

    * Protect Against Adware and Spyware: Users protect their PCs against adware, spyware and other malware while browsing the Internet with Firefox in a virtual machine. The Browser Appliance leverages virtual machine isolation capabilities to prevent malware downloaded in the browser from propagating to the normal desktop.
    * Safeguard Personal Information: The Browser Appliance can be configured to automatically reset itself after each use so personal information is never stored permanently. "

    • 83457, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Not sure why you got modded down. Thanks for the links and info
  • rkettner, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Everyone is bashing something that we all know is useless. But really, does not harm.
    • mark1372, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Intentionally misleading other people based on questionable ethics is harm.
  • pjkcards, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0It seems fine, nothing special, nothing real bad that I noticed.

    ----
    http://www.cleancomputerhelp.com
  • Filter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's also worth noting that it uses IE's Active X control for displaying web pages. The idea of being cookie-less isn't true because it does temporarily store cookies in the IE cookie folder it just deletes them at close. I didn't do enough research to know if the history or traces were mixed with IE's settings.
  • talledega500, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3wow big surprise.
  • NeonGerbil, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0Browzar can be modified to use the start page YOU want, and the search engine you want as well (to an extent).

    as a proof of concept, im hosting a zip file with 2 versions of the Browzer Black EXE. both use Google as the search engine. one uses Google as its start page, and the other uses my site as its start page.

    i have the file here (i may update the page at a later date with other stuff as well):
    http://xenomorph.net/browzar/
  • whistle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is outright scary.

    IF this is NOT spyware, I don't know what is.

    I wonder how Yahoo (Overture) allows it to be their ad supplier.

    Shame on you Yahoo !!
  • rickbauls, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Soo.... when's that linux port coming?
  • whistle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow. Browzar is getting pr like this.

    http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=browzar&btnG=Search+News
  • Chex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Browzar is so KEWL! Oh wait I just found the security options in firefox... looks like they do the same thing as this broswer is claming. l2usetheweb aka use proxy if you dont want people to find you... I had more faith in digg user than this. Kind of disappointing to see it has 1k+ diggs.

    "Browzar is free and only
    takes seconds to download. Only 264K!"
    Thats a hoot.
  • eghie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have created a secure browser from Firefox Portable 1.5.0.4, using some extensions and the blackbox search enginge. Here you can download it: http://rapidshare.de/files/31659231/Secure_Firefox_Portable.zip.html. It’s only for Windows. If you want it for an other OS, like Linux you have to install the extensions on your own.

    I have also the extentions uploaded, for the users which use an other OS, so they can also secure their versions of Firefox. Here you can download them: http://rapidshare.de/files/31663441/Firefox_Extensions.zip.html

    The security, languages and search engine’s (Zoekmachines (why did I name it in dutch?)) are installed on the portable Firefox version I build, except for the ***** anti-phising plugin, because it scans every site you search for, and that could be an inpact in your privacy, if you care about it though. Therefore I made it optional. It could be quiet handy for beginners though.

    Also I’ve included some Developer plugins, because I am a developer and these I’m going to intergrate in my version of it and put it on my USB disk.

    Please mirror these things, because I don’t know how long Rapidshare is going to hold up.
  • CarolinaJones, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I have hacked out the homepage and changed it to Google.com and changed the default search to Google. I also changed some of the buttons. It's very useful to carry around on a flash device!

    http://www.aqua-soft.org/board/showthread.php?p=414713#post414713
  • wadabalabadi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This guy simply used Restoration to get the history, cookies and other medias back.

    http://wadihacommunautique.blogspot.com/2006/09/browzar-efface-t-il-toutes-vos-traces.html

    Browzar™ does not protect your privacy.
    Browzar™ is in fact a browser that makes use of the Internet Explorer core.
    Browzar™ inherits of any problems Internet Explorer might have.
    Browzar™ permits access to anyone that wants to restore your history, cookies or temporary internet files from the dark corners of your disk.
    Browzar™ doesn't take care of securely deleting history, cookies or any other temporary internet files in order to be unable to recover them.
    Browzar™ doesn't take care of making the file names unsignificant.
    Browzar™ is not ready to be deployed on public computers.
  • aggro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0And it also saves browsing history into index.dat, like IE does. And there is no easy way to clean that file, except third party software (no way from IE meny and no easy way manually).
  • deodand, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Great call by vigilant users calling ***** on this hollow shell of a product. This shows the power of digg, and makes up for the endless parade of Ubuntu User Farts stories ;)
  • weikiat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0do you know, ignorant users, that anyone can easily create a browser like that with all the "security" features, including the lack of autocomplete (just don't code it!) using Microsoft Visual Basic in just 5 minutes?
  • pyrophite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Although Browzar doesn’t take your personal details, both it and its advertising partners need to be able to monitor visit s to this website. You should therefore be aware that this website may use cookies or other visitor tracking methods such as pixel tags to record visits to pages on the site and clicks on links, and that our server may note details such as the website you arrived from, your IP address and domain name."
  • fumanchu101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1another security guy weighs in: http://www.vitalsecurity.org/2006/09/i-am-browzar-you-are-tokyo.html
  • riven0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's a good thing this uses IE, because I was looking to download and install but couldn't, because I use Linux.

    Once again, saved by the Penguin.
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