Related
Hi all,
I think this came up briefly in the “Flaws and annoyances thread” and I believe someone has started a post in the evo forum, but I thought it would be worth just mentioning it to notify the odd few in here.
There’s been a bit of news flying around about the Sense bookmarking widget creating little JPEG files and saving them to .bookmark_thumb1 on your SD card. The issue seemingly being that it doesn’t only take screenshots of your bookmarks; from time to time it records images of general sites you’ve visited. Since they aren’t stored on the phone memory, they won’t be removed by a factory reset – they also aren’t removed by clearing the all your internet history.
I’ve just had a look on my own desire and, sure enough, it’s got odd little snapshots of lots of webpages I’ve visited since I’ve had the phone (I didn’t count before I deleted them but it was about 2MB worth of tiny JPEG images). Any password entry pages it captured did not have any input in any of the fields (the password info would not have been displayed for me anyway).
I’m not particularly worried because I don’t really do anything super-secret with my phone browser, but it may be somewhat alarming for many people.
Does make it awfully tempting to explore other phones though =D
Apologies if this is a duplicate post / would be better placed somewhere else; please point out any daft mistakes I’ve made in describing the behaviour.
Cheers all.
Original article at boygeniusreport.com/2010/06/16/browser-privacy-htc-senseui/
EDIT: The consensus seems to be that this should only be happening for bookmarked and most visited sites. After clearing that directory and starting from scratch, that seems to be the most likely explanation.
I think this has been blown all out of proportion.
BGR is saying it is privacy issue, but since these screenshots are not being broadcast all over the internet, I don't see it that way.
Yes, I agree that if you clear your browser history it should clear down all those thumbnails, but since I generally keep my phone on me at all times, my privacy is not affected.
If I was selling my phone, I'd be factory resetting the device and clearing down any SD card that I'm selling with the phone anyway.
Regards,
Dave
It's a flaw. I get it since purchasing too and have to keep deleting all the images. Not just bookmarks, every other webpage I've visited is pictured there at least 2-3 times.
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- Sent via my HTC Desire -
I used the HTC browser only for a short time (switched to Dolphin HD).
I checked my SD card today and the thumbs were still saved there so I deleted them. No big deal (as foxmeister already said).
The only thing I don't understand why does the browser take these screenshots in the firs place?
I agree completely with you on the size of the issue. I scrub all my stuff before it leaves my possession; I also never leave my phone alone and don't really keep any sensitive data on the SD card.
Thought it might be worth mentioning for the odd few that would benefit.
I'm still unclear on what it decides to store and when (I understand updating the bookmarks, but the seemingly random ones are puzzling, maybe multiple windows?).
ferus said:
The only thing I don't understand why does the browser take these screenshots in the firs place?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Presumably for the bookmarks widget, and the previews you get when you switch browser windows.
Regards,
Dave
This isn't random pictures. Obviously the ones you bookmark...that's a given. The others are times you have multiple windows open. If open a new window/tab, a picture is taken of the previous page you were on so that a preview will be shown when you want to switch between windows.
BGR and Engadget have blown it all out of proportion by suggesting it's not deletable data. Why on earth would my bookmarks be cleared with my history? Bad journalism.
The others are times you have multiple windows open. If open a new window/tab, a picture is taken of the previous page you were on so that a preview will be shown when you want to switch between windows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is that officially stated as the working anywhere, or your personal estimate?
This isn't how it is working on mine at all. I've just opened/closed 4 windows of sites, switched through them a few times, then loaded another two pair of 4 on them in the past 3 mins. Not a single screenshot was added except for three of the homepage each window opened with at the beginning (Google).
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- Sent via my HTC Desire -
th3 said:
This isn't how it is working on mine at all. I've just opened/closed 4 windows of sites, switched through them a few times, then loaded another two pair of 4 on them in the past 3 mins. Not a single screenshot was added except for three of the homepage each window opened with at the beginning (Google).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wonder if it is something to do with the browser being killed. Perhaps if you open/close windows in a browser session, it does delete the screenshots. However, if you open a few windows and then go back to the home page, Android may at some point kill the browser leaving the screenshots behind.
I'd imagine that something similar might happen if you mounted the SD card whilst in a browser session.
Regards,
Dave
th3 said:
Is that officially stated as the working anywhere, or your personal estimate?
This isn't how it is working on mine at all. I've just opened/closed 4 windows of sites, switched through them a few times, then loaded another two pair of 4 on them in the past 3 mins. Not a single screenshot was added except for three of the homepage each window opened with at the beginning (Google).
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- Sent via my HTC Desire -
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It seems you may be right...I'm finding it's the "Most Visited" sites that it's saving the thumbnails for. It keeps two versions of each pick, which coincide with the two different views in the most visited tab.
Is that officially stated as the working anywhere, or your personal estimate?
This isn't how it is working on mine at all. I've just opened/closed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems you may be right...I'm finding it's the "Most Visited" sites that it's saving the thumbnails for. It keeps two versions of each pick, which coincide with the two different views in the most visited tab.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's multi tab and bookmarks for me. Engadget won't admit they're wrong either lol.
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Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App
All very good points.
It seems you may be right...I'm finding it's the "Most Visited" sites that it's saving the thumbnails for. It keeps two versions of each pick, which coincide with the two different views in the most visited tab.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know, after nearly a day testing/observing, that is also what I've understood. Two thumbnail views for the most visited sites are saved. Only for these sites. One is for the "Most Visited" section previews and one the preview of that window when switching between windows.
The only flaw I deem in it is the endless saving without delete. I've had the browser open in the background days on end many times, and always quit through the back button after clearing history/cache. Such images remain undeleted. I don't have any security/privacy concerns with it. Both me and my better half use the phone, just as I might use hers at times (she watches vids and takes pics on mine, not her iPhone ).
BTW, anyone noticed that after clearing history/cache you can still go through all the pages you've visited through the Back button?
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- Sent via my HTC Desire -
Ah, I hadn't considered the most visited sites; that most likely explains the large number of pictures I had (I rarely multi-tab or bookmark).
Certainly seems to be the case now I've started from scratch and have been watching closely.
always makes me chuckle, the term "sensitive data", I take it we mean legal, banking documents etc? only? I bloody doubt it given that this is a forum full of geeks
"da intarwebs is for pRon"
just kidding fellas, no offence....
I used the HTC browser only for a short time (switched to Dolphin HD).
I checked my SD card today and the thumbs were still saved there so I deleted them. No big deal (as foxmeister already said).
The only thing I don't understand why does the browser take these screenshots in the firs place?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope dolphin is better with your private data than opera, read what they do with your phone number and your history to finance there work!
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Sent via the XDA Tapatalk App
Its a pain in the arse on my bookmarks since it usually saves a snapshot of the next page I visit on a bookmarks thumb for instance my YM bookmark shows a snapshot of this forum.. so its just confusing when I'm trying to quick select my bookmarks.
I dont care about history, its my phone I can do what I like with it.
Today, my avast anti virus has stopped several Trojan horses from attacking my computer while ON THIS SITE! what the H is going on around here?!
UPDATE: It seems to have stopped...at least in this section..I had the original issues in the development section...
...very strange...Avast doesn't just "pop off" like that..Something happened lol
Most likely one of the ads. There was a similar issue about a week ago.
Sent from my Aria - CM7 Build 2-28
ok cool...very ironic though, especially for such a tecnical site...lol
I think Avast's latest virus definition update was buggy. I got a malware warning on my yahoo home page. Apparently Avast believes the javascript that controls the "window shade"-style dropdown is malware.
My netbook didn't have this issue because it was running Microsoft Security Essentials. Thus my belief the update was buggy.
Maybe they have also updated on a couple javascript functions which allowed a window to be hijacked in firefox and the user being unable to close it.
Firstly, i have to clarify that,i'm not a WP7 ,android or iOS fanboy,so, who i am?just an ordinary handphone customer,not the hardcore one.
the thing i feel very annoying is that,the marketplace...
1)when I go look at a list of new apps,then i found something interesting,so i go into details and screen shots.In this case,especially after seeing the the screenshot,i press back twic,tog o back to the new app list. SURPRISE...it just jump back to the top of the list,i have to scroll all way down to the bottom.This has makes me missed some awesome new apps.Because everytime it is like that,i gonna quit the marketplace.
2)secondly, the random crash for marketplace. when i scroll to fast while the app list is loading(actually not that fast,just not slow).the marketplace will crash,and then a reboot is required.OMG...jeeez...it is wasting my time. but seems like NO-DO update has solve this problem,not yet since the my device updated.
3)This problem,i'm pretty unsure about it. however, my experience is something like this....at the first place, id ownload the trial version of fruit ninja.one day,i found an update for fruit ninja,and i click download all..and then magic happens,it is keep stucking at PENDING.even i tried to reboot the device....but not working.the update still available and can't download.
4)lastly,today i found a new app called WP BENCH,it sound interesting.but I don't find it in the new app list and i not sure which category it is. Therefore,i try search. I type in "WPBENCH" instead of "WP BENCH".just without the SPACE, the result has a huge different.when i type in the one without space, i got no result.whereas WP BENCH gives me the just 1 result. OMG, this makes me think of how the search function work????i was wonder if the app's name is long,then how can i remember every space and word???no app suggestion??or at least give me the result with related words.
cheers...please share your experience here.
Just so you know, both 2 and 3 are fixed in NoDo
sylau90 said:
Firstly, i have to clarify that,i'm not a WP7 ,android or iOS fanboy,so, who i am?just an ordinary handphone customer,not the hardcore one.
the thing i feel very annoying is that,the marketplace...
1)when I go look at a list of new apps,then i found something interesting,so i go into details and screen shots.In this case,especially after seeing the the screenshot,i press back twic,tog o back to the new app list. SURPRISE...it just jump back to the top of the list,i have to scroll all way down to the bottom.This has makes me missed some awesome new apps.Because everytime it is like that,i gonna quit the marketplace.
2)secondly, the random crash for marketplace. when i scroll to fast while the app list is loading(actually not that fast,just not slow).the marketplace will crash,and then a reboot is required.OMG...jeeez...it is wasting my time. but seems like NO-DO update has solve this problem,not yet since the my device updated.
3)This problem,i'm pretty unsure about it. however, my experience is something like this....at the first place, id ownload the trial version of fruit ninja.one day,i found an update for fruit ninja,and i click download all..and then magic happens,it is keep stucking at PENDING.even i tried to reboot the device....but not working.the update still available and can't download.
4)lastly,today i found a new app called WP BENCH,it sound interesting.but I don't find it in the new app list and i not sure which category it is. Therefore,i try search. I type in "WPBENCH" instead of "WP BENCH".just without the SPACE, the result has a huge different.when i type in the one without space, i got no result.whereas WP BENCH gives me the just 1 result. OMG, this makes me think of how the search function work????i was wonder if the app's name is long,then how can i remember every space and word???no app suggestion??or at least give me the result with related words.
cheers...please share your experience here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what's really annoying is coming on here and wading through the duplicate topics even when there is a sticky on that very same subject at the top of the thread.....
nrfitchett4 said:
what's really annoying is coming on here and wading through the duplicate topics even when there is a sticky on that very same subject at the top of the thread.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've got something more annoying than that...horrible punctuation, grammar and spelling when you're trying to read through an OP. That's just great.
Hi - My internet browser is Firefox, and I have been using NoScript for years.
There is only one website that causes me constant problems when browsing: XDA Developers.
I use NoScript constantly with a lot of stuff disabled by default: Everything Facebook is always disabled, along with doubleclick and a bunch of other tracking websites.
With NoScript on, the XDA screen is constantly jumping around, with various websites constantly trying to refresh about twice a second. It is so jumpy with embedded websites continuously refreshing, that I can't even control NoScript well enough to enable whatever disabled website(s) are causing the problem.
I wouldn't be frustrated if this happened to me all the time, but XDA is the only website I see this problem on. I would expect a high-tech developer website like XDA to have less problems instead of more problems.
Sigh. I wish somebody at XDA could fix this.
¿GJ?
NoScript has a whitelist feature. If you don't want to use it, you can't expect it to be "fixed" (actually, modified to fit your needs would be a better choice of words) anytime soon, as the forums (and many other forums, in general) rely rather heavily on scripts.
I personally have XDA added to my whitelist.
As for the refreshes, did you make sure it's not another add-on that's conflicting? Start FF in safe mode and check if the issue persists.
Don't know if this helps, but I just tested XDA with NoScript without any issues.
That being said, a lot of features rely on JavaScript, so no guarantee what would happen if you only turned on some of them.
Huh.. I use NS on FF, and have seen no issues. To be sure it is NS, have you told it to temporarily allow all, and see if that fixes it? It could certainly be another issue..
What he could be speaking of is the portal constant refreshing (not on the forum), which also occurs on my differents computers with NS (with xda on whitelist).
For me, everytime I scroll on the portal main page, it refresh itself.
It's weird - Something changed between yesterday and today. Yesterday, this page wouldn't sit still until I was able to do enough "Temporarily allow all this page" button presses (about 5 or 6) to get the page finally stabilized.
Now, everything was stable when I entered XDA with the same "allow" list I had yesterday.
I'm not a big fan of "White List"ing sites, since so many sites have Facebook embedded in them (amongst many other tracking sites I don't like). Ever since Facebook violated my privacy and sucked up my personal contact information without my explicit approval, I ... ...
... well, let's just say I won't "Like" Facebook.
I appreciate the feedback from y'all, and I wish I knew what changed.
Thanks!
¿GJ?
bitpushr said:
Don't know if this helps, but I just tested XDA with NoScript without any issues.
That being said, a lot of features rely on JavaScript, so no guarantee what would happen if you only turned on some of them.
Click to expand...
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Divine_Madcat said:
Huh.. I use NS on FF, and have seen no issues. To be sure it is NS, have you told it to temporarily allow all, and see if that fixes it? It could certainly be another issue..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some forum features won't work: dropdown menus (e.g. "Go to Page" next to the page numbers, "Quick Links", "Rate thread") search boxes not being cleared automatically when you click them, username/device completion in search boxes or using the new mention feature, share buttons (they won't show how many times X got shared), etc. The WIYIWYG editor obviously doesn't work as well.
The portal's layout is a bit messed up, too.
It's all fixed by adding xda-developers.com to the whitelist. I think you both already have it added (I removed it for testing), which is what you're supposed to do for websites you trust anyway.
---------- Post added at 12:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:53 AM ----------
¿GotJazz? said:
It's weird - Something changed between yesterday and today. Yesterday, this page wouldn't sit still until I was able to do enough "Temporarily allow all this page" button presses (about 5 or 6) to get the page finally stabilized.
Now, everything was stable when I entered XDA with the same "allow" list I had yesterday.
I'm not a big fan of "White List"ing sites, since so many sites have Facebook embedded in them (amongst many other tracking sites I don't like). Ever since Facebook violated my privacy and sucked up my personal contact information without my explicit approval, I ... ...
... well, let's just say I won't "Like" Facebook.
I appreciate the feedback from y'all, and I wish I knew what changed.
Thanks!
¿GJ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would suggest using something that will block them on all websites, then. You can probably do it using NoScript's advanced filtering options, but I personally already use AdBlock Plus, and there's a neat list you can subscribe to that will block all those buttons. Get the "Annoyance Block List" from here.
¿GotJazz? said:
It's weird - Something changed between yesterday and today. Yesterday, this page wouldn't sit still until I was able to do enough "Temporarily allow all this page" button presses (about 5 or 6) to get the page finally stabilized.
Now, everything was stable when I entered XDA with the same "allow" list I had yesterday.
I'm not a big fan of "White List"ing sites, since so many sites have Facebook embedded in them (amongst many other tracking sites I don't like). Ever since Facebook violated my privacy and sucked up my personal contact information without my explicit approval, I ... ...
... well, let's just say I won't "Like" Facebook.
I appreciate the feedback from y'all, and I wish I knew what changed.
Thanks!
¿GJ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the opposite problem it seems, in that if I white-list the site then quite often one of the scripts goes haywire
and refreshes the page repeatedly for several refreshes or until the server complains with an error message about being overloaded.
It has been suggested to me that this may be a 2013 theme problem, so I'm trying the 2010 one for a few days to see if that fixes it.
Nameless One said:
I have the opposite problem it seems, in that if I white-list the site then quite often one of the scripts goes haywire
and refreshes the page repeatedly for several refreshes or until the server complains with an error message about being overloaded.
It has been suggested to me that this may be a 2013 theme problem, so I'm trying the 2010 one for a few days to see if that fixes it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@Nameless One: Yes, I've been seeing the "Server Overloaded" error message as well. I wasn't sure if it was NoScript related, though I was beginning to suspect it. I would open the same XDA pages in IE or Chrome without any problem, but see the "Overloaded" error only with Firefox. Usually (but, not always), temporarily enabling all sites fixed that problem for me.
¿GJ?
I have the same constant refresh problem.
The site only works if I set noscript to allow everything globally or if I use IE (ouch).
It feels to me this site is overburdened with ad/tracking scripts and blocking them forces the site to break (admins anti block?).
I will try the 2010 theme idea and report back, also I do have the main domain whitelisted.
--edit--
2010 theme fixes it, so I guess a 2013 theme issue.
Yep - Dumped the 2013 Theme and went back to 2010 Theme.
Everything's groovy now.
¿GJ?
¿GotJazz? said:
Yep - Dumped the 2013 Theme and went back to 2010 Theme.
Everything's groovy now.
¿GJ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2013 relies heavily on javascript so I imagine that is why you are having some issues. 2010 uses it much less but you may still see some issues relating to Javascript being blocked, such as menus not working and that sort of thing.
I'm having some really bad issues which are making the forums not usable. I haven't really changed anything so am not sure what the issue is.
1) The fonts and spacing is very odd, with sometimes larger or smaller font than expected and sometimes it's all scrunched in on one side.
2) Ads will often overlay on top of the forums, the sidebar on the right will sometimes be right in the middle of the forum page blocking my view, I don't see any way to move it.
3) Very jerky scrolling, sometimes scrolling jumps an entire page, other times it is just kind of ratchety, I turn my mouse wheel and it seems like every scroll takes a half second to catch up. My mouse is set to scroll 3 lines, but I've tried it with 1 line and it's the same. It's the same with smooth scrolling turned on or off.
4) The forums in general are very very slow, I mean unusable slow. A forum page may take upwards of 10 seconds to load, it seems like the ads are what's slowing it down because I can see the page stall, then the ad loads and everything works.
5) Most of the elements on the forum webpage seem to overlap each other, and many elements don't show up, or don't show a graphic but you can still mouse hover and see it's there.
I'm using Internet Explorer 11 on windows 10 on a surface pro 3 (i5/8gm RAM). Any help or suggestions for streamlining would be appreciated. Included a screen shot of the odd fonts and spacing. Zooming, or CTRL+ +/- doesn't help.
spinedoc said:
I'm having some really bad issues which are making the forums not usable. I haven't really changed anything so am not sure what the issue is.
1) The fonts and spacing is very odd, with sometimes larger or smaller font than expected and sometimes it's all scrunched in on one side.
2) Ads will often overlay on top of the forums, the sidebar on the right will sometimes be right in the middle of the forum page blocking my view, I don't see any way to move it.
3) Very jerky scrolling, sometimes scrolling jumps an entire page, other times it is just kind of ratchety, I turn my mouse wheel and it seems like every scroll takes a half second to catch up. My mouse is set to scroll 3 lines, but I've tried it with 1 line and it's the same. It's the same with smooth scrolling turned on or off.
4) The forums in general are very very slow, I mean unusable slow. A forum page may take upwards of 10 seconds to load, it seems like the ads are what's slowing it down because I can see the page stall, then the ad loads and everything works.
5) Most of the elements on the forum webpage seem to overlap each other, and many elements don't show up, or don't show a graphic but you can still mouse hover and see it's there.
I'm using Internet Explorer 11 on windows 10 on a surface pro 3 (i5/8gm RAM). Any help or suggestions for streamlining would be appreciated. Included a screen shot of the odd fonts and spacing. Zooming, or CTRL+ +/- doesn't help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First let me say that I'm moving this thread to About xda-developers since that's where site issues and discussion belong.
About your issue specifically: I haven't seen anyone making this complaint, but I do have a suggestion. Internet Explorer is terrible at rendering websites. The worst bar none. Since you are on Windows 10, I'd switch to the Edge browser (even Microsoft wants you to). Or you could switch to Firefox (my personal favorite), Chrome, or any other derivative of those. Microsoft only included IE in Windows 10 for backward compatibility and so I'd quit using it. I even got my 70 year old father in law to give up his beloved Internet Explorer. If he can do it, you can too! :highfive:
Thanks, hopefully someone here can offer a solution. I'm kind of stuck on IE11 until Edge gets extensions, but the reality is that millions of people still use IE11 and it should be supported.
I stopped using IE because I was having a lot of the problems you describe, especially the sticking and locking up ones. I switched to Chrome and have not looked back. Edge is too plain and like you said, lacks extensions. You are not stuck on IE though. Other browsers, like Chrome, Firefox, Maxthon, Opera, etc use the same extensions IE does. Have you tried opening up the XDA page in another browser just to troubleshoot? If you want to stay on IE, you can try deleting your IE cache and junk files, reset it to default settings, or even try putting the XDA webpage in compatibility mode and see if that helps. Try opening up IE with all plug-ins disabled, again, just for troubleshooting . Another note about IE. Microsoft just dropped support for versions 10 and below, and I will bet version 11 will be the last of it.
I had this problem recently. It's good to see it wasn't just my usual bad luck!
I do most of my modding at work (sshh..) and our IT department has recently moved everybody over to IE from Chrome. It is noticeably worse at displaying this forum and is, to be honest, a horrible program to use. I even miss Navigator..
Good to see I'm not the only one suffering, though!
I also have a lot of trouble using IE11 on XDA.
For the past few months I have had all the problems listed in the original post.
Now it seems like the page layout problems has been fixed, but for now I can not load a single page on XDA without IE11 locking up.
I have had more problems loading pages on XDA the past few months, than I have had on all other websites combined for the past 10 years - nothing but trouble on XDA..
It must be possible to make this site compatible with IE11, right?
(FYI: I am not using IE11 to write this post - it would be impossible)
gruntyoldbag said:
I also have a lot of trouble using IE11 on XDA.
For the past few months I have had all the problems listed in the original post.
Now it seems like the page layout problems has been fixed, but for now I can not load a single page on XDA without IE11 locking up.
I have had more problems loading pages on XDA the past few months, than I have had on all other websites combined for the past 10 years - nothing but trouble on XDA..
It must be possible to make this site compatible with IE11, right?
(FYI: I am not using IE11 to write this post - it would be impossible)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm getting that as well. It's very depressing...but it's good to know that it's not just me.