Comments on: Finjan offers free SecureTweets browser plug-in

New SecureTweets plug-in can protect people from worms, Trojans, and other malware attacks spread through Twitter, Gmail, MySpace, and other sites.

[n3td3v]

In Twitter's real-time search you can now click "expand" and it shows you the *real* link a tiny URL is pointing at.

[Harrison912]

Since I use Twitter mainly for socially marketing my safety and security web site I definitely like the sound of this. My computer is my livelihood. I certainly don't want a virus or some other problem as a result of my social marketing efforts, and the price is right! Thanks, Elinor!

[dallas7]

Hmmmm. I don't see anything about "SecureTwitter" on that link in the article. It points to the page for the SecureBrowsing extension that's remained unchanged since June of 2008. I've used it since October. On June 5 of this year, the app started inserting junk in Web based Gmail.
http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=en-US&comments_parentId=368142&forumId=1
In May I sent email to Finjan support inquiring as to the viability of the app considering the length of time since its inception and no updates since then. And on June 14 I sent another about the junk insertion. No response to either.
I uninstalled the extension and won't bother with it again until I'm assured there is some kind of active development/support over at Finjan.
In the meantime, I wonder about the newsworthyness of this SecureTwitter which the focus of this article.

[brienza1975]

I downloaded this too, for my Firefox, and it don't work for shyt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[maddogthegreat]

Like most of your articles, you don't give a DOWNLOAD SITE.

[dallas7]

The download site is the "Secure Twitter" link in the first sentence of the second paragraph.

[dallas7]

Well, it might be moot now. When evoking Firefox's 3.0.11 Check for Updates, the 3.5 installer warns that Finjan 1.314 will stop working.

[lloyd_borrett]

AVG LinkScanner (http://www.avgfree.com.au) is a free security tool from AVG that scans the pages behind ALL the links you click on, or type into your browser address bar, including Twitter links. It tells you in real-time whether the web page you're trying to view contains malicious code. This is important because criminals often leave bad URLs live for just a few hours or days, then switch pages so as to stay one step ahead of blacklists.

As reported here, it seems SecureTwitter from Finjan Software might be making the same mistake made by AVG when it first released AVG LinkScanner. If Finjan software is scanning all Twitter links that come up in the browser to give its safety verdicts, not just those links clicked on, then it will wreck web administrator analytics and put unnecessary load on web servers and users Internet usage.

If SecureTwitter is simply phoning home to get live results from a blacklist, then it is simply not proving real-time protection.

The only time that matters when you really need to be protected is when you click on a link to load the web page. That's why AVG LinkScanner checks the page you try to view in real-time.