Since there has been a lot of buzz lately about the age-old issue with IDNs (international-character domain names) spoofing well-known domains, people seem to be confused about what Pale Moon does to mitigate this. In short it comes down to knowing your browser and paying attention to what the browser indicates.
The address bar has a dedicated area where site identity information is displayed (the identity panel):
For normal (http) sites, this panel normally only displays the site's icon, and will blend in with the rest of the address bar.
For https sites, this panel is either blue or green, and displays the secure domain or the domain's verified owner, respectively.
If you are visiting a phishing site using an IDN to try and spoof the original domain, this identity panel, since 27.3.0, will clearly display the "raw" code of the IDN (also called "punycode", a domain starting with "xn--") instead of what the site is trying to spoof:
So, before you enter any login details, always, ALWAYS check the identity panel to see if the site is secure (padlock shown) and displaying the domain or owner you expect.
If you want more details, you can also click on the padlock.
For people who also want to have http sites (white) display the punycode if an IDN is visited, that is possible by going into about:config, and setting browser.identity.display_punycode to a value of 2. This is not the default, because http is used for display of public information, and phishing from an http site immediately falls short by not showing a secure connection. As such, doing this for http sites by default would in most cases simply be unnecessary to include, and annoying for anyone regularly visiting international-address websites.
I've chosen to approach the problem this way, because it will still allow you to enter international character domain names, while giving you the tools to verify that your visit is to the server you expect.
IDN and Pale Moon: know your browser.
IDN and Pale Moon: know your browser.
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite
Re: IDN and Pale Moon: know your browser.
Thanks for adding this, Moonchild. Pale Moon already had the best address bar, and now it's that much better.
FYI -- here's the link for the fake "epic.com" demo page in the above screenshot:
https://www.еріс.com/
FYI -- here's the link for the fake "epic.com" demo page in the above screenshot:
https://www.еріс.com/
- back2themoon
- Moon Magic practitioner
- Posts: 2402
- Joined: 2012-08-19, 20:32
Re: IDN and Pale Moon: know your browser.
Good info and update, thanks.
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Information to include when asking for support - How to apply user agent overrides
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Information to include when asking for support - How to apply user agent overrides
How to auto-fill passwords
Windows 10 Pro x64