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What Firefox 2’s Phishing Protection did
Mozilla presented Phishing Protection as a security enhancement in Firefox 2, alongside changes such as tab close buttons, session restore, inline spell checking and search suggestions. The feature was designed to alert users when a site matched a list of suspected forgeries. The warning could offer advice or a way back to the home page; it was guidance, not a guarantee against deception. (Mozilla’s Firefox 2 launch announcement; Mozilla’s October 2006 privacy policy; Firefox 2 release notes)
Mozilla’s launch announcement said Firefox 2 was available as a free download for Windows, Mac and Linux and was translated into more than 35 languages at release. Those were launch details, not measures of how well the warning system detected phishing.
How the two checking modes differed
| Mode | How it checked a page | What information was sent |
|---|---|---|
| Default local checking | Firefox downloaded a list of suspected forged sites, then compared visited pages against it on the computer. Mozilla’s launch announcement described the list as updating hourly. | Mozilla said the visited page’s URL was not transmitted during the local check. Firefox did contact a server to download list updates. |
| Optional online checking | Firefox asked a selected third-party service, such as Google, to assess the page before loading it. | The page URL, IP address and other information were sent to the provider. Mozilla cautioned that a URL could itself contain personally identifying information. |
These distinctions come from Mozilla’s archived October 2006 privacy policy and its launch announcement. It would be inaccurate to say Firefox 2 never transmitted browsing-related information, or that every visited URL was always sent to Google: local checking was the default, while online checking was optional, and the list-update connection was separate from checking a page.
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- No more exposed information in unprotected notary journals. This product shields clients' confidential information from prying eyes. It allows the Notary Public to keep the journal open during the transaction, as NO prior client information is viewable.
- Shields clients' AND Notaries Public' confidential information
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Why the feature used a blacklist—and its limits
Mozilla’s design documentation describes the initial implementation as blacklist-based: Firefox compared a site with known suspected-forgery entries. The work grew out of Google’s Safe Browsing extension, which Google released under the Mozilla Public License for Mozilla to use in Firefox 2. (MozillaWiki design documentation)
A blacklist can flag sites already identified and added to its list, so its usefulness depends on timely updates. It cannot establish that every unlisted site is safe or catch every newly created phishing page. Mozilla’s own privacy policy characterized the feature as advice and guidance rather than a promise of prevention. The reviewed release materials provide no attributable detection-rate statistic, so a numerical claim about effectiveness would be unsupported.
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- No more exposed information in unprotected notary journals. This product shields clients' confidential information from prying eyes. It allows the Notary Public to keep the journal open during the transaction, as NO prior client information is viewable.
- Shields clients' AND Notary Publics' confidential information
- GLBA and HIPAA require non-disclosure policies and procedures. Notary Privacy Guard is a compliance tool for the professional Notary Public.
- Decreases Notary Public's liability from exposing client information
- Journal column headers are printed on the Notary Privacy Guard, no having to peek underneath to complete the journal entry. Becomes part of the journal and also acts as a place marker.
Firefox 2’s protection did not remain in every release
The feature’s presence changed during the Firefox 2 lifecycle. Mozilla’s release notes identify Firefox 2.0.0.20, dated December 18, 2008, as the last planned Firefox 2 release. Those notes say that version did not include Phishing Protection and encouraged users to upgrade to Firefox 3. (Firefox 2.0.0.20 release notes)
At launch, Mitchell Baker, then Mozilla’s CEO, described Firefox 2 as delivering “the best possible online experience for people today.” That was promotional launch language, not independent evidence of security performance.
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