Rated 5 out of 5 stars

by johnny_baida on Feb. 19, 2009 ·

This extension is the only way that I found to avoid the annoying user-unfriendlyness of Firefox 3!

Sure, you have to trust the notary, but when I just want to *view* some random signed page that shows up by the dozens when searching for some technical information, I just won't afford to waste my time with 1) reaching for the mouse, 2) scrolling (in case the font size is bigger than "nominal" and has pushed the dreadful buttons waaaay down), 3) click 4 buttons (ok, 3 buttons and one additional checkbox because usually I just want a temporary exception) that are so freakin' small that it feels like a new kind of browser game - only that it is stealing my time when I don't want to waste it.

So, again, THANK YOU for this extension!!! It's the only reason I was kept back from switching to Opera (and I had in fact installed it and was training to switch)!

This review is for a previous version of the add-on (2.1.5). 

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

by Haudy Kazemi on Jan. 19, 2009 ·

A few suggestions for the Perspectives add-on for Firefox :

1.) allow the status bar text to be enabled/disabled from within the extension options (this limitation can be manually worked around by installing another extension called 'Organize Status Bar')
2.) have an optional alternative status bar item that is more compact than the existing text 'Perspectives'. This might be a gray version of the green checkmark icon or a 'P' or something else. Maybe a gray P that is replaced by a green checkmark when verified by Perspectives. Just something that doesn't use so much status bar space when enabled. Maybe the https lock item can be changed to show 3 states (verified by cert auth, verified by peers or notary over time, unverified).
3.) offline cert cache of visited sites to limit number of needed queries to notaries (cache should be clearable with the Firefox Tools menu Clear Private Data option)
4.) option to automatically allow secure connections to any IP in the private IP address ranges (e.g. 10.x.x.x, 172.16.x.x 192.168.x.x) (a more restrictive option would be to allow these connections to machines in the same subnet as the PC running the browser)
5.) take a look at the WOT (Web of Trust) add-on...there may be value integrating the add-ons/features to make safer browsing decisions

This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.0.1). 

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

by apotheon on Nov. 14, 2008 ·

It's great, if it works for you. Unfortunately, there are a lot of places it doesn't work -- such as my laptop. It's worth about five stars on my girlfriend's laptop (running Debian), and zero on mine (running FreeBSD). It seems like portability across Unix-like systems shouldn't require more than compiling the binary portion on the new system, so I'm not sure why there isn't a version for FreeBSD yet.

This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.0.1). 

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

by shirish on Oct. 14, 2008 ·

At the site mentioned it has improved to 2.1.4 can we have that here?

This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.0.1). 

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

by redbu11 on Aug. 27, 2008 ·

A great tool to verify self-signed certificates, possibly a viable alternative to expensive SSL certificates from Verisign and Thawte.

Virtually all web servers and web browsers support strong HTTPS encryption nowadays, but use of HTTPS is limited to those websites able to pay $250+ per year for a certificate from Verisign or Thawte.

Self signed certificates are free but of limited use because they are (1) open to man-in-the middle attacks, and (2) trigger lots of scary warnings in the browser.

Perspectives provides an innovative and elegant way to verify any self-signed SSL certificate by using so-called "notary" servers. In a nutshell, it says "you can trust this self-signed cert because several notary servers in different parts of the Internet received the same certificate, and this certificate didn't change since the last 30 days".

A man-in-the-middle would have to hijack *all* connections to the website, for several days, which is virtually impossible.

NB: Please download the extension from the developers website. The version on mozilla.org isn't up to date yet.

This review is for a previous version of the add-on (1.0.1).