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Home > Firefox and Chrome Browser Extensions that Check for Heartbleed

Firefox and Chrome Browser Extensions that Check for Heartbleed [1]

Last updated by v.laurie [2] on 25. November 2020 - 12:04

The Heartbleed bug is a very nasty Internet problem that affects us all. Dealing with it is complex and not clear-cut at this time but one thing that many Internet users want to do is check sites to see which ones might still be subject to the bug.

A previous article [3] gave some ways to check sites but a simpler method is now available with new browser extensions for Firefox and for Chrome. How accurate these extensions are I don’t know and they have some other limitations but I still thought it worth pointing them out. 

Heartbleed-Ext 3.0 for Firefox browser

This extension is available here [4]. It places a small bleeding heart icon in the browser menu bar. When you go to a website, the heart icon shows green for a site that is “safe”, red for a site still vulnerable to the bug, and yellow for possibly vulnerable. I found that it stayed white for many sites, indicating that it could not determine the status of the site. 

The extension does not itself check a site but uses the web service of Filippo Valsorda [5] mentioned in our previous article. The green icon does not distinguish between sites previously vulnerable but patched and sites that never had the problem.

Added: Unless you refresh a tab, it seems that you may get a result that is left over from a previous site.  

Chromebleed for Chrome browser

The extension is available here [6]. A bleeding heart icon is placed in the browser menu bar. If you go to an unpatched site, a popup warning will appear. Popups also show indicating some sites as “safe”. This extension also uses the web service of Filippo Valsorda [5]. As with the Firefox extension, a “safe” rating does not distinguish between sites previously vulnerable but patched and sites that never had the problem.

Unfortunately, instructions are lacking but I found from the reviews that you have to enable the extension setting “Allow access to file URLs” and also the extension option “Show all notifications” and restart Chrome.  I found that there was sometimes a delay of 15 seconds or more after I went to a site before the popup window appeared.

A note of caution

At the time of this writing, there are questions about the effectiveness of patches for the Heartbleed bug. The recent problems reported [7] about the patches issued by Akamai means that there may be ambiguity in the rating “safe” given to some sites.There are still no easy solutions to this major security problem.

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This tips section is maintained by Vic Laurie [9]. Vic runs several websites with Windows how-to's, guides, and tutorials, including a site for learning about Windows and the Internet [10] and another with Windows 7 tips [11].

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[2] https://www.techsupportalert.com/users/maxwell
[3] http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-check-if-website-has-been-affected-heartbleed.htm
[4] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/heartbleed-checker/
[5] https://filippo.io/Heartbleed/
[6] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chromebleed/eeoekjnjgppnaegdjbcafdggilajhpic/related
[7] http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9247650/Akamai_admits_issuing_faulty_OpenSSL_patch_reissues_keys?taxonomyId=17
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