Macrotone Blogs

Macrotone blogs upon Joomla, our products and other matters.

EU Cookie regulations and Joomla system page cache

We have noticed a problem on our site related to cookie handling and the Firefox (version 19.0.2) and Chrome (version 25.0.1364.172 m) and the cookies generated by the EU cookie plugin required to meet EU regulations.

The problem, which is (we believe) caused by the use of the Joomla system (page) cache manifest itself either as no EU message being displayed, to enable acceptance of the cookie, or as the cookie acceptance appearing to be ignored (even though it has been accepted) and the message continuing to be displayed.  Option changes to the system cache plugin do not make any difference.

Not a show stopper but a problem none the less.  The problem although first noticed on our own site is also evident on other sites complying with the EU regulations and using cookies.

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Doing more with LESS.

http://lesscss.org/images/logo.pngAs part of our ongoing work on our Joomla components we have been looking at the ‘next’ logical change that we want to implement with the CCS styles.  This is of course making use of the LESS compiler.

What is LESS you might ask.  Well LESS is a dynamic stylesheet language, which extends CSS with dynamic behaviour such as variables, mixins, operations and functions.  It can run upon both the server-side or client-side (modern browsers only) on a site.

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Web Standards

   I am reminded of the quote “The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.” attributed to  “Andrew S. Tanenbaum”, whilst looking into the structure of web pages.

The Firefox browser add in ‘FireBug’ provides a nice tool under ‘Tools- Validate HTML’ which enables the page one is viewing to be checked by the W3C Markup Validation Service.   By default it uses the standard defined at the start of most web pages, but the number and variety of possible standards is most interesting.  The output is a nice listing of ‘errors' and ‘warnings’ upon the page structure and its elements. [Note that it excludes the ‘new’ standards mentioned below, although it does have ‘HTML5 Experimental’]

Whilst one can then proceed to correct and eliminate the errors and warnings it does raise the question as to what standard should one be writing web pages to:  HTML5, XHTML 1.0 Transitional, XHTHL 1.0 Standard, XHTML 1.0 Framework, HTML 4.01 Strict etc.  The list goes on to provide about 15 possible standards.

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Microsoft IE Bug


Microsoft has released details of a method users of Internet Explorer can use to secure their computers from a recently discovered exploit allowing malicious code to run on a PC.

Microsoft has admitted to the bug, which it says hurts Internet Explorer versions 6 through 9, but leaves IE 10 alone. The flaw is described as follows:

A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the way that Internet Explorer accesses an object that has been deleted or has not been properly allocated. The vulnerability may corrupt memory in a way that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user within Internet Explorer. An attacker could host a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit this vulnerability through Internet Explorer and then convince a user to view the website.

The remedy is detailed in Security Advisory 2757760, where it says that there's no outright fix for the issue at present, but that users can work around the threat by deploying the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET), described as "... a utility that helps prevent vulnerabilities in software from successfully being exploited by applying in-box mitigations such as DEP to applications configured in EMET."

The Tor Project

Mentioned the Tor Project in a recent post so decided to expand a little upon the topic. 

Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis.

It is a browser that exists on your machine, but is not installed as such, so can be placed on a USB key and used as a remote app.  Its’ purpose is to anonymise your web communications by bouncing then around a distributed network of relays all around the world:  it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location.

Useful for accessing sites that may be blocked by you ISP for what ever reason.

HTTPS Everywhere a browser add-in



Came across this some time ago but now seems an appropriate time to mention it, especially with the on-going ‘mania’ with web security.

HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox and Chrome extension that encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure.  It is with a one-click installation,which can  seriously increase your security on over 1,400 web sites by encrypting your connection.

Many sites, like Gmail (and Facebook, with caveats) have options that let you browse with HTTPS always turned on, but the HTTPS Everywhere extension makes this simpler.  Instead of turning it on for individual sites, HTTPS Everywhere will automatically routes all your data through a secure connection on any of its 1,400 supported web sites, keeping your information safe and away from prying eyes—in short, it's an extension everyone should have installed.

Essentially a win win situation.  Unfortunately not available for IE, Safari and other browsers except Firefox and Chrome.   

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