App Review Osprey Browser Protection Reviews

[roger_m]

You shouldn't visit or download anything from driver-soft.com, lol. Straight bloatware. Osprey isn't in the wrong.

It's up to me what I do and don't download. It's a harmless PUP, rather than malware, which is why I don't want the website blocked. While I get that for many people, blocking websites containing PUPs is a good thing to do, in my case, I only want malicious websites, or websites containing actual malware downloads blocked. That's why I would like the option to not automatically enable new providers.

 

[simmerskool]

It's up to me what I do and don't download. It's a harmless PUP, rather than malware, which is why I don't want the website blocked. While I get that for many people, blocking websites containing PUPs is a good thing to do, in my case, I only want malicious websites, or websites containing actual malware downloads blocked. That's why I would like the option to not automatically enable new providers.

yes, but the process of throwing the toggle switches to suit your preference is very easy and takes less than 1 minute. Not a biggee.

 

[roger_m]

yes, but the process of throwing the toggle switches to suit your preference is very easy and takes less than 1 minute. Not a biggee.

Sure, but it would be nice to have the option to not have new providers automatically enabled.

 

[ebocious]

@Foulest Forgive me if it's already been covered, but is it possible to monitor frame navigation separately, such that a benign page can still be visited while blocking CSS? Or does it do that when "ignore frame navigation" is checked? Avast is able to block iFrames separately on my phone, but I don't know how hard it would be to make that happen here. BTW, I'd lurve to one day see Osprey for iOS/Android.

 

[ebocious]

@Foulest P.S.: thank you for creating Osprey Browser Protection. I've since gotten rid of my other security extensions, and use Osprey by itself with either uBO or Pie, along with my utility extensions.

 

[Foulest]

@Foulest Forgive me if it's already been covered, but is it possible to monitor frame navigation separately, such that a benign page can still be visited while blocking CSS? Or does it do that when "ignore frame navigation" is checked? Avast is able to block iFrames separately on my phone, but I don't know how hard it would be to make that happen here. BTW, I'd lurve to one day see Osprey for iOS/Android.

Osprey doesn't block page elements individually. I'll look into this though.

 

[Jan Willy]

I'd lurve to one day see Osprey for iOS/Android.

I have Osprey on Firefox for Android. Enable temporarily the option Desktop site and install the add-on from official addons.mozilla site.

PS: You don't have all functionalities, but the main menu is accessible.

 

[Divine_Barakah]

Osprey is a Web extension created by @Foulest that protects you against malicious sites, phishing and other threats using several engines.
These include Bitdefender, Emsisoft, TotalAV, Quad9 and others.

During the test, it blocked all malicious links, with the exception of two that were direct downloads.
Nothing to say about phishing!
It can of course be used alongside a free antivirus like Microsoft Defender.
Highly recommendable!

Of course it did! If your "test" consists of pulling a list of 24-hour-old static URLs from a public database, and your Osprey just queries Bitdefender and Quad9 and other databases, you are going to get a perfect score every single time.

How old were the links?

 

[Shadowra]

Of course it did! If your "test" consists of pulling a list of 24-hour-old static URLs from a public database, and your Osprey just queries Bitdefender and Quad9 and other databases, you are going to get a perfect score every single time.

How old were the links?

Once again, you're targeting one of my videos—and what's worse, that test is over a year old!!!!!

Everyone knows that the links are current, whether they're malicious or phishing links.
I don't use old links because they'll be blocked automatically, and I have two sources.

 

[Divine_Barakah]

Once again, you're targeting one of my videos—and what's worse, that test is over a year old!!!!!

Everyone knows that the links are current, whether they're malicious or phishing links.
I don't use old links because they'll be blocked automatically, and I have two sources.

1- I am not attacking any of ur vids. I was considering using Osprey and looked it up in MT.

2- "everyone knows". " Current " is not the equivalent of live, zero-day malicious URL in the wild

3- "a year ago". Same flawed mehtodology regardless of the chronological order of your tests.

4- "and I have two sources" . If you pull your malicious links from known "sources" or repositories, then those links are already public knowledge withing the cybersecurity community. The extension (API wrapper) you tested queries the same sources, so it proves nothing about its ability to block and protect from zero-day, live malware.

 

[CyberDevil]

If you pull your malicious links from known "sources" or repositories, then those links are already public knowledge withing the cybersecurity community. The extension (API wrapper) you tested queries the same sources, so it proves nothing about its ability to block and protect from zero-day, live malware.

Nothing can protect you from a true zero-day, except perhaps an LLM continuously analyzing every website you visit, which would be far too energy-intensive and expensive. So I do not really understand your objection.

There are, of course, various heuristic detection algorithms, but most of them are essentially designed to protect users from their own mistakes, which is hardly necessary for most people on this forum. And the best defense against something like mycrosoft.com is simply to block newly registered domains.

 

[Jan Willy]

so it proves nothing about its ability to block and protect from zero-day, live malware.

By far it's not an AV program. Would there be anyone who's expecting it is?

 

[Divine_Barakah]

By far it's not an AV program. Would there be anyone who's expecting it is?

If no one is expecting it to function as primary protection, then reviewing it by calculating a "100% block rate" against a list of static malware URLs is a deeply misleading methodology. You cannot market a 100% success rate in a test, and then claim "it's not an AV" the moment the test's baseline is questioned.

 

[Divine_Barakah]

Nothing can protect you from a true zero-day, except perhaps an LLM continuously analyzing every website you visit, which would be far too energy-intensive and expensive. So I do not really understand your objection.

There are, of course, various heuristic detection algorithms, but most of them are essentially designed to protect users from their own mistakes, which is hardly necessary for most people on this forum. And the best defense against something like mycrosoft.com is simply to block newly registered domains.

You are absolutely correct that static tools and API wrappers cannot reliably protect against true, live zero-day threats.

If we are in agreement that these tools cannot stop true zero-days, then using a list of pre-indexed, day-old malicious URLs to generate a "100% block rate" creates a mathematically flawed and highly misleading metric. It presents the illusion of perfect zero-day protection to consumers who might not understand the underlying architecture as well as you do.

 

[LinuxFan58]

My two cents:

Why Osprey is a nice to have and a test adds value for users hesitating to install it (to defend Shadowra)

1. Not every PC-user is aware of DNS services with malware blocking
2. Not every DNS or Antivirus Solution uses ALL available ¨recently found" malware sources and feeds, the malware research community is not like the Borg (yet) which has a collective memory (we are the Borg, all your base belong to us, resistance is futile).
   
   ==> So adding Osprey Browser Guard always has "some" added vlaue, simply because more feeds/sources are used

On the other hand the critics have a point: when so many vendors and sources are used as with Osprey, the chance of using malware sources for the test which are included in the sources used by all those vendors increases, making it hard to do do a statistically relevant test because you simply have no clue about the total set of sources used by all those vendors.