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Security Add-Ons On Our Computer, And Our Use Of Blogger

Our use of the many Blogger scripts and utilities, as we maintain and publish our blogs, is affected by layered security settings in our browsers, and on our computers and our networks. The native browser settings, and the browser add-ons, are the most obvious settings - but they are not the only ones.

Most computers will include various applications, running on the computer, that assist the operating system in preventing the browser - and other network applications - from allowing malicious activity on our computers. Long ago, these applications were best described in two classes.
  • Firewalls. Applications that protected our computers from malicious network activity, coming from outside the computer.
  • Anti-virus. Applications that protected our computers from ignorant user activity, inside the computer.
The two types of activity could be easily distinguished from each other, both by how the activity was spread, and how it was prevented.

As malicious Internet activity became a normal industry - Hacking / Porn / Spam - the distinctions between "firewalls" and "anti-virus" became blurred. Nowadays, Hacking / Porn / Spam is all one activity, much of it conducted by real life "brick and mortar" organised crime - and "anti-virus" / "anti-malware" / "firewall" applications are known by one generic term - "security suites".

Many "security suites" will contain filters that target both malicious network traffic, and ignorant / malicious user level activity. Some "security suites" will contain unknown filters that mimic, or that duplicate - known filters provided in our browsers, both natively and in browser add-ons. And here we have a challenge.

When we are asking each other
Why can't I ignore my own pageviews in Stats?
and
Why won't Blogger remember me?
and
Why can't I use Template Designer?
we frequently blame our browser settings - generally, the native ones, and occasionally the add-ons. A few blog owners carefully check their browser settings; having verified that cookies are enabled for both "Blogger.com" and "BlogSpot.com", and scripts are allowed from "Blogger.com", they spuriously conclude that there must be a problem with Blogger.

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