Mel's Notes: Firephorm - the anti-phorm Firefox extension

I've been working on my own anti-phorm extension for Firefox.

Phorm's system will redirect webpage requests through webwise.net to access and transfer the identity number they allocate to you from your webwise.net master cookie to a tracking cookie they'll create for each site you visit. Your browser will send this cookie with future web page request to the site, and their system will use the cookie to identify your profile as it analyses your http traffic - including the search parameters you enter into major search engines, and the content of the pages you view.

My extension modifies http request and response headers. If your ISP deploys Phorm, the idea is to add fake phorm opt-out cookies to all requests which will at least avoid your browser having to store hundreds of Phorm's tracking cookies while you are waiting to migrate to another ISP and to avoid phorm's redirections, and also to have the option of "poisoning" phorm's test data by opting-in but with a tracking UID number that is constantly changing.

It can also warn you if a webpage request was redirected via Phorm's webwise.net or if Nebuad's Faireagle.com site is accessed.

Firephorm is available on the mozila addon site

If your ISP deploys Phorm, then I recommend changing ISP as soon as possible; if that's not an option then another way to protect your privacy is to use an encrypted VPN connection to a trustworthy endpoint.