How do you know that?eswald wrote:While in mintInstall 6.3.4, the Visit button in each package's information panel opens the web browser (Firefox by default) with root privileges.
Second..
Mintinstall as well as synaptic (Software manager) on the Mint menu, both run under the first user's authorization, it is not quite root, since the root account is disabled by default in the Linux mint 7 - gloria installation
Third
You don't have to visit any web page, there is usually enough information provided in the description or the short description title to decide whether or not to install that software
--if there wasn't (enough information being provided) you would be blindly installing any/all packages just to see what they were or how they worked..
And you need a certain level of access to install applications, unless you do it manually and perhaps direct an installation to a private directory, such as /home/usr/myapps
--and you could control the pseudo root access to when it was needed, if at all..
I just ran mintinstall, used the Visit button for an application, and nothing in my bookmarks was changed..eswald wrote:In addition to the security risks involved, this replaces the user's bookmarks with the defaults
In addition to the security risks involved
I don't see the risk here!, my session would have to be intercepted by the web page I visit or otherwise..
--of course I usually have JavaScript turned off, and noscript running in firefox..
- With JavaScript turned off, the Visit button still works in mintinstall
- the ISP has a router firewall, which protects my connection
--they (ISPs') do this as much for themselves as me, it also protects their network.
One of the reasons you shouldn't buy into do you want our Internet security package deal, unless you want to help them out financially..