Safe Luxury

Are firefox add-on's safe to use? Is it true you can get hacked if you have them on your computer?

I have google and yahoo toolbar on firefox on this computer, and another laptop at home. I read somewhere on the web (a tech blog) that hackers can use these and other add-ons as weaknesses in your browser to hack and do all sorts of nasty things to your computer.... is it true? (some of the add ons I use: Adblock Plus, Shareaholic, Web of Trust, and a lot more on my laptop.) is it possible that these add ons that I've grown attached to could be leaving me open to attack/viruses/etc? and I should then uninstall them? Or should I use a different browser altogether? What do you recommend?

Public Comments

1. No it's not.
2. I don't think i would worry about being hacked as much as i would be worried about the low level spy ware you already have on your machine. The tool bars. That's all they are' low level spy ware. {EDIT} What do you think these tool bars do? Every time you use it' it lets them know what your looking at. Big brother is watching. That's why some folks get pop ups and don't know why. They haven't been going places they shouldn't. But somehow they start getting pop ups. Targeted advertising. Think about it' It's only common sense.
3. I wouldn't believe that. I have Firefox and it's harmless. Especially the Yahoo! and Google toolbars. Some of the other networking addons may be a little bit unsafe, but definitely not the Yahoo! and Google bars.