Tag: Browsers

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Tips

Check which website tracks your online usage

One of the issues while you sign-up with a website is we do not really read through the disclaimers or terms of services in great detail. Mostly we sign-up to websites thanks to their relevance and reputation. Some of these websites do something called as tracking out activity and sharing this info with advertisers for targeted advertising. I had written about how websites or services track your usage and determine your unique identity. I guess this can also be done not just for tracking visits but also for focused advertising.

This can be helpful in some places but it would be wise not to share too many personal and financial details on websites which track your usage and also share it with advertisers.

So now you are using these web services and have no time to read through the scores of Terms and Conditions you have causally agreed to. To deal with this predicament we have a Firefox add-on which easily tracks any website which is tracking your information and sharing it.

About Privacy Choice

  • Privacy Choice can be installed on your Firefox Browser and when you are on a website you want to check details on their tracking and sharing of info you can go ahead and click on their small Privacy Icon next to the address bar.
  • This pulls up a page with details of services which are tracking. Most blogs will be tracking usage which can then be later used for targeted advertising.
  • It also has a service for webmasters to see if their websites are being tracked in anyway they might not know about so their website is more secure from a privacy angle.

Do try out Privacy Choice on Firefox and let me know of any similar tools or services which can be used and shared on DW. Do drop in your comments.

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Tips

How to Switch On the Private Browsing Option in Firefox

Private Browsing is very useful feature in Firefox. If you are not aware about private browsing in Firefox then let us quickly know what does it mean, private browsing is a feature provided in Firefox which allows you to browse the websites without saving any information of your visited websites, that is it will not store cookies,it won’t save any passwords,form entries and search bar entries.

So if you would like to do private browsing ,you can do it by following the simple steps as shown below.

  1. Go To Tools
  2. Select Start Private Browsing ( For keyboard geeks shortcut for this is Ctrl + Shift + P

You might also like to read: Firefox Shortcuts

Firefox will give you an information which will show that your private browsing option is on and it won’t save any cookies and other stuff as shown below.

To stop private browsing you just need to follow the simple steps as shown below.

  1. Go To Tools
  2. Select Stop Private Browsing ( For keyboard geeks the good news is that they can use the same shortcut keys which they used for enabling private browsing so for them it acts as a toggle shortcut)
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If you don’t want to enable and disable the private browsing option and would like to enable the private browsing option forever then there is an  option which you can turn on, this will enable the private browsing option by default, whenever you will start Firefox.

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I would advise you to make a portable version of Firefox and enable that option and browse the web privately whenever you require.

Here are the steps to do it:

  • Go To Tools
  • Go To Options
  • Click on Privacy Tab as shown below.

  • Click on Firefox will Combo and select and “Use Custom Settings for history” as shown below:
  • Select the option “Automatically start Firefox in a private browsing session” as shown below:

  • Click on OK and next time your start your Firefox you will be browsing in private mode.

I hope you will find private browsing useful. Don’t forget to share with us , what you prefer to do for online privacy ?

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Tips

How to save bandwidth on limited broadband plans

Most of the Indian broadband users are on limited bandwidth plans. The reason for choosing these limited broadband plans is lower price than unlimited plans and also higher speed than unlimited plans. For example BSNL 500C+ plan gives you 2.5 GB of free bandwidth and 2Mbps speed whereas unlimited 750 plan gives you only 256Kbps speed. So most of the people use limited plans. These plans offer high speed but can also result in a heavy monthly bill if you go beyond your download limit. This article is about monitoring and saving your bandwidth to save yourself from extra bills.

Monitor your Internet usage

A limited broadband user must monitor his internet usage. By monitoring internet usage you can spend less time on internet when you are reaching to limit. Networx is a great software to monitor your bandwidth. You can also set free hours so that it ignores counting in that period. You can also set monthly quota and it displays warning messages when you reach near to the limit. An alternative to NetWorx can also be NetMeter.

Link: Networx

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Take advantage of your Free Downloading hours

Many limited bandwidth plans offer free downloading hours. Like BSNL500C+ plan offer free downloading between 2AM to 8AM. Most of the ISPs have same plans, you get free downloading at night. But it is difficult to wake up at 2AM and download. But by using scheduling softwares like your Internet Download Manager, you can easily take full advantage of your free hours. Schedule your download manager to start downloads at 2am and stop at 8am. Place download links in the day and it will automatically download at night.

Save bandwidth while browsing

While surfing the net, you can screw up a lot of bandwidth. Sites with flash content, loads of images and advertisements eat up lots of bandwidth. To save your bandwidth without effecting your great browsing experience, use Ad blocking addons in Firefox or Chrome. Also use the FlashBlock addon to save loading unwanted flash objects, animations and videos. It will save your bandwidth and also improve your browsing experience.

While using all these tools, you should also remember on thing that these tools can only save your bandwidth if you want them to. You should also control yourself from clicking on every link or downloading at monitored hours.  In the end, we also want to hear from you, what are your ways to save bandwidth?

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Reviews

10 Online Tools for Cross Browser Testing

Web designers and developers need to test their products before launch. Testing is the main phase before launching. So, testing their web products only on single browser or Single operating system leads to downfall, because once after launching people will be using the product from different parts of the world. So, testing it on different conditions will make the product success.

Before launching a website or while designing a website, web designers need to test their project on different operating system with different browsers. So, this is called testing browser compatibility or cross browser testing. Here are some useful online tools which will of great use to web designers and developers.

10 Online Tools for Cross Browser Testing

Spoon –

This tool allows you to check your website in different browsers such as IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox 2, Firefox 3, Google Chrome and Opera directly from the web.

Crossbrowsertesting –

This tool helps us both in cross platform and cross browser testing. Just pick an OS, Select a browser and test your website.

Browsrcamp –

This tool allows you to test with MacOS X browsers and all you need to do is, enter the URL and get full length screen shots at different screen widths.

Adobe Browserlab –

Adobe Browserlab makes browser compatibility testing easier for you and it is the best and fastest tool for testing webpages across different environments like windows OS, Mac OSX, Linux and browsers like Firefox, IE, Safari etc.

Litmus –

Litmus shows you exactly how your designs look on every platform, across every popular web browser. Litmus is lightning-fast, reliable and affordable.

IE NetRenderer –

IE NetRenderer allows you to check how a website is rendered by Internet Explorer 7, 6 or 5.5. Just type in a URL in the field above and try it out – it’s free!

Browsershots –

Browsershots is a free open-source online service which creates screenshots of your web design in different browsers.

Browsercam –

Browsercam is a cross browser testing tool which has more than 90+ browsers, Linux, Win, Mac and even the presentation in different versions of browsers on mobile devices (BlackBerry, Win Mobile) can be tested.

Browser Photo –

Check Your Pages With Browser Photo! View actual photos of your Web pages on major browsers and computers.

IETester –

IETester is a free WebBrowser that allows you to have the rendering and javascript engines of IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process.

If you find any similar tools for checking browser compatibility, do share it with us 🙂

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Analysis

Microsoft finally takes browsers seriously with Internet Explorer 9

Last year Microsoft launched its browser Internet Explorer 8; it received more brickbats than flowers. Let us face it, it did not consolidate Internet Explorer’s browser market share and not did perform better than the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome.

Now Internet Explorer 9 is out and will have some interesting innovations and I thought I should try it out and see how good it really is.

About Internet Explorer 9

  • There are many changes expected with IE 9, and one of them is to make it safer and more compliant to the dominating web technologies in present day. For this reason IE 9 will not work on Windows XP. This will have a double fall out as many customers with XP will one more reason to upgrade to Windows 7.
  • I took a peek at it’s testing environment for IE 9 and found it much faster than IE8. Internet Explorer seemed to be no where in the league as far as speed was concerned but with IE9 they seem to want to deliver that.
  • IE 9 will be highly compliant to HTML 5 technology and that is apparent considering it is aimed at scoring high on tests carried on browser with respect to HTML 5 technology. One of the main criteria it will face will be the Acid3 test which Chrome. It did not do as well as Chrome is doing now but remember IE9 is still in early development mode.
  • In doing a bit of exploring it seems to have some novel graphics features which will allow easy text zooming and image exploring. On early usage of Image exploring it looked like a similar version of CoolIris add-on with Chrome.

I will be writing a detailed post on Internet Explorer 9 version’s platform preview soon which allows you a peek at IE9 and some of it’s feature.

In the mean time you can visit their test drive page for IE9 and drop in your comments here with what you think IE 9 needs to address if it has to compete against browsers like Firefox and Chorme when it comes to performance.

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News

Opera: World’s Fastest Browser?

After launching nearly 7 release candidates for its Windows web browser, Opera released Opera 10.50 final today, that claims to be the fastest browser in the world. We almost lost the count on the number of release candidates, when Opera came out with 4 release candidates yesterday!

Testing its speed, fixing various bugs and optimizing the browser for windows environment were all a part of updates that were made in various Beta updates, so as to make user experience smooth.

Giving a new shape to User Interface, the whole look and feel of the browser has been improved. For windows 7 users, the Aero glass, Aero peak and Jump list support makes it look the best! The much needed feature, Private browsing as well as private Tabs feature has been introduced and that enables users to hide their activities on web.

The major improvement came in the form of New Javascript Engine – Carakan, that makes the browsing fastest. HTML5 for video support and supports CSS3 for enhanced effects are also some of the featured improvements.

For detailed info and more features, visit Opera 10.50 features page.

The launch comes at a crucial time when European users of windows OS will be having a choice to choose their browsers, as Microsoft rolled out Browser Ballot screen for the European Union users of windows OS yesterday.

The browser will soon be available for Linux and Mac users. For windows users, it is available for download in nearly 42 languages.

So what do you think about Opera’s claim to be the fastest browser in the world?

Download Opera 10.50 for Windows now and write your comments with your views.

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News

Opera 10.50 Beta 2 for Windows Released

Closing in to make World’s fastest browser, Opera today released another beta version of opera 10.50 . Just a few days ago, Opera 10.50 beta 1 was introduced.

With opera storming its way through alpha and beta releases, this move can be crucial ahead of browser ballot where windows users will be presented with the Microsoft Browser Ballot from 1st March, which will force users to choose between the five most popular browsers presented in random order. Beta 2 contains many significant improvements over the first beta.

The changelog includes a list of bug and crash fixes along with tweaked styling. Some of the highlights of the changelog are-

  • Skin work, and tweaked styling of internal pages (opera:* and error pages)
  • Improved opera:config
  • Improved overlay authentication dialogs to avoid spoofing
  • Context menu fixes
  • Basic Web Storage user interface
  • Lots of crash fixes
  • Widgets fixes

Links:

You can download opera 10.50 beta 2 for windows directly from opera’s ftp server.

Opera for Linux and mac are in different development stages, so linux and mac users will have to wait a little longer!

Opera 10.50 beta 2 – Changelog | Download

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Reviews

Opera 10.10: Combination of Opera Unite & Opera Turbo

Seems like the war between all the social networking sites is now spreading to the Web browsers! If you are one of those users who are tired of the monopoly shown by Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari etc , go ahead and try out Opera`s latest offering – Opera 10.10. We promise you, the other browsers will safely be resting in your computer while Opera is at work!

When we talk about browsers, a couple of things are of prime importance.

  1. Security.
  2. It must not consume too much RAM (h/w resources).
  3. It must be highly efficient and easy to use.

Opera will not disappoint you, instead it promises a fantastic browsing experience! Let us take you through why we think Opera has scored a homerun with this release. Google chrome indexes your recent website visits, and shows them as thumbnails when you open a new  tab. Now these sites may not be the ones you would want to visit regularly, and the bookmarks in chrome are arranged with a drop-down menu. What Opera has done is, they use what they call – Speed Dial! This feature saves a thumbnail of your recent websites, at the same time it also allows you to customize it to your convenience. Here`s a snapshot of the same :

Another feature we would like to highlight is the – Opera Widgets. You can download them by clicking on Widgets in the Menu bar or by clicking here. Among the widgets are cool apps and some super cool games! Do check this one out.

If this was not enough, Opera has a built-in server side optimizer – Opera Turbo. It reduces the amount of data that is transferred between your computer and the web server by up to 80%, although Opera warns that this compression might lead to poor image quality in cases, our tests have yielded fantastic results! You can find the Opera turbo button on the bottom of your browser and tweak it to your convenience.

The most eye catchy feature of Opera 10.10 is the – Opera unite! Opera unite is a platform that allows you to stream content, whether that be music, documents,videos etc without uploading it to a website. To break this into easier words, Opera unite creates a end to end connection between you and the people you wish to transfer files. The Opera unite suite contains a assortment of apps like :

  • Opera Unite Home: An overview that lists all the applications you are running, activity information, and also shows the applications others are running.
  • File Sharing: Share files directly from your computer easily and safely.
  • Fridge: Enjoy fun notes left on your computer by friends.
  • Photo Sharing: Share your personal photos with friends around the world without the need to upload them.
  • Media Player: Access your complete home music library from wherever you are.
  • Web Server: Host your Web sites directly from your own computer.
  • Messenger: Communicate with your friends in My Opera in a one-to-one, live session.

Besides the above listed apps, you can integrate more apps with Opera unite by clicking on the unite button , next click on the Add button, and then choose your app to synchronize it with Opera unite.

So guys, our verdict is Opera has unleashed a monster! Go ahead and try taming this one! You can download Opera 10.10 by clicking here. With Opera 10.50 still in the Beta release, this is most definitely one of the best browsers out there! Do let us know what you think of it!

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Reviews

5 Chrome Extensions To Enhance your Google Search Experience

We all are aware of the fact that we are addicted to google! And when it comes to google search, we use it regularly whether we are searching for a software or, information regarding a topic.  In-short, google is one-stop to find solutions to most of our problems. To enhance the google search results page, here are some extensions for google chrome, that provide increased functionality to the search-

Search Box

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Search Box extension is a perfect replacement to the missing search bar in google chrome. As we introduced search box it our last post, you must have noticed that it simplifies the way you search on Google Chrome. A simple search box is added where you can create your custom search engine or choose from the available search engines.

Download and Install link for the extension Search Box.

Xmarks Thumbnails 

As clearly visible, this extension adds a thumbnail preview to your google search results. You can see the thumbnail preview before entering any website. It also adds a rank to the search results, based on millions of bookmarks on xmarks bookmark sync manager.

Download and Installation link for the extension Xmarks Thumbnails.

Xmarks SearchTabs

This extension adds a colorful tab under the google search bar, which contains top websites related to your search query, grouped by topic. SearchTabs also adds useful details related to the websites such as information about website and their rank based on xmarks bookmarks.

Download and Install link for the extension Xmarks SearchTabs.

FastestChrome

We often spend time clicking on next page, and waiting for it to reload. This extension will automatically reload the next page, while you are browsing the current page. Not only on google, this extension works on all the websites, where you have to move to next page after the end of the content. Give it a try, this will result in enhanced productivity for sure!

Download and Install link for the extension FastestChrome.

WebMynd 


This is one of my personal favourites, that i regularly use while searching on google. WebMynd extension embeds results from dozens of websites in form of beautiful widgets on the right side of your search results page. This brings the useful stuff from many websites, on a single web page! Presently in development stage, YouTube, Twitter, Oneriot and Hunch have been embedded into search results.

Download and Install link for the extension WebMynd.

CONCLUSION-

The above extensions can be used individually or all together without any problem. We tested all the extensions one by one, and even tried activating them all together. Everything worked out pretty well. Here is a snapshot of all the extensions activated-

Do you use any such search enhancing extensions? What is your opinion on these extension? Lets us know!

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News

Opera 10.50 Beta Released

Opera announced the release of beta version of its web browser Opera 10.50 today, claiming it to be the fastest browser on Earth. Previously, Opera also launched its pre-alpha version, which came out to be very unstable, though it was the fastest of all versions.

With the new JavaScript engine – Carakan, beta version of Opera 10.50 turns out to be even faster than the Latest version of other browsers including firefox 3.6 and even Google chrome 4.0 . A comparison of the browsers is available on opera blog, based on the tests conducted by opera team.

Some of the features of the release are-

  • Opera widgets – Multi-process architecture allows each widget to be run separately as an application on your desktop.
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  • Faster JavaScript Engine – Makes opera 10.50 almost 8 times faster than its previous version.
  • Windows Integration – It integrates well with windows 7 and Vista.
  • Private Browsing – Like other browsers, now you will find private browsing tabs in opera also, so as to hide your activities on web. You can open a private tab for this or, private window.
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  • Support For Web Standards – It features HTML5 for video support and also supports CSS3 for enhanced effects.

A host of other features like improvement in design, improved search, auto-complete address, dialogue boxes etc. make the beta release even better. Unlike the pre-alpha release of Opera 10.50, the beta version is much stable and can be used.

Download Opera 10.50 beta and enjoy super-fast browsing!

Editor’s Note: A newer version of Opera 10.50 Beta has been released and you can read about it by clicking here.