Tag: Browsers

Categories
Reviews

Firefox add-on for Better Privacy

Even if you regularly clean your history and cookies from your Firefox browser, you will end up leaving all kinds of traces behind on your machine, allowing someone else to easily track your actions online.

One of the ways to manage this problem is by using Firefox add-ons that help remove traces and cookies in your local computer. But Flash-based streaming videos, advertisements, and controls that are nearly ubiquitous on the web these days are still left behind untouched. That’s why BetterPrivacy add-on comes in handy.

BetterPrivacy is a free download and works wherever Firefox does.

What is BetterPrivacy?

ADVERTISEMENT
  • Super-Cookie Safeguard which protects from usually undeletable LSO’s (Flash-Cookies) or DOM Storage Objects.
  • It blocks long term tracking on Google, YouTube, ebay and many other domains.

With the help of this add-on, you can get rid of those hidden, never expiring objects. You can set your browser to always clean your Flash cache and DOM objects automatically. However, those of you who wish to manage all cookies manually have the option to disable the automatic functions.

Click here to download your BetterPrivacy add-on.

Link: BetterPrivacyAddon

Categories
News

Google Chrome Ads – From YouTube to your TV set!

Google recently launched a video campaign to market its web browser – Google Chrome with the help of 11 short films, telling the users what Chrome is all about. Google then released Chrome Shorts on the YouTube channel that seemed to receive a good response.

Seeing this, Google has now decided to show this to a wider set of audience. With the help of their Google TV Ads team, Google will run the Chrome Ad Campaign on various television networks starting this weekend.

But Why?

ADVERTISEMENT

As per Google,

  1. To raise awareness of the Chrome browser amongst the masses.
  2. To help understand how television can supplement their other online media campaigns.

Google believes that Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier. With all the security problems around it that we’ve seen in the recent past, I am sure many of us disagree with what is being stated.

In spite of that, Google’s innovative ad campaign does seem to be attention-grabbing (no doubts about that). The short films creatively demonstrate Chrome’s capabilities in the simplest way possible, so that even a non-techie could understand.

(Probably mass advertizing is their last ditch effort to get people to use it after all.) 😛

To view all of the Chrome shorts, you may go to ChromeShorts.com. You could also view the videos on the YouTube channel.

If not, then simply wait and try and catch it on your television set. 🙂

(Source: Google blog)

Categories
News

StumbleUpon Enhances User Experience

Within a fortnight of becoming an independent company again, StumbleUpon presented its users an enhanced version of web-stumbling feature.

Adding some really cool enhancements, StumbleUpon claims that they have now finally achieved what according to them was the ultimate aim of the web based toolbar.

Have you been using the Stumbleupon’s web toolbar and wishing for a browser-free, computer-free synchronization? Well, in that case try out this new toolbar to experience all that you wished for and much more.

The Enhancements

ADVERTISEMENT
  • Personalized Experience – Accessible from any computer, and from any browser.
  • Web Stumbling synchronization with your toolbar – Web Stumbling could be used to rate, review and share content. All the activities get saved in personal profile.
  • Sharing – Web stumbled sites could now be shared with several friends and even your Facebook profile, at a single click.

How does it look?

The best way is to login to your account and check the web toolbar yourself.

If you don’t want to do that… have a look at it here itself:

Do share your feedback with us. Hope you like these enhancements.

Link: Stumble

(Source: Stumbleupon Blog)

(Image Credits: Stumbleupon Blog)

Categories
News

Google markets Chrome with 11 short films

Google recently launched a video campaign to market its web browser – Google Chrome (a browsing browser… a new way to get online!). The video is a collection of 11 short films (mostly animated) that tell us what Chrome is all about.

The short films creatively demonstrate Chrome’s capabilities in the simplest way possible, so that even a non-techie could understand.

Christoph Niemann (the artist and illustrator of the video) said:

“Instead of thinking of what I wanted to show, I tried to think about what I did NOT want to show. I realized that when I use a computer or browse the web these days, the one thing I do NOT think about is… a computer…
…I wanted to find a simple metaphor that explains what a browser does, without showing a screen, a keyboard, the letters WWW, pixels, zeroes or ones.”

To view all of the short films, go to ChromeShorts.com. You could also view the Chrome Shorts on their YouTube channel.

Hope you enjoy watching the videos. Do share your thoughts on what you think about the films and Google’s new marketing strategy.

(Source: Google chrome blog)

Categories
News

Security Problems with Google Chrome?

There was a security threat with Google’s web browser – Google Chrome. According to the Google Chrome Team, there was an error in handling URLs with a chromehtml: protocol. This allowed the attacker to run scripts of his choice on any page or enumerate files on the local disk under certain conditions.

Because of this problem, the attacker could endanger any user who browsed a malicious site using Internet Explorer and had Google Chrome installed.

As per IBM Rational Application Security Insider, this allowed a dangerous combination of new security vulnerabilities letting a malicious attacker to bypass the Same Origin Policy restrictions for any site using the victim’s Google Chrome.

ADVERTISEMENT

The dangerous impact:

  1. Cross-Site Scripting attack where the attacker could steal cookies, save form filler data, modify user-browsing experience and facilitate phishing attacks.
  2. Leaking of information: from the victim’s files and directories on the local file-system.

But, the good news is that a FIX has been released: Version 1.0.154.59 of Chrome and hopefully, all the security issues revolving around Google Chrome are under control now.

Link: Fix for Chrome

(Source: GoogleChromeReleases | IBM watchfire)

Categories
Tips

Beware Copycats! Copyscape could be watching you!

Are you worried about protecting your content online – be it in the form of a corporate website, online publication, blog, or even a marketing document? If yes, then this post is for you…

Now, defend your website from online plagiarism by tracking copycats and protecting your Web content against online theft.

Protecting content online:

With the help of Copyscape, which is an online tool, you could easily and conveniently track your content that has been used without your permission online by someone else. Copyscape can also help you find websites that have quoted you. All you need to do is, type the address of your webpage in Copyscape’s search bar, and it would list the ‘copycats’ for you.

ADVERTISEMENT

You could then check the results by doing a word-by-word comparison for each matching block that is highlighted by colors. (The colors don’t have any particular meaning though).

How much does it cost?

Although you could use this service for FREE, but only for limited number of searches, which means, a maximum of 5 searches per month. To use more, you will have to sign up for Copyscape’s Premium version for $0.05 per search.

Note: Copyscape could track your website even when you haven’t stolen any content!

This could happen sometimes! Copyscape works on the lines of finding similar content online, without making any judgments about which page is “original”.

So, careful before you draw any conclusions!

If you have more questions in mind, then click here.

[Source: Copyscape]

Categories
Analysis

10 Unique Features of Opera Browser

With an increase of heat in browser wars, everyone in the market is trying to outpace the other by adding new features in every release. With two giants already in this cut-throat competition, Opera browser has preserved its place firmly among its tiny share of user base (0.71% in 2009 Q1 according to Wikipedia).

So, what makes its users stick to it by the way? The features it offers of course. Here is a list of 10 such unique features of Opera that you may not find in other browsers all at once. Of course, some browsers like Firefox have plugins for most of them, but again adding plugins to Firefox slows it down.

10 Unique Features of Opera Browser

  1. Speed Dial: The most innovative of all, this feature creates thumbnails of your favorite sites. Clicking on that thumbnail takes you directly to that site.
  2. Feed preview: From Opera 9.63, you can view the feed content before subscribing to that feed.
  3. IRC client: Enjoy IRC right from your browser itself. You don’t need any dedicated client to enjoy IRC.
  4. Opera Mail: Opera has a built in Mail client too. Again, no need to install any dedicated mail client.
  5. Notes: Find something interesting on web and want to jot it down immediately? Notes are at your service.
  6. Web Page preview: A great feature to resemble Windows Vista’s Live Thumbnail preview. Hover your mouse cursor over a browser tab and a small thumbnail of the webpage is displayed.
  7. Torrent client: From Opera 5, it is shipped with a built in torrent downloading client. This shipment is the result of agreement between Opera Software and BitTorrent way back in 2001.
  8. Trash can: This simple feature can save you a precious time on web as it can open closed tabs. If you’ve mistakenly closed an important tab, just head on to Trash can and restore your tab back.
  9. Scroll marker: Starting from Opera 9.63, this feature marks at the end of the webpage window, so you can continue reading from that mark while scrolling.
  10. Mouse gestures: As the name suggests, this feature performs mundane tasks by movement of your mouse.

Am I missing any worthy feature in this list? Point me there by your valuable comments below.

Categories
Reviews

Now Use Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer With IE & Safari too!

One of the most loved add-on that I use with Firefox is Foxmarks that keeps syncing bookmarks saved on my browser with its server automatically. So incase I uninstall my OS or browser, then I need not worry of saving all my precious bookmarks. This also helps me while working with multiple PCs on the same time, as, when installed, Foxmarks on all the PCs, the bookmarks in all my computer systems keeps syncing automatically and I need to do nothing. 🙂

So this is a quick post for users who love foxmarks or want to try it out but don’t wanna use Firefox. If it is so in your case, then we are happy to let you know that foxmarks now supports Internet Explorer and Safari web browsers. If you are a chrome user, then you need not worry as well, because foxmarks blog says:

At Foxmarks, our belief is that the best sync solution is one that spans all major browsers and operating systems (and yes we plan to support Google Chrome in the near future). It gives you, the user, the maximum choice and flexibility now and in the future.

Though, foxmarks is yet to be announced for Chrome users, Internet Explorer and Safari users can now taste foxmarks and its benefits by downloading it from here. 🙂 If you are new with foxmarks then do let us know your thoughts and experience of using this awesome bookmarks manager add-on. 🙂

Links: Official Release | Download Foxmarks

Related: Foxmarks – Best Extension To synchronize Firefox Bookmarks!

[Via Official Foxmarks Blog]

Categories
Reviews

Personalized Chrome like Tab now on Firefox with Google Toolbar 5!

One of the most liked and appreciated feature in Google Chrome is, it shows thumbnails of 10 most viewed pages while opening a new tab. A preview of one such page is available on the bottom of this post as well.

If you too like the same feature in Chrome, but don’t want to skip using Mozilla Firefox, then its time for you to cheer up. As the latest beta release of Google toolbar 5 for Firefox has included the same feature for Firefox users too! Including the option to show thumbnails of 9 most viewed sites, it has many more features, which you can check here.

To get such Chrome like tab view in firefox, you just need to install the latest beta release of Google toolbar and you are done. 🙂

Link: Google Toolbar 5 Download | New Features

[Via Official Google Blog]

Categories
News

Google to roll addons for Chrome users!

There’s some good news coming in for ‘Chrome‘ users. Google’s Chrome, youngest in the field of browser, is planning to roll out addons as in Firefox, for its users too. 🙂

Though there is no such official news from the Google team, but Aaron Boodman working in Google for Chrome and Gears, has mentioned on his blog that:

For the past few weeks, myself and a few others have been looking into how extensions might work in Chromium. Last Wednesday, we published a design doc with the beginning of our plan.
If you’re an extension developer or user, we’d love to hear your feedback. You can reach us at chromium-dev@googlegroups.com.

So, the above few lines by a Google employee, is evident of the fact that addons and 3rd party plugins in Chrome is sure to be rolled out in the upcoming days. Also this is not a good news just for Chrome users but for plugin developers too, as they are looking for them. 🙂

(Via Tech2)