Oct 10

CyberNotes: Safely Browse the Web with Special Versions of Firefox & Opera

Posted in: CyberNotes, Freeware, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on January 17, 2007 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

Tor Safe and anonymous Web browsing is important to a lot of people. I can understand that you may not think about security so much when you’re at home because you don’t think about people intercepting packets of information sent from your computer to a destination. However, when doing important tasks like banking or even just browsing the Internet in a more public place, you should really think about stepping up the security.

So how can you be a little safer when you’re on the Internet? Actually, one big step would be to use Tor which provides some anonymity for your Internet connection. What does it do?

Tor aims to defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers called onion routers, protecting you from websites that build profiles of your interests, local eavesdroppers that read your data or learn what sites you visit, and even the onion routers themselves.

Basically you establish an encrypted connection with a chain of Tor computers that eventually connect to your destination. So how safe is this?…

A branch of the U.S. Navy uses Tor for open source intelligence gathering, and one of its teams used Tor while deployed in the Middle East recently. Law enforcement uses Tor for visiting or surveilling web sites without leaving government IP addresses in their web logs, and for security during sting operations.

Downloading and installing Tor is not a difficult task, especially with graphical instructions like these for Windows. However, if you’re like most people you will probably just want to use it for your Web browser…and there are two great solutions for doing that!

 

 –TorPark (Homepage / Mirror [version 1.5.0.7a])–

This is a portable Web browser that can be used anywhere that you go. Unfortunately it is still based on Firefox 1.5.0.7 so you don’t get all of the nifty features that Firefox 2 has to offer, but I did read that they have plans on upgrading it to version 1.5.0.9 shortly. If privacy and security is what you’re looking for then I’m sure you’ll fall in love with this browser.

Essentially it is Just a version of Firefox that includes some extensions to make your browsing a lot safer. Here are the extensions that it includes by default:

  • Adblock – Blocks ads on websites.
  • Firesomething – used to rebrand the browser as Torpark.
  • Flush Tor Circuit – drops your current Tor connection and creates a new one.
  • Live IP Address – Shows your IP in the address bar.
  • Torbutton – Easily enable or disable the use of the Tor network.
  • NoScript – Blocks scripts from running on websites without your approval.
  • It also comes with a bunch of language translation extensions installed.

While you could make your own version of this secure browser by installing a few extension, I do have to admit that it is nice having it already packaged for me to use.

TorPark

 

–OperaTor (Homepage / Mirror [version 2.1])–

You probably wouldn’t enjoy using the TorPack mentioned above if you’re an Opera browser fan. Don’t worry though, there is a version of Opera that utilizes the Tor network as well…and it is portable! All you have to do is download and run the included OperaTor.exe file and the browser, along with Tor, will be up and running.

It is based on Opera 9.10 so you get the latest security protection including Opera’s new anti-fraud feature. I actually prefer to use OperaTor over TorPack myself and it’s what I have sitting on my USB drive right now. So whenever I’m in a public place I whip it out and feel much more confident about the Web surfing that I do.

OperaTor  

 

–Overview–

 That’s not all you can do to try and keep yourself safe. Last year I wrote a post that listed 10 Firefox extensions you can use that offer several security benefits. Safety and security are serious matters in a world where identify theft continues to rise, so make sure you take extra measures to keep your data safe, especially when the risks are abnormally high, like in public places.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 10

Change the Default Programs in Windows

Posted in: Freeware, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on April 01, 2011 by CyberNet.

Default programs editor

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
There is something nice about finding an application that focuses on doing one thing, and doing that thing very well. That’s how I feel about the Default Programs Editor app. It accomplishes a task I feel should be better managed in Windows itself, but with this no-install/portable program I start to forget about this shortcoming in Windows.

This app is a single executable that can be used to manage just about anything related to opening files. With it you can choose which context menu entries appear when you right-click on a particular filetype, you can add/remove the programs associated to a filetype in the “Open with” menu, and much more:

  • Add, edit, and remove context menu items
  • Edit file type icon and description
  • Change the ‘Open with…’ programs list
  • Change context menu item icons
  • Change an extension’s associated file type
  • Add, edit, and remove autoplay handler programs
  • Change the default autoplay handler
  • Change autoplay options for any media type
  • Optional install to the Control Panel
  • Export changes to .reg files
  • Remove unchangable default associations
  • Disable “Search web for unknown extension” dialog

You may not have noticed the export option in that list of features, but that can be extremely useful if you want to set up multiple machines with the same settings. That way you can just execute the “.reg” file to have those same settings applied without even needing to download this program again. Pure genius!

Here are a few more screenshots of the Default Programs Editor in action:

Change the applications in the “Open with” menu for TXT files
Default open with

Change the context menu options that are displayed when you right-click on a TXT file
Default context menu txt

Default Programs Editor Homepage (Windows only; Freeware; Portable)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 10

AllPeers Is About To Open Themselves To The Public

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on August 23, 2006 by CyberNet.

AllPeers Screenshot

It looks like AllPeers is going to be opening their doors later tonight so that the whole world can experience the joy of private file sharing. I was able to get my hands on an invitation last week and AllPeers is pretty nice. The interface was very well designed and I received very good transfer speeds.

What’s the downside? It has been hard for me to find people I know that would be willing to install the extension. Right now it is only for privately sharing files between your friends and family but hopefully they will turn it into a more widespread thing. Not only that but I think they could have done away with the toolbar and put those options into a drop-down menu…I’m not a big fan of things that take up a whole toolbar.

If you want a peek at the goodness that AllPeers has then you can checkout this tour that they have put together in preparation for their new site launch.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 10

CyberNotes: Acid3 Browser Results

Posted in: CyberNotes, Internet Explorer, Opera, Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites, Windows

This article was written on March 05, 2008 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

The other day, the Web Standards Project released the Acid3 test that will push browsers to a new level. I’m sure many of you are already familiar with the Acid2 test which has become famous because of the often discombobulated block-like smiley face most browsers produce.

Browsers such as Safari, Konqueror, and Opera already pass the Acid2 test, and when Firefox 3 is released later this year it will as well. Microsoft has also put some work into Internet Explorer 8 so that it will pass the Acid2 test when it is eventually made available. All of the main browsers will be passing the Acid2 test about 3 years after it was initially released.

Now it is time to move on to bigger and better things… Acid3! The test is not nearly as cool as the smiley face in my opinion, but it does extensively test different aspects of the browser’s rendering engine. It runs a hundred different tests on the browser, and the result should look just like this:

acid3 test correct

This new test targets DOM scripting which is frequently used by Web 2.0 services for advanced interaction. Here’s what the Web Standards Project said about it in their press release:

The Acid3 Test is designed to test specifications for Web 2.0, and exposes potential flaws in implementations of the public ECMAScript 262 and W3C Document Object Model 2 standards. Collectively known as DOM Scripting, it is these technologies that enable advanced page interactivity and power many advanced web applications such as web-based email and online office applications.

We thought it would be fun to test out the browsers that are currently available to see how they stack up to each other on the Acid3 test.

–The Browser Test–

Here are some things to note about our tests:

  • All of these browsers were tested on Windows Vista.
  • The browsers started with a clean profile and no extensions or add-ons were installed.
  • The results below are sorted from the best to the worst.
  • Click on any of the screenshots for a full-size version.

Safari 3.1 (Nightly r30626): 86/100

acid3 safari31

Firefox 3 (Nightly 03/04/2008): 67/100

acid3 firefox3

Opera 9.5 (Beta 9815): 65/100

acid3 opera95

Firefox 2.0.0.12: 50/100

acid3 firefox2

Opera 9.26: 46/100

acid3 opera 926

Safari 3.04 (Beta 523.15): 39/100

acid3 safari304

Internet Explorer 7: 12/100

acid3 ie7

 

–Overview–

So it looks like the nightly builds of Safari really take the crown for this test. It was the closest browser to perfectly complete the test by quite a large margin, with Firefox 3 and Opera 9.5 coming in second and third place. It’s obvious from the results posted above that the current stable builds of all the browsers are definitely not close to passing the Acid3 test.

If you’re on a Mac or Linux machine I would love to hear what you’re results are in some of the other browsers that are available.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 10

CyberNotes: Best Portable Antivirus Software

Posted in: CyberNotes, Freeware, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on October 09, 2007 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Time Saving Tuesday

Have you ever been on another computer and wished that you had an antivirus program? Maybe you were trying to clean up a computer for a friend, or maybe you received an email attachment while using a public computer? One thing is for sure, and it’s that having the best antivirus is important, but there are times where you just need something.

Today we’re going to present you with three portable antivirus solutions that can be used for scanning files in an emergency. They are all self updating, and require absolutely no installation. But remember, these are not replacements for installed applications as they are only made to do on-demand scanning.

–Portable ClamWin (Homepage)–

Portable ClamWin
Click to Enlarge

ClamAV is an extremely popular open source antivirus application. It was recently ranked very highly in the quest for the best Linux antivirus, it even beat out many of the highly acclaimed commercial solutions. Shortly after that the makers of the application were acquired by Sourcefire.

To get Portable ClamWin up and running all I had to do was run the executable, which then extracted several files to a directory. The first time that I ran it I was forced to update the program because the portable version comes with no virus definitions. So you may want to make sure to run the program at least once before throwing it on your USB drive, because if you don’t have an Internet connection you’ll be out of luck.

This is my top recommendation for portable antivirus software because it frequently receives updates.

Portable ClamWin will occupy about 19.1MB of room on your drive.

–Portable Antivirus (Homepage)–

Portable Antivirus
Click to Enlarge

This program appears to be relatively new, and from what I can tell it has been around for less than 7 months. My favorite thing about this generically named program is that it is composed of a single file. It even comes bundled with a set of virus definitions so that it is ready to go out-of-the-box. Although the included virus definitions are just a small set relative to the other apps mentioned here.

There is a real-time scanning option available on this application, but it will be disabled if you are running it from the standalone file. This makes sense though, because if you were to use this on a USB drive it would create insane amounts of overhead, and would greatly hinder your ability to access the drive.

One nice touch that the program offers is a useful System Tray icon. From there you can start a full system scan, check for updates, or close the program all together.

Portable Antivirus will occupy about 847KB of room on your drive.

–MicroWorld Free Antivirus (Homepage)–

MicroWorld Antivirus
Click to Enlarge

This is one of the last tools that I stumbled upon, and I thought it was just a virus scanner like the others that I’ve listed here. It does scan your memory, registry, files, and more for viruses, but it also has an extremely useful network activity monitor.

In the network activity monitor you’ll be able to keep track of any communication going in and out of the computer. It also shows the ID of the computer “on the other end” so that you know who you are communicating with. If you ever try to diagnose a friends computer that is plagued with unknown programs and files, this will be a good way to identify the software that is frequently communicating with the outside world.

MicroWorld Free Antivirus will occupy about 18.8MB of room on your drive.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 10

CyberNotes: Reset a Windows Password

Posted in: CyberNotes, Freeware, Microsoft, Software, Today's Chili, Windows, Windows Vista, Windows XP

This article was written on September 06, 2007 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Tutorial Thursday

Post-it Note on Monitor with PasswordHow many times have you seen someone take a post-it note, write their password on it, and slap it to their monitor? Unfortunately this type of thing is more of a common occurrence than it should be, but the problem is that people can never remember their darn passwords!

Windows has a built-in feature that is made for situations just like this. It lets a user create a password reset "disk" that can be used to change the password in the event that they forget it. The "disk" can be a floppy, USB drive, iPod, or any external drive. It takes less than a minute to create, and believe me…this can save you a ton of time!

Of course by the time you come across this article it will probably be too late, and you’ll want to reset the Windows password without a disk. If that’s the case then I’ve put together a small section at the end of this article dedicated to "cracking" the Windows password.

–Creating a Password Reset Disk–

Instructions on creating a password reset disk in Windows XP can be found here. Here’s what you have to do if you’re running Vista:

  1. Open the start menu and start to type "User Accounts" in the search box.
    Reset a Windows Password
  2. In the window that pops up choose the "Create a password reset disk" under the Tasks heading in the left pane.
    Reset a Windows Password - User Accounts
  3. A wizard will now walk you through creating a password reset disk. After you get by the first screen you’ll be presented with a drop-down menu that lists the available devices that can successfully be used. It has to be some sort of removable media, such as a floppy disk, USB drive, or even your iPod.
    Reset a Windows Password Wizard Reset a Windows Password Device
  4. Next just enter in your current Windows password, and then you’ll be done. If you check the device that you used for the reset disk there should be a hidden file called userkey.psw.
    Reset a Windows Password File

–Using a Password Reset Disk–

Like most things in life, the advanced preparations you made by creating a password reset disk can really pay off. To use the disk just insert it into your computer, and then try to login as if you knew the password. Windows will tell you that the password is incorrect, and when you return to the login screen there will be a "Reset password" option located under the password field. That will initiate a wizard that will guide you through the steps needed to create a new password.

Note: Your current password reset disk is still valid even after changing your password.

Reset a Windows Password
Click to Enlarge

–Don’t Have a Password Reset Disk?–

Unfortunately by the time you realize that you can create a password reset disk it’s normally too late. There are some solutions, which I’ll outline here, but for obvious reasons none of them are going to be very easy.

  • Using a Windows XP loophole – You can launch the user account management while performing a repair on the operating system since you can access the command prompt. This is definitely the route I would go if I was running XP, but make sure you follow the instructions closely.
  • Cracking a Vista or XP password using Ophcrack – This is an application that you burn to CD, and it will boot up with your computer. You’ll need to give your computer some "alone time" depending on the strength of your password.
  • Login Recovery for NT, 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista – This is actually a service, and it requires that you download an application to put on a floppy that will retrieve your password file. You then send your password file to them, and they will decode it. There’s a 98.5% chance that it can be done in less than 10-minutes, but you’ll have to pay some money if you want it that soon. Otherwise they have a free service available, and with that you’ll get the password within 48-hours.

–Overview–

I highly recommend that you create a password reset disk if you haven’t done so already. I did it for all of my computers since I can just use a USB drive as the storage medium. You’re probably pretty confident that you won’t forget your password, but who knows, it could happen.

This might also be useful to backup passwords for friends and family who may often forget these types of things. I might start doing that because then they don’t have to worry about putting a darn post-it note on the desk with their password! Maybe they would also create a password that is more secure, too.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 09

CyberNotes: Cookie Editors in Firefox & Opera

Posted in: CyberNotes, Firefox Extensions, Opera, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on November 28, 2007 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

Cookies in web browsers are an easy way for sites to store authentication/login information, settings, and so much more. One of the things that some sites do for security or privacy purposes is force the cookies to expire after a period of time. Sometimes they expire after a day, a week, a year, or when you close your browser. If there was a way to edit the cookies you would be able to adjust the expiration date so that you didn’t run into that problem.

Oh, but wait, there is a way to edit your browser’s cookies! It’s actually rather easy to do in both Firefox and Opera, so today we’ll take a look at how to edit cookies.

–Opera–

One of the great things about Opera is that they give you a lot of control over the content and properties of a cookie. If you want to alter a cookie it is as simple as heading over to the Preferences and clicking a few buttons.

To change a cookie in Opera go to Tools -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Cookies -> Manage Cookies. Then find the cookie that you want to change, and click the Edit button. You’ll then be presented with a dialog where you can customize the expiration date or any other information contained within the cookie:

Opera Cookies
Click to Enlarge

As you can see it is rather easy to do in Opera thanks to the built-in advanced editor that the browser comes equipped with.

–Firefox–

Firefox is only able to view your browser’s cookies out-of-the-box, but as expected there are a few extensions available to do the dirty work. My personal favorite is Add N Edit Cookies, which has a simple yet powerful interface for managing and creating cookies.

Once you get the extension installed here’s what you’ll have to do to edit the cookies:

  1. Go to Tools -> Cookie Editor, and then perform a search for the cookie you’re looking for. After you find the cookie you want select it and click the Edit button.
    Firefox Cookie Editor Search
  2. Now you’ll be presented with all of the cookie’s properties that you can edit. To change the expiration date of the cookie fill in the New expiration date bubble located at the bottom of the properties window:

    (Click to enlarge)
    Firefox Cookie Editor Edit

  3. Save your changes, and then close out of the cookie editor.

–Recap–

To sum things up, it is pretty easy to manipulate the cookies in your browser, provided that you have the right tools handy. Some of the websites I visit have the logins expire after a very short period of time or when I close the browser, and it can get rather annoying. By adjusting the dates on some of my cookies I can avoid having to login to many sites over and over again.

Tip: You just need to be careful because often times these short-lived cookies are for your own protection and privacy.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 09

Windows Vista RC1 Download Links?

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on August 23, 2006 by CyberNet.

Windows Vista RC1 Logo MSBlog got creative and it appears that they found what could be the download links for Windows Vista RC1. Unfortunately the links, right now, just redirect you to a page that says “Thanks for your interest in Windows Vista RC 1. The Customer Preview Program is now closed. We have reached our program capacity and no new orders are being accepted. We apologize for any inconvenience.” Here are what the download links should be:

To verify that this wasn’t just some generic page I tried changing “rc1″ to “rc2″ in the URL but that redirects you to the Getting Started With Windows Vista page. I would have to say that those links look valid to me.

The release date for Vista RC1 is still scheduled for September 7 and should be build 5536. I’m sure someone is bound to get some screenshots of that build before it actually gets released…in case you are impatient.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 09

JS/SNZ.A Virus is False Positive

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on December 31, 2007 by CyberNet.

Computer Virus

We’ve been contacted by a few of our readers today letting us know that our website is being identified as containing a JS/SNZ.A virus. Don’t worry, we haven’t been infected with a virus.

As it turns out some antivirus applications, such as CA’s eTrust and ZoneAlarm, have been falsely identifying several JavaScript files as a virus. The two common JavaScript files that will trigger the alert are jQuery and MooTools. We use jQuery all over our website for providing AJAX features, and that’s therefore the culprit of the JS/SNZ.A virus warning that you might be receiving.

The update that has the issue is version 31.3.5417 and was just released today. Some users are reporting that the virus alert only appears if websites use the compressed versions of the JavaScript files, and that replacing the compressed version with the full-size might solve the issue. It’s probably not worth the trouble because I would assume that CA will correct the issue rather quickly.

[via The Register]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Oct 09

Microsoft Revenue Up, Gates Looking for a New Home?

Posted in: Microsoft, Software, Today's Chili, Windows Vista, xbox

This article was written on July 20, 2007 by CyberNet.

Bill Gates must be seeing $$ signs after Microsoft announced that they had a reported $13.37 BILLION in revenue for the quarter ending on June 30th. And for their fiscal year which just wrapped up, their reported revenue was $51.12 billion, a 15% increase from last year!

Those numbers are impressive, but I guess they do have Windows Vista, Office 2007, Xbox 360 (despite repair troubles), and Windows Server to thank for their numbers this time around.

Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft had this to say about their sales:

Surpassing $50 billion in annual sales is a testament to the innovation and value that our product groups delivered into the marketplace, as well as the outstanding execution by our field sales, marketing teams and partners to bring that value to life with our customers.

All in all, despite the costs that they will spend on Xbox 360 repairs and trouble with their Online Services group, I’d say that Microsoft had a good year.

So with an increase in revenue, maybe Bill Gates will be out looking for a new high-tech home? :)

And no, he’s not really looking for a new home.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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