In this video you can see how easy it is to build an Ubuntu live CD (or DVD, depending on how much software you have installed).
This guide is for Ubuntu 8.04, 8.10, 9.04 or newer. For older versions, please upgrade your installed system to the latest version.
Read the full article to see how easy it is to build it.
The guide:
1. Boot into Ubuntu (installed system, not live CD)
2. Personalize your Ubuntu system (remove, install software, change the theme, wallpaper, etc)
3. Update your Ubuntu system
4. Go to System > Administration > Software Sources > Third Party Software
click Add, paste this line:
deb http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/repository ubuntu/
5. You're asked if you'd like to update the list of packages - no and close
6. Open the Terminal, Applications > Accessories > Terminal
7. sudo apt-get update
8. sudo apt-get install remastersys
answer y to both questions
9. apt-get upgrade
(to be sure you really have the newest packages)
10. open the Remastersys GUI, System > Administration > Remastersys Backup
11. close all other applications (keep the window which just popped up from Remastersys open)
12. after you finished step 11, click ok
13. Choose clean, click ok
14. Decide what you want:
a) you want a LIVE CD/DVD which is exactly like your installed system (keeps all settings and every PASSWORD you saved, every document, all the apps installed in wine, absolutely everything)
- this kind of LIVE CD/DVD is appropriate if you just made a fresh install of Ubuntu and installed all the apps you want to have on it
- not OK if you use an older install with a lot of files (personal documents, other files and non-free software)
- not OK if you plan to redistribute it to other people so they can use it as a live cd and/or install it
- not OK if you stored password and sensitive data - if you lose the disc or someone steals it, they will have all your sensitive data and passwords (no need to explain how bad this is)
b) a redistributable live CD/DVD to share with other persons
- the good choice if you have a lot of personal files and documents
- only keeps the installed applications
- your documents will not show up on the live cd
- the live CD/DVD is installable and your files will not show up on that system
for a, choose Backup
for b, choose Dist
I chose Backup because I've installed Wine to run Notepad++. You'll see later that I can run Notepad++ from the live DVD.
15. Click ok
16. wait for it to finish building (about 5-20 minutes, depending on your hardware)
17. in terminal, run this:
ls -ahl /home/remastersys/remastersys
My ISO was called custombackup.iso and it was 910MB.
A Dist made out of the same installed system was 810MB.
Depending on the choice you made (Backup or Dist), the ISO filenames are: custombackup.iso for Backup and customdist.iso for Dist.
18. burn /home/remastersys/remastersys/customdist.iso or custombackup.iso to a RW CD/DVD
note: if the resulting ISO is smaller than or exactly 700MB, you can use RW CD
if it's bigger than 700MB, you will have to use a RW DVD
19. boot from the disc you just created
This is it. I hope you'll make some useful Live CDs for you and for others.
Read more!
Software news: iPod + Linux? Apple says: NO MORE!
Apple breaks Palm Pre sync and iPod sync outside iTunesIt was no secret the way Apple's sync process works wasn't public, nor documented by Apple. However, some apps which can sync with iPods showed up.
Later on, the Palm Pre was launched and it was able to sync with Apple's iTunes. Apple didn't like that very much, so they "upgraded" iTunes and the iPods to break that.
Read this full article for more details.
Apple says: "this is an iPod", we say: "just a portable media player"
Apple did something smart, they called their mp3 player an "iPod". All people started to look at it and talk about as if it wasn't just an mp3 player. The first iPods were just that: yet another device which played music. As time passed, new iPod versions were launched and they could handle photos, videos, etc. The current iPod, the iPod touch, can play videos, music, run apps and various games (even 3D games) and surf the web.
Let's see what this magical iPod is: a media player, a gaming console and a web browsing device.
Everyone should start taking a look at what the iPods can do, not think the iPod is some kind of cool and magical device they should automatically buy.
Here's your iPod, make sure you install iTunes
Let's say you'd like to buy an iPod, you go to some shop and buy it. You come home with it and want to start using it.
From this point on, there are many options, depending on the OS you're going to use it with:
Windows
You read the instructions which come with the iPod. You find out you need to install iTunes in order to be able to use the iPod with Windows.
You install iTunes, you start adding music to the iPod and try out to see how it sounds like.
Mac OS X
Most users of this OS don't need instructions on how to use their iPod because they already have iTunes and there's not much to install.
Some Mac OS X users may have to upgrade iTunes to the latest version or even upgrade their OS to a newer version to support the latest iTunes (this is just for older versions of OS X,
10.5.X needs no updates for this to work).
You plug your iPod into the computer via the cable it comes with and start adding music to it.
Linux/other *NIX OSes
Don't even think about this. Because of the latest changes Apple has made, the users of these OSes are locked out.
Some folks used to use gtkpod to sync with their iPods on Linux, but now that's not possible any longer.
In order to put music or some video clips on the iPod, you need to add them via iTunes, not directly via the filesystem. The reason why that doesn't work is because the iPod has metadata about the files which it is going to play (in a database found on the device) and the files are stored as weirdly named files in a set of directories.
Basically, the iPod isn't like some other portable media players (PMP). On other PMPs, you can simply copy the files to the proper directory on the device via the filesystem (some devices have the files in the root folder,
some have dedicated subfolders in the root of the drive: Music, Video, etc) and when you unplug the device, you can listen to them, watch them, etc.
These "other" PMPs don't even need a dedicated application - it's like copying some files to another place, it's THAT simple. While some other PMPs come with applications, most don't need them.
Apple, have you killed the iPod-gtkpod compatibility because of the Palm Pre?
Apple is picky about their hardware and software. They don't want anyone to be able to use their applications in ways they don't like.
The Palm Pre was launched and that device could sync with iTunes.
Apple felt threatened - they immediately thought their iPod/iPhone sales will go down because of it. Because of that, they upgraded iTunes so that it couldn't sync with the Palm Pre any longer, thus making sure that Mac owners would go for iPhones and iPods if they want to sync their devices with iTunes.
However, that's not the only side effect, locking out the Palm Pre. iPod owners who use other OSes than Mac OS X and Windows can't sync their iPods/iPhones any more.
This means all other applications are locked out, iPod owners can't sync with the iPod on Linux/other *NIX OSes. The well known gtkpod application is also affected.
Why should I care?? I use Windows/Mac OS anyway!!
Some companies like to tell their clients how to use their products and I'm not talking about guides or some other kind of instructions. They build their hardware and software
in such ways that they're either crippled or unusable in certain scenarios.
Microsoft used to have a good reputation back in the days. People were looking forward to their products and liked the company. Then they did a lot of things which made them look
very bad, that also includes policies which they still have nowadays. Lots of people are criticizing them and talking about how they treat their customers.
Linux, the *BSD OSes and other *NIX OSes exist and Microsoft needs to be careful about what it does as it's not the only entity which is developing an OS.
With the previous things in mind, everyone should know that competition is important and that you shouldn't buy products from a company which doesn't listen to customers.
Apple has proven they don't care about doing things right. The iPhone still lacks features most of the other phones have had for years. Apple is more about "doing what we want, how and when we wish to", they're putting the features most phones have in little drops, one by one, in new versions of their hardware for which they charge money again.
If you really don't care about what I've talked about, then you should, at least, not be selfish. If you don't care about something because you don't have that problem, you should at least think how you'd feel if that happened to you. This is similar to how some people found their hardware isn't supported by Windows Vista due to lack of drivers.
Why doesn't Apple create a version of iTunes for Linux and the other *NIX OSes?
Long story short, they don't want to shoot themselves in the foot.
Some people never heard of any other "mp3 player" or any other portable device which plays audio and video files, they know just about the iPod and nothing else.
If Apple would create an iTunes version for Linux/other *NIX OSes and their download page would say "download iTunes. For Mac OS X, Windows and Linux", some of their clients might say "hey, I own a Mac and I know Windows. let's see what this Linux is".
Later on, they find Linux to be similar to OS X and a bit more stable. After that, they start using it on their Mac full time. The next time they (or someone they know) wants to buy a new computer, they decide buying a desktop PC or a laptop PC and use Linux with is a better idea because of the price, the superior specs and greater performance/price ratio.
After a while, the same person lost the iPod. He's wondering if he could repeat the success story he had (with replacing the Mac computer with a regular PC + Linux) when it comes to finding some alternative to the iPod. They find an alternative to the iPod and that's it.
The same person starts advising others to go with the X product from the Y company when it comes to buying PMPs for mp3s. They also tell them to buy a laptop PC instead of a MacBook and a desktop PC instead of a Mac Pro or an iMac. They also tell them he was able to accomplish most of the tasks he used to use OS X for just with Linux.
Apple starts losing customers. Because of the above mentioned reasons, they have absolutely no reason to support Linux or any other open source OS.
The 100% open source OSes, like most Linux distributions (Fedora, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc), are Apple's and Microsoft's direct competitors. Microsoft is worried about Linux and Apple should think of it as their competitor as well. Maybe Apple has a very good opinion about their products and simply ignore the competition.
Should you buy an iPod/iPhone or some other PMP?
We're talking about multimedia features, e.g.: portable media player features
The answer is NO if:
- you don't want to pay for firmware updates
- you don't like Apple's products
- you don't like Apple (because of the way it treats the open source OSes, closeness, etc)
- you don't want to be forced to use iTunes
- you don't use Mac OS X or Windows on your computers
- you'd like to use a PMP with a higher sound and display quality
- you'd like to be able to put your multimedia files on the device via "copy-paste"
- you'd like to worry less about bugs in the firmware
- the iPod is too expensive in your country (some people can buy an iPod/iPhone for 1.5x to 4x the price they'd buy it in the US)
- you wouldn't like to become a target of criminals on the street (e.g.: get killed or just mugged over the iPod)
- it's not available in your country
The answer is YES if:
- you only use Windows/Mac OS on your PCs and/or don't plan to use your iPod with other OSes
- you really like apple's products
- you like the design
- you're hooked to using the iPod via a touch screen (for those who like the iPod Touch and the iPhone)
- you don't care about sound quality
- you don't care about having to replace the rechargeable battery for a fee after the iPod goes out of warranty
- you're used to iPods
- you also own a Mac and like to use products made by Apple
- you think it's the best and most feature rich portable multimedia player (after you have considered the alternatives)
- you live in the US and the price is exactly the one from apple.com (beware, consider other devices, some have quite some features and specs for the same price and specs)
- you like the web browser which comes with the iPod Touch
My name's Apple, Bad. Bad Apple.
Apple has some rather strange policies and handle various things in a rather strange way. If their would-be clients actually become their clients, then nothing will change.
They will keep the iPods tightly tied to iTunes and they will not care about Linux, the *BSD OSes or any other open source OS.
If I had anything to say at Apple, I would have asked Palm Inc. to disable the sync with iTunes.
That's an alternative which would have been a lot more respectful towards my clients to whom I've sold iPods and who use them with Linux.
All companies should be fully aware their clients are not their slaves. They also seem to forget people aren't supposed to buy their products simply because their products exist.
How do you find some kind of alternative to the iPod?
Anything I'd say about which device would be a good alternative is useless. The reason for that is because there is a website which presents a lot of alternatives and is a lot more useful.
There you can find news, previews, reviews, tests and more. You can even search for an mp3 player / portable multimedia player via a feature of their site.
The name of the site is: AnythingButiPod and you can find it here.
Disclaimer
These are our personal opinions. We were not paid by anyone to write this article or say anything we've said above.
This article is based on our personal observations and opinions. It is also based on the post found here.
Those who like the iPod a lot and Apple fans should read it as well. Those of you who are Apple or Microsoft fans or iPod owners shouldn't feel offended.
If you're a Windows or Mac OS X user and you dislike Linux or some other Open Source OS for some reason, you should keep in mind you didn't pay for that Open Source OS, like you did for Windows / Mac OS X. You also didn't pay those people who develop those Open Source OSes to develop them. For those reasons, I ask you to be respectful towards them.
Apple's Mac OS X is not an open source OS. While their OS uses a lot of Open Source software, most of the bits of code they have released as "open source" is released under their custom license, the APSL 2.0. The entire source code of the OS isn't available.
Because of that, I will not say that Mac OS X is an Open Source operating system.
I've used iPods and I still own one. It has been replaced with another device which plays nice with all the OSes I use.
Conclusion
I hope this article wasn't too lengthy and boring. I also hope you found some useful bits of information and that it would change a thing or two about the policies of some comapnies like Apple and Microsoft.
The original post which warned us about the iPod-iTunes upgrades which broke compatibility can be found here.
Read more!
How to : Nvidia mobile GPUs and drivers
That old driver story
You bought a laptop a while ago. Now you want to reinstall Windows and you'd like to get the latest versions of all drivers. However, Nvidia has a surprise for you: they don't offer the latest versions of their drivers with support for all the mobile devices. Read this post to find out more about this issue and how you could fix it.
Why you should want to use the latest WHQL driver
Nvidia releases new drivers often. These drivers add fixes, increase performance in various 3D applications and games, add new features, support for new technologies.
Cleaning up the previous driver and installing the latest is something that some gamers do and all should do.
While some people may just want the drivers because of the sole wish of having the latest and greatest, some experience instability with the drivers they were given from the manufacturer (.e.g.: the machine is instable, games crash because of the driver, etc).
For these individuals, having a newer driver which may fix their problems isn't simply something they feel like having, it's something they actually need.
Nvidia, laptops and driver issues
You're used to downloading the latest driver for your Nvidia based display adapter and install it right away, no matter if you're using XP, Vista or Windows 7. You try to do the same thing for your laptop, you download the latest driver, you try to install it and then a message tells you that no device was detected. That means, according to the entries found in the .inf file, there is no Nvidia GPU in the system.
Now you either have to use an older driver and try to see if getting a .inf for your driver fixes it.
Nvidia, help me, please
Let's say you don't know what to do beyond what you tried and simply try to contact Nvidia and have them offer you some support. You submit a support request, they reply. You read the reply and it's something along the lines "We're sorry, but we can't provide drivers for your Nvidia GPU. You need to ask your laptop's manufacturer for new drivers because there are differences between laptops and special mods are required. You can try to get a driver from www.laptopvide2go.com.".
That was easy, they just told you they can't give you updated drivers and that you need to rely on your notebook manufacturer to release drivers tweaked for your laptop's GPU.
However, that's only half true, the manufacturer only customizes basic things and the chip is 100% the same in all notebooks who have the same GPU, so they could provide a driver which just works for most people. Some people may have a bug or two.
Further on, they sent you to a third party site, laptopvideo2go.com . It's easy for them to do this, build hardware and then tell their clients to go get support from a third party. They earn the money from chip sales and laptopvideo2go is supposed to help you out with the fixes they create and offer on their site. "Nice" of you, Nvidia.
Your laptop's maker doesn't like their clients either
Some manufacturers offer old drivers. Let's have an example of a manufacturer we will not be naming.
The laptop was launched and released around January 2007. The latest driver for Windows XP was on 13 September 2007, driver version 84.68. Now, we're in 2009, they must have been really busy and unable to release a newer driver for that laptop.
If we visit Nvidia's website, we find a 179.48 BETA driver for that same GPU. While this is a beta, there were some previous versions which were stable and WHQL certified and could have worked great with that GPU.
Some could argue that most drivers are at their newest version and that those versions are posted on the manufacturer's support webpage.
That's not true. Here are a few examples: you can go to realtek's website to get the latest drivers for realtek audio chipsets and realtek NICs (network adapters), to Intel's website for the latest Intel Wireless drivers, Intel chipset drivers (Intel Inf Update Utility) and others.
Therefore, your manufacturer may be ignoring the new drivers the makers of the various components release. They don't have them on their support page and that's a big problem for Nvidia's GPUs.
Fixing what the big boys won't
This part is meant for more advanced users who have been using their PC for a while. Your GPU acceleration might get deactivated if you install a driver which doesn't like your laptop's GPU.
This is a trial and error process and isn't guaranteed to work. Do not attempt it if you're not sure you can live 20 minutes to 2 hours or so without having your GPU function without acceleration.
More than that, you might have to seek your current driver and reinstall that if the ones you try don't work and/or the new ones have some issues due to some customization.
The .inf holds information about the devices that driver should recognise and work with. However, simply adding your GPU there via the laptopvideo2go's enhancer doesn't guarantee that it will work with your GPU. Nvidia may have removed support for older mobile GPUs from the latest drivers.
Notes:
- the latest driver doesn't support mobile 5000 series GPUs (nor non-mobile) - don't even try it, use some 175.xy driver for them and use the same guide as for the latest (just select the 175.xy version you are going to use in the Enhancer driver selection drop down)
- some GPUs may not be supported, take care and be prepared to reinstall an older driver (the one you had before, for example), in case the guide doesn't work
1) What OS do you have? XP/Vista/Win7
2) Go here to find out which is the latest WHQL certified driver version, write the version number down (e.g. 190.38 was the latest WHQL certified version when this article was being written)
3) Download that driver from laptopvideo2go, make sure you choose the version for your OS, same page as step 2
3) Go here to start creating an .inf
4) Choose the driver version from the Driver Selection drop down - select the previously found driver, the latest WHQL driver (at the time of the writing, 190.38)
5) You should leave other settings untouched, unless you REALLY know what you're doing (no, thinking you do isn't enough, you really need to know)
6) Click "submit" - this will download a file for you nv4_disp.inf
6) Download and install 7zip from here (free, open-source, trojan-and-spyware FREE)
7) Right click on the nvidia driver (190.38_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_whql.exe, in our case), 7zip->Extract to "...." ( in our case, it's Extract to "190.38_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_whql")
8) Copy the nv4_disp.inf, the one you got from laptopvideo2go to the folder to which the driver was extracted
9) Start installing the driver
10) Reboot and enjoy it
That should be it. I hope this worked for you.
Disclaimer
We're not being paid by any third party to write this article and we do not hate Nvidia or dislike their products.
We hope some their policies regarding mobile GPUs will change. We can say the same about laptop makers.
We didn't mention any laptop maker company here to avoid scaring away their potential clients, this is a problem which affects most of them (from what we know).
That's all, folks
I really hope you liked this article and that it may also be useful to those of you who own laptops with Nvidia GPUs. Please leave a comment below to let us know how this worked for you.
Read more!
You bought a laptop a while ago. Now you want to reinstall Windows and you'd like to get the latest versions of all drivers. However, Nvidia has a surprise for you: they don't offer the latest versions of their drivers with support for all the mobile devices. Read this post to find out more about this issue and how you could fix it.
Why you should want to use the latest WHQL driver
Nvidia releases new drivers often. These drivers add fixes, increase performance in various 3D applications and games, add new features, support for new technologies.
Cleaning up the previous driver and installing the latest is something that some gamers do and all should do.
While some people may just want the drivers because of the sole wish of having the latest and greatest, some experience instability with the drivers they were given from the manufacturer (.e.g.: the machine is instable, games crash because of the driver, etc).
For these individuals, having a newer driver which may fix their problems isn't simply something they feel like having, it's something they actually need.
Nvidia, laptops and driver issues
You're used to downloading the latest driver for your Nvidia based display adapter and install it right away, no matter if you're using XP, Vista or Windows 7. You try to do the same thing for your laptop, you download the latest driver, you try to install it and then a message tells you that no device was detected. That means, according to the entries found in the .inf file, there is no Nvidia GPU in the system.
Now you either have to use an older driver and try to see if getting a .inf for your driver fixes it.
Nvidia, help me, please
Let's say you don't know what to do beyond what you tried and simply try to contact Nvidia and have them offer you some support. You submit a support request, they reply. You read the reply and it's something along the lines "We're sorry, but we can't provide drivers for your Nvidia GPU. You need to ask your laptop's manufacturer for new drivers because there are differences between laptops and special mods are required. You can try to get a driver from www.laptopvide2go.com.".
That was easy, they just told you they can't give you updated drivers and that you need to rely on your notebook manufacturer to release drivers tweaked for your laptop's GPU.
However, that's only half true, the manufacturer only customizes basic things and the chip is 100% the same in all notebooks who have the same GPU, so they could provide a driver which just works for most people. Some people may have a bug or two.
Further on, they sent you to a third party site, laptopvideo2go.com . It's easy for them to do this, build hardware and then tell their clients to go get support from a third party. They earn the money from chip sales and laptopvideo2go is supposed to help you out with the fixes they create and offer on their site. "Nice" of you, Nvidia.
Your laptop's maker doesn't like their clients either
Some manufacturers offer old drivers. Let's have an example of a manufacturer we will not be naming.
The laptop was launched and released around January 2007. The latest driver for Windows XP was on 13 September 2007, driver version 84.68. Now, we're in 2009, they must have been really busy and unable to release a newer driver for that laptop.
If we visit Nvidia's website, we find a 179.48 BETA driver for that same GPU. While this is a beta, there were some previous versions which were stable and WHQL certified and could have worked great with that GPU.
Some could argue that most drivers are at their newest version and that those versions are posted on the manufacturer's support webpage.
That's not true. Here are a few examples: you can go to realtek's website to get the latest drivers for realtek audio chipsets and realtek NICs (network adapters), to Intel's website for the latest Intel Wireless drivers, Intel chipset drivers (Intel Inf Update Utility) and others.
Therefore, your manufacturer may be ignoring the new drivers the makers of the various components release. They don't have them on their support page and that's a big problem for Nvidia's GPUs.
Fixing what the big boys won't
This part is meant for more advanced users who have been using their PC for a while. Your GPU acceleration might get deactivated if you install a driver which doesn't like your laptop's GPU.
This is a trial and error process and isn't guaranteed to work. Do not attempt it if you're not sure you can live 20 minutes to 2 hours or so without having your GPU function without acceleration.
More than that, you might have to seek your current driver and reinstall that if the ones you try don't work and/or the new ones have some issues due to some customization.
The .inf holds information about the devices that driver should recognise and work with. However, simply adding your GPU there via the laptopvideo2go's enhancer doesn't guarantee that it will work with your GPU. Nvidia may have removed support for older mobile GPUs from the latest drivers.
Notes:
- the latest driver doesn't support mobile 5000 series GPUs (nor non-mobile) - don't even try it, use some 175.xy driver for them and use the same guide as for the latest (just select the 175.xy version you are going to use in the Enhancer driver selection drop down)
- some GPUs may not be supported, take care and be prepared to reinstall an older driver (the one you had before, for example), in case the guide doesn't work
1) What OS do you have? XP/Vista/Win7
2) Go here to find out which is the latest WHQL certified driver version, write the version number down (e.g. 190.38 was the latest WHQL certified version when this article was being written)
3) Download that driver from laptopvideo2go, make sure you choose the version for your OS, same page as step 2
3) Go here to start creating an .inf
4) Choose the driver version from the Driver Selection drop down - select the previously found driver, the latest WHQL driver (at the time of the writing, 190.38)
5) You should leave other settings untouched, unless you REALLY know what you're doing (no, thinking you do isn't enough, you really need to know)
6) Click "submit" - this will download a file for you nv4_disp.inf
6) Download and install 7zip from here (free, open-source, trojan-and-spyware FREE)
7) Right click on the nvidia driver (190.38_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_whql.exe, in our case), 7zip->Extract to "...." ( in our case, it's Extract to "190.38_desktop_winxp_32bit_english_whql")
8) Copy the nv4_disp.inf, the one you got from laptopvideo2go to the folder to which the driver was extracted
9) Start installing the driver
10) Reboot and enjoy it
That should be it. I hope this worked for you.
Disclaimer
We're not being paid by any third party to write this article and we do not hate Nvidia or dislike their products.
We hope some their policies regarding mobile GPUs will change. We can say the same about laptop makers.
We didn't mention any laptop maker company here to avoid scaring away their potential clients, this is a problem which affects most of them (from what we know).
That's all, folks
I really hope you liked this article and that it may also be useful to those of you who own laptops with Nvidia GPUs. Please leave a comment below to let us know how this worked for you.
Read more!
How To: Secure online shopping and Windows security
The online thieves want your money and identity
Windows users are the target of a lot of malware. A large part of that malware gathers personal data, like name, address, credit card data, bank accounts, usernames and passwords for all sorts of sites, online banking accounts and other types of information.
Those Windows users who suspect their PC might be infected or simply think it may not be safe to buy something, make payments or transfer money from a web browser running on Windows should continue reading this article. Even if you don't believe that, you should keep reading the article.
We will not be discussing what antivirus/firewall/anti-malware software is better.
Note 1: The term PC will be used for laptops, netbooks and desktop PCs
Note 2: Macs which run Windows are exposed to the same risks as regular PCs
Windows, its security, its settings and its firewall
While hundreds or even thousands of security issues have been fixed in Windows, there aren't so many persons out there who can be sure their machines which run Windows aren't being monitored one way or another. While some persons would say "Windows is safe now", that is far from the truth. Even more people believe Vista is virus proof or that it includes antivirus protection.
It is well known there are some individuals who work on making trojans and all sorts of malware that is undetectable by antivirus software. Moreover, there are some who can be paid to make malware undetectable. Even if this undetectable malware becomes detectable after an antivirus virus signature update, the harm can be done by the time that happens.
Windows XP and Windows Vista have integrated firewalls. Some people believe this makes their PCs 100% safe, however, this is not the case as you can find better firewall software and many other measures are required in order to make the PCs more secure.
Some persons who play online games or use some more exotic apps disable the firewall. There's no need to detail that, it's obvious it's a very bad thing to do (unless you know what you're doing, e.g.: you've installed better firewall software and need to disable the builtin one)
The "I have an antivirus, I'm safe" story
The big (and the smaller) companies which preinstall "trial" antivirus software are doing a rather bad thing. The end user buys the PC, is told his computer comes with the X antivirus software and he doesn't have to buy and install one. In most cases, they're not told they're supposed to buy that antivirus software (or another antivirus app) because it's a trial version which expires after a period of time (15/30 days, 2-6 months, one year).
Some antivirus applications aren't very good at telling if a file contains or not a virus or another type of malware. Files which the antivirus thinks they have viruses in them and they actually don't have viruses in them are called "false positives". Because such an antivirus software brings up false positives, realtime scanning might be disabled by some users of that software.
The other situation is even worse, not detecting a virus, is even worse. Paying for an antivirus which doesn't detect viruses and other types of malware isn't good at all.
There is also a high number of antivirus applications which do not pick up additional malware by the actions they perform in the running system. Some malware types go undetected until they are "well embedded" into the OS and then it's either too late to remove them or the removal process is too complicated.
"Your PC is infected!!", "you're rich now" and other "wonders"
There are lots of websites out there which simply pop a window up and say "your PC is infected, click here to get our antivirus" or simply tell you to download an antivirus nobody heard of before.
The common sense rule says that legitimate companies which sell antivirus software or offer it freely do not display pop-ups on your screen while browsing to convince you to buy or just download their software. This is how many people get their PCs infected, even if they weren't infected before.
Therefore, respect the following rules to help increase Windows' security:
- NEVER click on links from emails which tell you that something happened to your credit card or bank account ( no matter what it says). If you really think that might be real, then check the official bank website (not from the links in that mail) for a phone number to contact the bank
- NEVER share sensitive data with anyone (like your credit/debit card's PIN, online shopping three-or-more digits code, social security number, etc)
- NEVER give your credit card's PIN number to any page under (no matter what the circumstances are) , nor any bank account to sites you do not know. you should better check and triple check everything is legit before trying to buy something
- NEVER click on banners / pop ups which promise to let you download free antivirus software or some magic application which "will make your PC run 999999 times faster", tell you that you're the nth visitor and you won 9999999999 billion dollars, tell you that you have won the lottery
- NEVER click on links from emails which tell you that you need to send X USD/EUR to get your 999999 USD/EUR prize
- NEVER click on links from emails which tell you to buy "cheap Rolex/Rolex replicas/etc watches" or anything like that
- NEVER open attachments from email addresses you do not know (some mails promise to show you some pornographic content, photos from someone's holiday, offer you something)
- NEVER trust something which seems too good to be true (generally speaking, e.g.: you just won a car, but you need to give them your social security number, send them some money or anything else before they can give you the car)
- NEVER click on links from emails which promise to show you pornographic content or promise to help you improve something related to your body
While these things may be well known by some people, I've come across people who believed a few of the things I told you to avoid were legit and real.
The magic fixes
Please take care: these fixes are meant to protect you from theft of data via malware installed in Windows on your PC, NOT from sites which aren't legitimate bank sites, legitimate secure online shops, legitimate secure tax payment sites or some other legitimate site which you're supposed to give money to
Ubuntu for secure shopping
You can use an Ubuntu LIVE CD. You can boot into a graphical environment and browse the pages of the shop and order safely from Firefox running from the CD.
This live cd doesn't touch your HDD, your PC will still run Windows when you reboot and everything will be the same.
While some people may find this silly or believe it's not worth using, please remember Windows can have some "Big Brother" (malware, trojan) who knows everything you type (credit card data, online banking account's username and password, online shop's data account data - where information regarding your credit card data may also be found, etc) and your antivirus/firewall/anti-malware applications may not even detect.
Therefore, using Ubuntu is a safe way to shop online. You simply download it from the official website, www.ubuntu.com, burn it to a disc and boot your computer from that disc with "try Ubuntu without any change to your computer" boot choice, start Firefox once it boots and that's it. Some users may have to set up their network, if they do not use a router with DHCP.
OpenDNS for safer browsing
www.opendns.com is a free service which makes your Internet browsing experience better.
Using this free service, you can filter a lot of unwanted types of sites, thus ridding yourself of a few worries related to some local DNS server being compromised, hacked or unavailable.
Read more!
Windows users are the target of a lot of malware. A large part of that malware gathers personal data, like name, address, credit card data, bank accounts, usernames and passwords for all sorts of sites, online banking accounts and other types of information.
Those Windows users who suspect their PC might be infected or simply think it may not be safe to buy something, make payments or transfer money from a web browser running on Windows should continue reading this article. Even if you don't believe that, you should keep reading the article.
We will not be discussing what antivirus/firewall/anti-malware software is better.
Note 1: The term PC will be used for laptops, netbooks and desktop PCs
Note 2: Macs which run Windows are exposed to the same risks as regular PCs
Windows, its security, its settings and its firewall
While hundreds or even thousands of security issues have been fixed in Windows, there aren't so many persons out there who can be sure their machines which run Windows aren't being monitored one way or another. While some persons would say "Windows is safe now", that is far from the truth. Even more people believe Vista is virus proof or that it includes antivirus protection.
It is well known there are some individuals who work on making trojans and all sorts of malware that is undetectable by antivirus software. Moreover, there are some who can be paid to make malware undetectable. Even if this undetectable malware becomes detectable after an antivirus virus signature update, the harm can be done by the time that happens.
Windows XP and Windows Vista have integrated firewalls. Some people believe this makes their PCs 100% safe, however, this is not the case as you can find better firewall software and many other measures are required in order to make the PCs more secure.
Some persons who play online games or use some more exotic apps disable the firewall. There's no need to detail that, it's obvious it's a very bad thing to do (unless you know what you're doing, e.g.: you've installed better firewall software and need to disable the builtin one)
The "I have an antivirus, I'm safe" story
The big (and the smaller) companies which preinstall "trial" antivirus software are doing a rather bad thing. The end user buys the PC, is told his computer comes with the X antivirus software and he doesn't have to buy and install one. In most cases, they're not told they're supposed to buy that antivirus software (or another antivirus app) because it's a trial version which expires after a period of time (15/30 days, 2-6 months, one year).
Some antivirus applications aren't very good at telling if a file contains or not a virus or another type of malware. Files which the antivirus thinks they have viruses in them and they actually don't have viruses in them are called "false positives". Because such an antivirus software brings up false positives, realtime scanning might be disabled by some users of that software.
The other situation is even worse, not detecting a virus, is even worse. Paying for an antivirus which doesn't detect viruses and other types of malware isn't good at all.
There is also a high number of antivirus applications which do not pick up additional malware by the actions they perform in the running system. Some malware types go undetected until they are "well embedded" into the OS and then it's either too late to remove them or the removal process is too complicated.
"Your PC is infected!!", "you're rich now" and other "wonders"
There are lots of websites out there which simply pop a window up and say "your PC is infected, click here to get our antivirus" or simply tell you to download an antivirus nobody heard of before.
The common sense rule says that legitimate companies which sell antivirus software or offer it freely do not display pop-ups on your screen while browsing to convince you to buy or just download their software. This is how many people get their PCs infected, even if they weren't infected before.
Therefore, respect the following rules to help increase Windows' security:
- NEVER click on links from emails which tell you that something happened to your credit card or bank account ( no matter what it says). If you really think that might be real, then check the official bank website (not from the links in that mail) for a phone number to contact the bank
- NEVER share sensitive data with anyone (like your credit/debit card's PIN, online shopping three-or-more digits code, social security number, etc)
- NEVER give your credit card's PIN number to any page under (no matter what the circumstances are) , nor any bank account to sites you do not know. you should better check and triple check everything is legit before trying to buy something
- NEVER click on banners / pop ups which promise to let you download free antivirus software or some magic application which "will make your PC run 999999 times faster", tell you that you're the nth visitor and you won 9999999999 billion dollars, tell you that you have won the lottery
- NEVER click on links from emails which tell you that you need to send X USD/EUR to get your 999999 USD/EUR prize
- NEVER click on links from emails which tell you to buy "cheap Rolex/Rolex replicas/etc watches" or anything like that
- NEVER open attachments from email addresses you do not know (some mails promise to show you some pornographic content, photos from someone's holiday, offer you something)
- NEVER trust something which seems too good to be true (generally speaking, e.g.: you just won a car, but you need to give them your social security number, send them some money or anything else before they can give you the car)
- NEVER click on links from emails which promise to show you pornographic content or promise to help you improve something related to your body
While these things may be well known by some people, I've come across people who believed a few of the things I told you to avoid were legit and real.
The magic fixes
Please take care: these fixes are meant to protect you from theft of data via malware installed in Windows on your PC, NOT from sites which aren't legitimate bank sites, legitimate secure online shops, legitimate secure tax payment sites or some other legitimate site which you're supposed to give money to
Ubuntu for secure shopping
You can use an Ubuntu LIVE CD. You can boot into a graphical environment and browse the pages of the shop and order safely from Firefox running from the CD.
This live cd doesn't touch your HDD, your PC will still run Windows when you reboot and everything will be the same.
While some people may find this silly or believe it's not worth using, please remember Windows can have some "Big Brother" (malware, trojan) who knows everything you type (credit card data, online banking account's username and password, online shop's data account data - where information regarding your credit card data may also be found, etc) and your antivirus/firewall/anti-malware applications may not even detect.
Therefore, using Ubuntu is a safe way to shop online. You simply download it from the official website, www.ubuntu.com, burn it to a disc and boot your computer from that disc with "try Ubuntu without any change to your computer" boot choice, start Firefox once it boots and that's it. Some users may have to set up their network, if they do not use a router with DHCP.
OpenDNS for safer browsing
www.opendns.com is a free service which makes your Internet browsing experience better.
Using this free service, you can filter a lot of unwanted types of sites, thus ridding yourself of a few worries related to some local DNS server being compromised, hacked or unavailable.
Read more!
Software review: dump Internet Explorer, review of Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari
The goal of this article
If you're not an Internet Explorer and/or not a Windows user, you can simply skip to the section with the reviews of the browsers.
We're going to present some of the major (and minor) flaws of various Internet Explorer versions and also come up with a few alternatives. We will be talking about more than just one alternative browser so you can decide which you like better and make the choice.
We will use the short name IE when talking about Internet Explorer in this article.
The flaws of Internet Explorer
Slowness
IE seems to be a rather slow web browser. It downloads page elements (images, flash films and the page itself) slower than other browser. Even if you bought a computer recently and it's a pretty powerful machine and you have a decent connection to the Internet, it makes your browsing experience slower. Not only does it download those elements slower than other browsers, it also renders them slower on the screen.
Another problem related to slow page rendering is the fact that it's not displaying all the images and everything which has been downloaded until the page has been completely downloaded.
This problem alone should make people want to use something else right away. Although some aren't aware of how fast a browser should load and render pages, it should be 2 to 10 times better with another browser, provided the Internet connection isn't a dialup one (even dialup users should benefit from using an alternative browser).
Another slowness problem is the lack of smooth scrolling and being even slower on some web pages.
IE's trash problems
You browse the Internet for a while, let's say 4-8 months, with IE6 and then you notice your PC has gone from relatively fast to slower and slower. IE6 does a very bad thing: it doesn't clean up the files it has stored, it simply keeps creating new files in its Temporary Internet Files folder.
This is an issue we have discussed about in two parts of a recent article, part 1 here and part 2 here . In those two parts, the problem is described and a solution on how to fix this is given.
Note that the solution doesn't fix IE6's problem, it just cleans up the files that exist at one point in time on the HDD.
IE doesn't speak HTML, CSS and Javascript well
While the alternative browsers have no problems rendering 99.9999% web pages, IE needs hacks to make pages look almost (or exactly) the same way they do on other browsers.
Those who create websites have to use specific hacks for IE to counter the differences in the behavior of IE when compard to other browsers. This includes, but is not limited to, CSS, HTML.
Javascript is another thing IE doesn't implement just as well as the modern browsers, the alternatives, do. If you try to create a page yourself and use some more advanced Javascript code, you might find out it simply doesn't work on IE6.
More recent versions of IE, like IE7 and IE8 have fixed some of these issues, but IE is still IE and it still has big problems in this area and many others.
IE and its feet - unstable
Use IE heavily and you will, most likely, encounter crashes, lots of them. Web pages which have lots of images, scripts and all kinds of page elements will crash IE.
Not only do you get constant crashes when opening some web pages, you can also encounter issues like IE not starting up at all.
In this screenshot, you can see 4 IE6 processes with similar memory usage. These processes have not spawned windows, they simply froze like that. This happens sometimes when using IE6.
IE's pop up and pop under blocking system
While the pop up/pop under blocking system in IE7/8 may be better, IE6 has serious problems in this area. Those people who really want to get that "you won 99999 billion dollars" (or any other kind of pop up) on your screen keep finding new ways to go around pop up blocking.
You really want to have good pop up blocking in your browser. Good pop up blocking means being able to tell if a pop up is legit or not, if it was spawned by an user action when using a form (or something else initiated by the user) or by a page script which opens up something else.
Memory usage
IE seems to be using more RAM memory when compared to other browsers. IE6 needs about 65MB of RAM memory in order to present you the msn.com homepage.
While this may not seem a big deal, keep in mind the fact that other browsers display 10-15 tabs with a page in each and need about 200-250MB of RAM or even less.
ActiveX & plugins drama
Some sites try to install all sorts of ActiveX controls and about 70-90% of them are simply trojans/adware/spyware. With alternative browsers, you get rid of all this.
While we're at it, the only plugins you should be installing for your browser are: adobe flash, adobe PDF support, adobe shockwave, microsoft silverlight, divx web player.
Please note these aren't browser addons/extensions, they simply provide support for multimedia playback, web games, pdf documents, highly interactive websites, sites which stream sound and video via flash/silverlight, etc.
Simply changing the browser will kill most of the websites which ask you to "download this free application to download FREE music/videos/etc". It's obvious most websites use that to download spyware/adware/trojans/viruses/etc on your PC.
We'll talk more about what you should be installing for your browser in another article.
Weak security and "protection from downloads"
IE is a rather insecure web browser. It is the target of a lot of exploits and phishing. It is also a browser which has bad security measures. Among those bad security measures is the blocking of downloads.
Microsoft decided it was simply easier to block downloads and display a message below IE's toolbar which says "In order to protect ......IE has blocked a download". In order to download your files, you have to click that and the download starts.
If you ask me, this isn't very good as a default setting and not a very good security measure.
Why did Microsoft do this? Are they really afraid IE could download files in other ways, in the background? Then again, if that's what Microsoft thought of, you shouldn't be trusting IE if Microsoft didn't.
Bad download system
As we have already mentioned, Microsoft blocks downloads by default and you have to click on the message it displays to go on with your download. You might say "hey, you could change the setting for that", but the other issues these IE browsers don't justify the time spent looking for that setting.
IE keeps putting its downloads in its temporary files location first and only after finishing the download where you wanted it to be. Basically, IE downloads the file to its temporary files location ( and also keeps a copy of it there, if it's IE6) and then copies it to the target folder. While that may be ok for files which are 1-50MB large, you might not want a 2.5GB download to be copied from drive to drive.
A behavior like the following would be more suitable: create a .tmp file which is the real download, create the file without the extra .tmp extension and when the download is finished, move the .tmp file to the end file, without the extra .tmp extension.
Moreover, there is no way to list the recent downloads, nor resume a paused downloaded.
Badly designed menus and settings system
The way the settings system is designed is bad. There are lots of settings but they're not exposed to the user in a nice way. That means it's more difficult to tweak things around and you actually need to look well for some setting.
Another thing which makes IE, Windows and Microsoft look bad is the fact that you control various system wide settings from IE's settings. Why should I open IE to change some settings which affect the entire OS? In my opinion, that's poor design and not thought of thouroughly.
Bad support
Microsoft has added the "send error report" to Windows XP and that has solved pretty much nothing for most people. When an application crashes, XP asks you to send an error report to Microsoft.
While Microsoft may have fixed some problems using those reports, I suspect they turn those error reports into cereals and eat them with milk for breakfast.
Enter the world of IE. You will get crashes over crashes, pages will look bad, things will go down the drain while you're checking your mail or have almost finished writing an email and you need to start again from scratch. Don't expect Microsoft to care about your problem or even fix it.
Open browsers and non-Microsoft browsers have better communities. There is bug tracking and there are also forums where you can post and people will listen. You can talk on a forum about the issue, have a few persons tell you if that issue is caused by the software you have or your hardware. If you don't get to fix it that way, you can submit a bug and someone will, at least, take a look at that bug report.
IE isn't patched right away
Microsoft doesn't seem to be updating IE so often and its updates are closely tied to the Windows updates. That means you will not be getting any updates automatically if you install updates for Windows manually. While some may argue that Microsoft wants you to use Windows update and that's the way to go, that's unacceptable in some environments.
Microsoft does release updates as soon as possible, but your browsers isn't updated when you open it up again, but when you update your Windows again. That's bad bad bad.
The alternatives
Mozilla Firefox
It only made sense we presented the best browser and best open source browser first.
The current version of Firefox is 3.5. It was recently released and it's a good improvement over 3.0. It is fast, it supports extensions, it updates as soon as an update is available and is a lot more secure than IE.
Firefox is the best open source browser. Some people say it's also the best browser and the most reliable in terms of security and stability. The addons/extensions provide a lot more functionality which goes even beyond what a browser does.
Getting used to Firefox is a good idea if you plan to try out Linux some day. It is the default browser on most Linux distributions.
In the following version of Firefox, a one process/tab scheme will be introduced. That will bring better stability, security and performance to the already good browser. This will be similar to what Google Chrome has.
Reviewed version: 3.5
Bundled software: none, 100% clean
Updates: updated automatically on Windows and Mac OS X, Linux/others via the respective update system of the OS
Themes: it supports skins
Addons: it supports extensions, there are lots of useful extensions. make sure to install only the extensions which are listed on addons.mozilla.org
Browsing speed: very good
Page rendering: vey good
Temporary files: managed via a cache size, doesn't fill the filesystem with its files
Security: very good, since updates are deployed as soon as they're available, prompting for a browser restart
Download manager: good, could have better resume support
Platforms: Windows/Linux/Mac OS X/*BSD and other UNIX-like OSes
License: GPL, open source
Official download site: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/
NOTE: do not download Firefox from any other site than the official one (because some third party might add viruses, trojans, rootkits, adware, phishing tools, etc to the installer)
Opera
Opera used to be a commercial product. After Firefox has showed up, Opera became freeware.
It supports widgets, has a nice default look, has inbuilt bittorrent transfer support. Opera also has an inbuilt nice email client. Like Firefox, it is being actively developed and new features are being added all the time to new versions.
Opera had some minor problems when it came to rendering some web pages on the screen, but nothing major. It was just a matter of not displaying something exactly as it was being displayed in Firefox and/or Chrome.
Opera has a very nice graphical user interface. All the features of this applications are nicely integrated and overall, it's great.
Reviewed version: 9.64
Bundled software: none, 100% clean
Updates: you are prompted if you want to install the new version when it is available
Themes: it supports skins
Addons: it supports desktop widgets, no extensions like Firefox has
Browsing speed: very good
Page rendering: vey good
Temporary files: managed via a cache size, doesn't fill the filesystem with its files
Security: very good
Download manager: very good, bittorrent downloads are integrated into the manager
Platforms: Windows / Linux / Mac OS X / FreeBSD / Solaris / QNX / OS/2 / BeOS
License: freeware
Official download site: http://www.opera.com/browser/
NOTE: do not download Opera from any other site than the official one (because some third party might add viruses, trojans, rootkits, adware, phishing tools, etc to the installer)
Google Chrome
This is a relatively new player. Google chrome seems to be lacking the features Firefox and Opera are praised for. Those features are extensions, widgets, an inbuilt email client and many other features.
However, Chrome is meant to be used together with Google's suite of online apps and make up for that lack of inbuilt features this way.
Chrome has one process per tab. That means: if one tab locks up, only that tab goes down, not the whole browser.
Chrome seems to be having some stability issues with Adobe Flash content and some online video sites do not work properly (as in the video doesn't play, whereas Firefox, Opera and even Safari have no problems in playing the content).
Chrome also comes with Google Update. GU runs in the background and it starts once your PC starts. It updates Chrome without asking you if you want to do this or not. Some people might not like this, but unless you have some very sensitive data you want to protect, it's ok. GU only updates Chrome, it doesn't act like and is not malware/adware/spyware/ a trojan/etc
Reviewed version: 2.0.172.33
Updates: updates are installed automatically via Google Update
Themes: none
Addons: none
Browsing speed: very good
Page rendering: vey good
Temporary files: managed via a cache size, the history tends to get huge (tens to hundreds of megabytes)
Security: very good
Download manager: average, it has some bugs related to starting downloads initiated by the user via javascript (e.g.: clicking a button, loading another page where you expect the downloading to take place, like sourceforge.net download pages)
Platforms: Windows / Mac OS X - work in progress / Linux - planned
License: open source - Chromium is open source and Chromium/Chrome is based on Webkit
Official download site: http://www.google.com/chrome/?hl=en
NOTE: do not download Chrome from any other site than the official one (because some third party might add viruses, trojans, rootkits, adware, phishing tools, etc to the installer)
Apple Safari
This browser was Mac only until recently. Apple decided they want to increase their user base by including some Windows users as well. However, the goal of this browser is unclear.
The recently released Safari 4.0 seems to be copying Google Chrome's layout. It has pretty much the same button layout and placement.
This browser has a few issues. Macs and PCs with slower HDDs will run Safari a bit slower when browsing websites which have a lot of images and graphical elements. Firefox, Opera and Chrome do not have this problem at all.
Safari 4.0 has another two problems. The first problem is that of having a high CPU usage when using an old slow display adapter due to its home screen. The second is that the home screen uses up resources to present you the most recently/most often visited pages with some eye candy.
Laptop owners might want to change the default content of newly opened tabs to be a blank page, thus sparing you of seeing the home screen and save some power while on battery.
It also scrolls with hiccups when you have opened a page with a lot of images.
Reviewed version: 4.02
Bundled software: none, if you choose the version without Quicktime
make sure to deselect "Install Bonjour for Windows" as it's useless
Updates: updates are installed via Software Update on Macs and via the optional Apple Software Update on Windows
Themes: none
Addons: none
Browsing speed: good
Page rendering: average, hiccups while scrolling pages with tons of images
Temporary files: managed via a cache size, some stray files may show up on Windows - they have to be cleaned up manually
Security: average - Apple has refused to fix some security flaws in the past
Download manager: average
Platforms: Windows / Mac OS X
License: closed source, the HTML rendering engine is open source, Webkit
Official download site: http://www.apple.com/safari <- make sure you download the version without Quicktime, if you plan to use Safari on Windows NOTE: do not download Chrome from any other site than the official one (because some third party might add viruses, trojans, rootkits, adware, phishing tools, etc to the installer) The alternative browsers should be compatible with XP/Vista/Windows 7. However, they might need some minor fixes for Windows 7, if they haven't been done already by now. Keep in mind that the browser you use is important. A lot of Windows computers are compromised due to security breaches in Internet Explorer. The user's actions can also lead to infections with viruses/adware/spyware/trojans/malware ( you pick the name for it). If you want a good secure browser, give Firefox, Opera and Chrome a shot and see which works best for your needs. If you want to choose between two browsers, choose between Firefox and Opera.
Read more!
If you're not an Internet Explorer and/or not a Windows user, you can simply skip to the section with the reviews of the browsers.
We're going to present some of the major (and minor) flaws of various Internet Explorer versions and also come up with a few alternatives. We will be talking about more than just one alternative browser so you can decide which you like better and make the choice.
We will use the short name IE when talking about Internet Explorer in this article.
The flaws of Internet Explorer
Slowness
IE seems to be a rather slow web browser. It downloads page elements (images, flash films and the page itself) slower than other browser. Even if you bought a computer recently and it's a pretty powerful machine and you have a decent connection to the Internet, it makes your browsing experience slower. Not only does it download those elements slower than other browsers, it also renders them slower on the screen.
Another problem related to slow page rendering is the fact that it's not displaying all the images and everything which has been downloaded until the page has been completely downloaded.
This problem alone should make people want to use something else right away. Although some aren't aware of how fast a browser should load and render pages, it should be 2 to 10 times better with another browser, provided the Internet connection isn't a dialup one (even dialup users should benefit from using an alternative browser).
Another slowness problem is the lack of smooth scrolling and being even slower on some web pages.
IE's trash problems
You browse the Internet for a while, let's say 4-8 months, with IE6 and then you notice your PC has gone from relatively fast to slower and slower. IE6 does a very bad thing: it doesn't clean up the files it has stored, it simply keeps creating new files in its Temporary Internet Files folder.
This is an issue we have discussed about in two parts of a recent article, part 1 here and part 2 here . In those two parts, the problem is described and a solution on how to fix this is given.
Note that the solution doesn't fix IE6's problem, it just cleans up the files that exist at one point in time on the HDD.
IE doesn't speak HTML, CSS and Javascript well
While the alternative browsers have no problems rendering 99.9999% web pages, IE needs hacks to make pages look almost (or exactly) the same way they do on other browsers.
Those who create websites have to use specific hacks for IE to counter the differences in the behavior of IE when compard to other browsers. This includes, but is not limited to, CSS, HTML.
Javascript is another thing IE doesn't implement just as well as the modern browsers, the alternatives, do. If you try to create a page yourself and use some more advanced Javascript code, you might find out it simply doesn't work on IE6.
More recent versions of IE, like IE7 and IE8 have fixed some of these issues, but IE is still IE and it still has big problems in this area and many others.
IE and its feet - unstable
Use IE heavily and you will, most likely, encounter crashes, lots of them. Web pages which have lots of images, scripts and all kinds of page elements will crash IE.
Not only do you get constant crashes when opening some web pages, you can also encounter issues like IE not starting up at all.
In this screenshot, you can see 4 IE6 processes with similar memory usage. These processes have not spawned windows, they simply froze like that. This happens sometimes when using IE6.IE's pop up and pop under blocking system
While the pop up/pop under blocking system in IE7/8 may be better, IE6 has serious problems in this area. Those people who really want to get that "you won 99999 billion dollars" (or any other kind of pop up) on your screen keep finding new ways to go around pop up blocking.
You really want to have good pop up blocking in your browser. Good pop up blocking means being able to tell if a pop up is legit or not, if it was spawned by an user action when using a form (or something else initiated by the user) or by a page script which opens up something else.
Memory usage
IE seems to be using more RAM memory when compared to other browsers. IE6 needs about 65MB of RAM memory in order to present you the msn.com homepage.
While this may not seem a big deal, keep in mind the fact that other browsers display 10-15 tabs with a page in each and need about 200-250MB of RAM or even less.
ActiveX & plugins drama
Some sites try to install all sorts of ActiveX controls and about 70-90% of them are simply trojans/adware/spyware. With alternative browsers, you get rid of all this.
While we're at it, the only plugins you should be installing for your browser are: adobe flash, adobe PDF support, adobe shockwave, microsoft silverlight, divx web player.
Please note these aren't browser addons/extensions, they simply provide support for multimedia playback, web games, pdf documents, highly interactive websites, sites which stream sound and video via flash/silverlight, etc.
Simply changing the browser will kill most of the websites which ask you to "download this free application to download FREE music/videos/etc". It's obvious most websites use that to download spyware/adware/trojans/viruses/etc on your PC.
We'll talk more about what you should be installing for your browser in another article.
Weak security and "protection from downloads"
IE is a rather insecure web browser. It is the target of a lot of exploits and phishing. It is also a browser which has bad security measures. Among those bad security measures is the blocking of downloads.
Microsoft decided it was simply easier to block downloads and display a message below IE's toolbar which says "In order to protect ......IE has blocked a download". In order to download your files, you have to click that and the download starts.
If you ask me, this isn't very good as a default setting and not a very good security measure.
Why did Microsoft do this? Are they really afraid IE could download files in other ways, in the background? Then again, if that's what Microsoft thought of, you shouldn't be trusting IE if Microsoft didn't.
Bad download system
As we have already mentioned, Microsoft blocks downloads by default and you have to click on the message it displays to go on with your download. You might say "hey, you could change the setting for that", but the other issues these IE browsers don't justify the time spent looking for that setting.
IE keeps putting its downloads in its temporary files location first and only after finishing the download where you wanted it to be. Basically, IE downloads the file to its temporary files location ( and also keeps a copy of it there, if it's IE6) and then copies it to the target folder. While that may be ok for files which are 1-50MB large, you might not want a 2.5GB download to be copied from drive to drive.
A behavior like the following would be more suitable: create a .tmp file which is the real download, create the file without the extra .tmp extension and when the download is finished, move the .tmp file to the end file, without the extra .tmp extension.
Moreover, there is no way to list the recent downloads, nor resume a paused downloaded.
Badly designed menus and settings system
The way the settings system is designed is bad. There are lots of settings but they're not exposed to the user in a nice way. That means it's more difficult to tweak things around and you actually need to look well for some setting.
Another thing which makes IE, Windows and Microsoft look bad is the fact that you control various system wide settings from IE's settings. Why should I open IE to change some settings which affect the entire OS? In my opinion, that's poor design and not thought of thouroughly.
Bad support
Microsoft has added the "send error report" to Windows XP and that has solved pretty much nothing for most people. When an application crashes, XP asks you to send an error report to Microsoft.
While Microsoft may have fixed some problems using those reports, I suspect they turn those error reports into cereals and eat them with milk for breakfast.
Enter the world of IE. You will get crashes over crashes, pages will look bad, things will go down the drain while you're checking your mail or have almost finished writing an email and you need to start again from scratch. Don't expect Microsoft to care about your problem or even fix it.
Open browsers and non-Microsoft browsers have better communities. There is bug tracking and there are also forums where you can post and people will listen. You can talk on a forum about the issue, have a few persons tell you if that issue is caused by the software you have or your hardware. If you don't get to fix it that way, you can submit a bug and someone will, at least, take a look at that bug report.
IE isn't patched right away
Microsoft doesn't seem to be updating IE so often and its updates are closely tied to the Windows updates. That means you will not be getting any updates automatically if you install updates for Windows manually. While some may argue that Microsoft wants you to use Windows update and that's the way to go, that's unacceptable in some environments.
Microsoft does release updates as soon as possible, but your browsers isn't updated when you open it up again, but when you update your Windows again. That's bad bad bad.
The alternatives
Mozilla Firefox
It only made sense we presented the best browser and best open source browser first.
The current version of Firefox is 3.5. It was recently released and it's a good improvement over 3.0. It is fast, it supports extensions, it updates as soon as an update is available and is a lot more secure than IE.
Firefox is the best open source browser. Some people say it's also the best browser and the most reliable in terms of security and stability. The addons/extensions provide a lot more functionality which goes even beyond what a browser does.
Getting used to Firefox is a good idea if you plan to try out Linux some day. It is the default browser on most Linux distributions.
In the following version of Firefox, a one process/tab scheme will be introduced. That will bring better stability, security and performance to the already good browser. This will be similar to what Google Chrome has.
Reviewed version: 3.5
Bundled software: none, 100% clean
Updates: updated automatically on Windows and Mac OS X, Linux/others via the respective update system of the OS
Themes: it supports skins
Addons: it supports extensions, there are lots of useful extensions. make sure to install only the extensions which are listed on addons.mozilla.org
Browsing speed: very good
Page rendering: vey good
Temporary files: managed via a cache size, doesn't fill the filesystem with its files
Security: very good, since updates are deployed as soon as they're available, prompting for a browser restart
Download manager: good, could have better resume support
Platforms: Windows/Linux/Mac OS X/*BSD and other UNIX-like OSes
License: GPL, open source
Official download site: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/
NOTE: do not download Firefox from any other site than the official one (because some third party might add viruses, trojans, rootkits, adware, phishing tools, etc to the installer)
Opera
Opera used to be a commercial product. After Firefox has showed up, Opera became freeware.
It supports widgets, has a nice default look, has inbuilt bittorrent transfer support. Opera also has an inbuilt nice email client. Like Firefox, it is being actively developed and new features are being added all the time to new versions.
Opera had some minor problems when it came to rendering some web pages on the screen, but nothing major. It was just a matter of not displaying something exactly as it was being displayed in Firefox and/or Chrome.
Opera has a very nice graphical user interface. All the features of this applications are nicely integrated and overall, it's great.
Reviewed version: 9.64
Bundled software: none, 100% clean
Updates: you are prompted if you want to install the new version when it is available
Themes: it supports skins
Addons: it supports desktop widgets, no extensions like Firefox has
Browsing speed: very good
Page rendering: vey good
Temporary files: managed via a cache size, doesn't fill the filesystem with its files
Security: very good
Download manager: very good, bittorrent downloads are integrated into the manager
Platforms: Windows / Linux / Mac OS X / FreeBSD / Solaris / QNX / OS/2 / BeOS
License: freeware
Official download site: http://www.opera.com/browser/
NOTE: do not download Opera from any other site than the official one (because some third party might add viruses, trojans, rootkits, adware, phishing tools, etc to the installer)
Google Chrome
This is a relatively new player. Google chrome seems to be lacking the features Firefox and Opera are praised for. Those features are extensions, widgets, an inbuilt email client and many other features.
However, Chrome is meant to be used together with Google's suite of online apps and make up for that lack of inbuilt features this way.
Chrome has one process per tab. That means: if one tab locks up, only that tab goes down, not the whole browser.
Chrome seems to be having some stability issues with Adobe Flash content and some online video sites do not work properly (as in the video doesn't play, whereas Firefox, Opera and even Safari have no problems in playing the content).
Chrome also comes with Google Update. GU runs in the background and it starts once your PC starts. It updates Chrome without asking you if you want to do this or not. Some people might not like this, but unless you have some very sensitive data you want to protect, it's ok. GU only updates Chrome, it doesn't act like and is not malware/adware/spyware/ a trojan/etc
Reviewed version: 2.0.172.33
Updates: updates are installed automatically via Google Update
Themes: none
Addons: none
Browsing speed: very good
Page rendering: vey good
Temporary files: managed via a cache size, the history tends to get huge (tens to hundreds of megabytes)
Security: very good
Download manager: average, it has some bugs related to starting downloads initiated by the user via javascript (e.g.: clicking a button, loading another page where you expect the downloading to take place, like sourceforge.net download pages)
Platforms: Windows / Mac OS X - work in progress / Linux - planned
License: open source - Chromium is open source and Chromium/Chrome is based on Webkit
Official download site: http://www.google.com/chrome/?hl=en
NOTE: do not download Chrome from any other site than the official one (because some third party might add viruses, trojans, rootkits, adware, phishing tools, etc to the installer)
Apple Safari
This browser was Mac only until recently. Apple decided they want to increase their user base by including some Windows users as well. However, the goal of this browser is unclear.
The recently released Safari 4.0 seems to be copying Google Chrome's layout. It has pretty much the same button layout and placement.
This browser has a few issues. Macs and PCs with slower HDDs will run Safari a bit slower when browsing websites which have a lot of images and graphical elements. Firefox, Opera and Chrome do not have this problem at all.
Safari 4.0 has another two problems. The first problem is that of having a high CPU usage when using an old slow display adapter due to its home screen. The second is that the home screen uses up resources to present you the most recently/most often visited pages with some eye candy.
Laptop owners might want to change the default content of newly opened tabs to be a blank page, thus sparing you of seeing the home screen and save some power while on battery.
It also scrolls with hiccups when you have opened a page with a lot of images.
Reviewed version: 4.02
Bundled software: none, if you choose the version without Quicktime
make sure to deselect "Install Bonjour for Windows" as it's useless
Updates: updates are installed via Software Update on Macs and via the optional Apple Software Update on Windows
Themes: none
Addons: none
Browsing speed: good
Page rendering: average, hiccups while scrolling pages with tons of images
Temporary files: managed via a cache size, some stray files may show up on Windows - they have to be cleaned up manually
Security: average - Apple has refused to fix some security flaws in the past
Download manager: average
Platforms: Windows / Mac OS X
License: closed source, the HTML rendering engine is open source, Webkit
Official download site: http://www.apple.com/safari <- make sure you download the version without Quicktime, if you plan to use Safari on Windows NOTE: do not download Chrome from any other site than the official one (because some third party might add viruses, trojans, rootkits, adware, phishing tools, etc to the installer) The alternative browsers should be compatible with XP/Vista/Windows 7. However, they might need some minor fixes for Windows 7, if they haven't been done already by now. Keep in mind that the browser you use is important. A lot of Windows computers are compromised due to security breaches in Internet Explorer. The user's actions can also lead to infections with viruses/adware/spyware/trojans/malware ( you pick the name for it). If you want a good secure browser, give Firefox, Opera and Chrome a shot and see which works best for your needs. If you want to choose between two browsers, choose between Firefox and Opera.
Read more!
How To: Clean Windows up, part 2
The second part
This is the second part of the guide, the first one was posted here . Once we finish describing the problem, we can move on to fixing it. You will see a few tricks you can use to clean your Windows install up. Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7, they can all benefit from these cleanup steps.
We will talk about other methods than CCleaner in the third part of the guide.
Wait, does having 1-20GB of bloat matter for the PC's performance?
Windows has a very serious issue: the filesystem gets fragmented over time and over writing/deleting files.
You can read more about that here .
Having a lot of small files scattered across the filesystem makes filesystem access (writes and reads) slower. When you try to list the contents of a partition, the
OS has to read a large list of files off the hdd and then present the folders and files to you. The more files you have, the slower it gets.
A partition which has 100000 files with a size of ~50 KB has greater access times than one with 100 files which are 50000 KB big.
Another problem is the fact that the filesystem, NTFS, fragments a lot. It might fragment a file even when it has enough "one chunk" free space to place the file in one chunk.
You can avoid heavy fragmentation by lowering the number of files on your drive. You can also get rid of fragmentation by defragging, but we will talk in another article about that since there are many things you need to check before defragmenting.
The less bloat you have on your PC (that doesn't include only the redundant and safe to clean up files), the faster your PC will be.
CCleaner? Does it have anything to do with cleaning?
CCleaner is a very useful freeware application. It can clean up a lot of safe-to-remove temporary files. You can just open CCleaner, choose what to remove (the first time) and then clean up the PC every time you need to do so by just clicking a button.
While CCleaner does an amazing job at removing various temporary files, it's not the only way to clean up your computer and not the only one which is required. There are some temporary files it doesn't remove because it could interfere with the other open applications. We will talk about cleaning up files which aren't handled by CCleaner after we take the trash with CCleaner.
That's all, let's clean your machine up.
1. Download CCleaner from here
This is a FREE download of a FREEWARE application
2. Install CCleaner with these settings, make sure to untick the other checkboxes (you really don't need the Yahoo Toolbar)
Optional: leave Automatically check for updates to CCleaner ticked so CCleaner will tell you when a new version is available
3. Open CCleaner
4. Choose the options you want to use for the cleanup
Warning: what is TICKED is going to be CLEANED up, not the other way around
Warning: this guide is pretty much the same for XP/Vista/Win7. the sole difference is that on Win7 and Vista you need to allow it to run via the "run as administrator" thing and UAC pops up to ask if you want to run this
The Windows tab:
Internet Explorer : Tick everything here; You should change your browser if you were using Internet Explorer (more about that in another article)
Windows Explorer: It's safe to tick everything here, it just cleans up the list of recently opened apps from "run" and recent documents
System: All but the last two items should be selected here
Advanced: Old Prefetch Data should be unticked (it's better not to touch that)
wipe free space (this could take a very long time and has no use, unless you want to prevent the recovery of deleted files for security reasons, otherwise leave unticked)
All of the other options should be ticked
Note: Hotfix uninstallers (which shows up only on XP when you have installed updates and they're in the Windows directory) should be safe to tick too (personally, I never had any kind of problems with that)
The Applications tab:
Browsers (Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari) cookies - make sure not to choose to remove cookies in the browser you use. These are the passwords the browser remembers and it also uses this for things like keeping you logged in into various sites.
If you don't care about that, you can just tick the cookies too and they get removed.
Internet cache - this can also be safely removed, shouldn't cause you any problems
Internet history - this is the list of sites you have browsed, on Google Chrome, it can get pretty big. The downside to removing the list is you will not be able to find the sites you have visited via the History function of the browser
Download history - pretty much like the Internet history; the files you downloaded are listed in your browser. that list can get pretty big after a while and scrolling the downloads window can become very slow. If you remove this, you might have to look for the files on your hdd to see where they are (you shouldn't have this problem, you either all of your files in the same place or you save them by category in their respective folder)
Saved form information - this should be removed from time to time, your search box, input forms and other areas where you input text get cluttered by "suggestions" as you type. for some people, that can be a security breach or something annoying. also ok to remove
All the others: These are generally safe to remove completely
5. Close any browser(s) you may have opened (completely, all of them, Firefox, Opera, IE, Safari, etc)
6. Click "Run cleaner"
This screenshot was taken on a freshly installed Windows Vista Ultimate and a bunch of applications. The system already had 376MB of cleanable data.
7. That's it, your system has a bit less "extra baggage" on it
I hope this article was useful to you. Stay tuned for the next part where you'll see another trick you can use to free up some space on your PC.
Read more!
This is the second part of the guide, the first one was posted here . Once we finish describing the problem, we can move on to fixing it. You will see a few tricks you can use to clean your Windows install up. Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7, they can all benefit from these cleanup steps.
We will talk about other methods than CCleaner in the third part of the guide.
Wait, does having 1-20GB of bloat matter for the PC's performance?
Windows has a very serious issue: the filesystem gets fragmented over time and over writing/deleting files.
You can read more about that here .
Having a lot of small files scattered across the filesystem makes filesystem access (writes and reads) slower. When you try to list the contents of a partition, the
OS has to read a large list of files off the hdd and then present the folders and files to you. The more files you have, the slower it gets.
A partition which has 100000 files with a size of ~50 KB has greater access times than one with 100 files which are 50000 KB big.
Another problem is the fact that the filesystem, NTFS, fragments a lot. It might fragment a file even when it has enough "one chunk" free space to place the file in one chunk.
You can avoid heavy fragmentation by lowering the number of files on your drive. You can also get rid of fragmentation by defragging, but we will talk in another article about that since there are many things you need to check before defragmenting.
The less bloat you have on your PC (that doesn't include only the redundant and safe to clean up files), the faster your PC will be.
CCleaner? Does it have anything to do with cleaning?
CCleaner is a very useful freeware application. It can clean up a lot of safe-to-remove temporary files. You can just open CCleaner, choose what to remove (the first time) and then clean up the PC every time you need to do so by just clicking a button.
While CCleaner does an amazing job at removing various temporary files, it's not the only way to clean up your computer and not the only one which is required. There are some temporary files it doesn't remove because it could interfere with the other open applications. We will talk about cleaning up files which aren't handled by CCleaner after we take the trash with CCleaner.
That's all, let's clean your machine up.
1. Download CCleaner from here
This is a FREE download of a FREEWARE application
2. Install CCleaner with these settings, make sure to untick the other checkboxes (you really don't need the Yahoo Toolbar)
Optional: leave Automatically check for updates to CCleaner ticked so CCleaner will tell you when a new version is available
3. Open CCleaner
4. Choose the options you want to use for the cleanup
Warning: what is TICKED is going to be CLEANED up, not the other way around
Warning: this guide is pretty much the same for XP/Vista/Win7. the sole difference is that on Win7 and Vista you need to allow it to run via the "run as administrator" thing and UAC pops up to ask if you want to run this
The Windows tab:
Internet Explorer : Tick everything here; You should change your browser if you were using Internet Explorer (more about that in another article)Windows Explorer: It's safe to tick everything here, it just cleans up the list of recently opened apps from "run" and recent documents
System: All but the last two items should be selected here
Advanced: Old Prefetch Data should be unticked (it's better not to touch that)
wipe free space (this could take a very long time and has no use, unless you want to prevent the recovery of deleted files for security reasons, otherwise leave unticked)
All of the other options should be ticked
Note: Hotfix uninstallers (which shows up only on XP when you have installed updates and they're in the Windows directory) should be safe to tick too (personally, I never had any kind of problems with that)
The Applications tab:
Browsers (Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari) cookies - make sure not to choose to remove cookies in the browser you use. These are the passwords the browser remembers and it also uses this for things like keeping you logged in into various sites.
If you don't care about that, you can just tick the cookies too and they get removed.
Internet cache - this can also be safely removed, shouldn't cause you any problems
Internet history - this is the list of sites you have browsed, on Google Chrome, it can get pretty big. The downside to removing the list is you will not be able to find the sites you have visited via the History function of the browser
Download history - pretty much like the Internet history; the files you downloaded are listed in your browser. that list can get pretty big after a while and scrolling the downloads window can become very slow. If you remove this, you might have to look for the files on your hdd to see where they are (you shouldn't have this problem, you either all of your files in the same place or you save them by category in their respective folder)
Saved form information - this should be removed from time to time, your search box, input forms and other areas where you input text get cluttered by "suggestions" as you type. for some people, that can be a security breach or something annoying. also ok to remove
All the others: These are generally safe to remove completely
5. Close any browser(s) you may have opened (completely, all of them, Firefox, Opera, IE, Safari, etc)
6. Click "Run cleaner"
This screenshot was taken on a freshly installed Windows Vista Ultimate and a bunch of applications. The system already had 376MB of cleanable data.7. That's it, your system has a bit less "extra baggage" on it
I hope this article was useful to you. Stay tuned for the next part where you'll see another trick you can use to free up some space on your PC.
Read more!
Game review: World of Goo PC
World of Goo!!
While this game doesn't cost as much as other cool games out there, this game still packs quite a punch. As far as gameplay goes, you can't get bored but you can get angry. Kind of a contrast of frustration and anger vs success when you actually pass a level.
Some levels may require a few tries, some may require many, so may just require 1 try. Lucky you in that case. The game starts out easy and tends to get hard. However all hardcore puzzle solvers out there will love this game and wish to own it. The game play is dynamic and fun and I do recommend this game if you're into solving puzzles or wishing to try a new game.
So what do you have to lose? Its a fun relaxing game you can play to just kill time.
Below there's a video review of this game that I hope you'll enjoy.
Read more!
While this game doesn't cost as much as other cool games out there, this game still packs quite a punch. As far as gameplay goes, you can't get bored but you can get angry. Kind of a contrast of frustration and anger vs success when you actually pass a level.
Some levels may require a few tries, some may require many, so may just require 1 try. Lucky you in that case. The game starts out easy and tends to get hard. However all hardcore puzzle solvers out there will love this game and wish to own it. The game play is dynamic and fun and I do recommend this game if you're into solving puzzles or wishing to try a new game.
So what do you have to lose? Its a fun relaxing game you can play to just kill time.
Below there's a video review of this game that I hope you'll enjoy.
Read more!
