One of the new features that Microsoft introduced in their Internet Explorer 9 browser was support for so called Tracking Protection Lists. These lists can be installed in the browser to add protection against tracking, and as a side effect many forms of advertisement. A list of common TPLs is available at the Internet Explorer [...]

A judge recently ordered a US citizen to decrypt storage space on a computer so that police forces could analyze protected files on the system. In this particular case, the defendant was ordered to decrypt the hard drive of her Toshiba notebook no later than February 21, or face the consequences “including contempt of court”. [...]

Opera Software has just released a new version of the Opera desktop browser bringing the stable channel of the browser to version 11.61. Opera users should receive update notifications in the browser, those who do not want to wait for them to pop up can run a manual update check the following way: A click [...]

We have covered quite a few Facebook modifications and tips in the past that let you get more out of Facebook Chat. A userscript for instance to add easier access to emoticons in chat or how to hide from friends on Facebook chat. Pretty Facebook Chat is a Google Chrome extension that lets you customize [...]

Google has a distinct advantage that other companies on the web do not have. Google Search at the time of writing controls more than 50% of all search on the web, which can go up in some countries to more than 90%. Google uses this to their advantage by promoting their own services in search. [...]

When it comes to repairing the Firefox web browser because of issues that you experience while using it, you are often in for a rather long winded troubleshooting process. Less tech savvy users might try to re-install the browser only to find out that reinstallation likely did not resolve the issues at all. Others might [...]

When you type in characters into the Firefox address bar you will notice that a suggestion box appears right below it. This suggestion box lists sites that you have visited in the past or bookmarked so that you can access those sites faster with just a click or the down cursor. Add-ons like Enter Select [...]

The FBI back in November managed to close down a botnet that was created with the help of a malware called DNSChanger. In operation since 2007 it grew to a size of nearly 4 million infected computer systems of which about 500,000 were located in the United States. The operators manipulated the DNS system of [...]

Users who have been using the file hosting service Megaupload to host their own files were in for quite a shock when they received notice that authorities had taken down all company servers and files. For some it meant to upload the files again to another file hosting service, others who only had copies of [...]

Megaupload, one of the world’s top file sharing and storage sites, has been taken down on request of US authorities on Thursday. Arrests have been made in various countries and assets as well as the service’s websites and servers have been seized. No files were accessible anymore on the servers after the takedown, which had [...]

One of my security and privacy recommendations for desktop email users is to disable HTML emails. This basically turns every email that you receive into a plain text email that does not load anything from third party servers. Once in a while though you may stumble upon an email that you need or want to [...]

One of the things that a browser does when you open a web page is to move downloaded page items into the browser cache. Elements can be all kinds of things, from the HTML page itself to media like images or videos. Some users may wonder why browsers make use of a cache, and the [...]

When you open a new tab in the Firefox browser you’ll notice that it always opens up blank. Mozilla announced plans to redesign the new tab page in an upcoming version of the browser, but for now blank is all you get. While tabs open fast because of this, it is for some users not [...]

Ever since Google starting pumping up the results of their search engine with all kind of nonsense – read first and third party advertisement mainly but also other stuff like the unfair favoring of big brands – I have been looking for an alternative. And while I have found it in Bing, I have to [...]

Microsoft revealed additional information about the Windows Store that the company plans to integrate into the Windows 8 operating system yesterday. When I first saw the store landing page screenshot, it immediately reminded me of the Chrome Web Store turned by 90°. The store basically consists of a horizontally scrolling page that lists spotlight apps [...]

I have been a user of the desktop email client Mozilla Thunderbird for the past five or so years. In that time, I have modified the default settings and behavior of the client to make it more secure against attacks and other malicious activities and issues. This guide acts as an overview of what I [...]

Google has just announced the third wave of product retirements after retiring Google Buzz and Knol, Wave, Friend Connect and Google Gears previously. The official Google blog lists six products that will be discontinued in 2012 of which the majority of Internet and Google users probably never heard of. Picnic is probably the services that [...]

After a relatively quite holiday period attacks on popular services on the Internet seem to have picked up again. After the Zappos incident a few days ago, it is now the popular web hoster Dreamhost who noticed unauthorized activity within one of the company’s databases. Dreamhost is not going into further detail but mentions that [...]

I still love the tower defense genre despite the fact that I have not seen a good game come out in quite a while. Hands of War is a Flash browser game that does a lot of things right. It comes with a hero character, skills, a leveling system and options to variate the difficulty [...]

Depending on the videos that you like to watch on YouTube, you may be seeing way more video ads than a year or two ago. With YouTube finally taking off revenue wise, users are seeing more video ads before the actual videos that they want to watch on the site. While it is understandable that [...]

Grooveshark recently started to block German users from accessing the service citing unreasonable costs of operations in the country as the sole reason for the move. German users who try to access the Grooveshark website see an announcement that the service is no longer available to them. There may be other countries or networks where [...]

If you have a large directory of files that has become just to messy to work effectively with, you may want to move those files into appropriate directories. We have already covered Extension Indexer, a program that lets you sort files based on their file extension. FileSieve now lets you sort files based on a [...]

Advertisements are what keeps many of the sites going on the Internet, including the site you are currently reading. As a user, I do understand that too many ads, or ads in the wrong position, or ads that are highly distracting, reduce the user experience. While I rarely stumble upon sites anymore that have their [...]

If you are using Google Calendar to keep track of things, you’d probably notice that you only get notifications on your desktop computer if you are on that computer and have the Google Calendar page open. That’s fine if you are working on your desktop most of the time, but won’t do you any good [...]

If you are a regular Megaupload user you have probably already noticed that the site and all of the files hosted on its servers are no longer accessible on the Internet. Check out Megaupload Shuts Down, Arrests Have Been Made for an overview of what happened in the past 24 hours. Internet users who have [...]

The popular file hosting site Megaupload has been shut down by US authorities on Thursday, and the site’s leaders have been charged with widespread online copyright infringement. According to an US Department of Justice press release, Megaupload generated more than “$175 million in criminal proceeds” and caused more than “half a billion dollars in harm [...]

Sharing an Internet connection with other household members or even neighbors is easier than ever. All you need is a solid wireless router with enough reach to give all parties lag- and trouble-free access to the Internet. All you need for that is to set up a wireless router in a location that is ideal [...]

If you upload files, images or text documents for instance, regularly from your computer to Internet sites, you’d probably realized that the process is everything but straightforward. This is especially true if you want to post a file on a site that does not offer uploading capabilities, a comment on a web blog for instance. [...]

We have all been there and seen it. Whenever updates are installed in Windows that require a reboot, you are prompted in regular intervals to do so. These messages appear shortly after installing the updates, and then regularly until you do so. The Restart Your Computer To Finish Installing Important Updates prompt offers to postpone [...]

Sometimes you may download or receive music in a format that you cannot really use in all of your devices. Maybe it is a Flac file that your mp3 player cannot play, or an audiobook that you want to merge all of the chapters from. Hamster Free Audio Converter is an easy to use program [...]