With the average user receiving 15 emails with attachments per day, one would think that companies would have come up with ways to get rid of annoyances and issues caused by attachments. From bouncing emails because of attachment size limitations over sending multiple versions of the same file to storage issues. Most users know from [...]

It’s not that long ago, really not a distant memory, when Microsoft were hauled before regulators in the US and Europe for several years over the anti-competitive practices of bundling Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player with Windows.  Competitors such as Opera and Real Networks (remember them?) said such practices were damaging their own success [...]

And now for something completely different: Remember Guitar Hero and all of those music games that came out on various gaming systems? They were super popular thanks for a while. Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 4 is like those games, only without the instruments. When you start the game you are asked to pick one [...]

Sometimes you may want to record a Skype call you are about to make. Maybe because you are interviewing someone, need the recording for your records or because it is for research or study purposes and you’d like to get back to it later on. We have covered several Skype recorders in the past, including [...]

Depending on the country you are currently in, you may be blocked from accessing part or all of a website. One prime example is the US-only service HULU which blocks all users except those coming from the United States. The popular video hosting service YouTube on the other hand blocks users from specific countries from [...]

Mozilla, developers of the popular Firefox web browser, have just released an update for the browser’s stable branch that moves the version to 10.0.1. The release may come as a surprise to users of Firefox 10, who were updated to that version only ten days ago. This is not the first occurrence that a critical [...]

Google has released the next beta version of the Chrome browser, a day after releasing Google Chrome 17 Stable. Chrome 18 Beta supports GPU accelerated 2D Canvas and 3D contents on older GPUs that were not supported by the browser until now. The new version introduces GPU accelerated 2D Canvas on Mac and Windows versions [...]

Yesterday Microsoft finally announced their plans for Windows 8 running on ARM-designed processors.  The news came with two very interesting pieces of information… “WOA (Windows on ARM) includes desktop versions of the new Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. These new Office applications, codenamed ‘Office 15,’ have been significantly architected for both touch and minimized [...]

The rise of digital cameras and the move to digital photo formats made image manipulations a lot easier. Now everyone can fire up Photoshop or a comparable tool to make modifications to photos that are not detectable for the human eye. Often, this is used to optimize the output, e.g. increase an area’s brightness level [...]

SmartScreen Filter is a security module that is integrated into several Microsoft products such as Internet Explorer or Windows Live Messenger. It basically warns users if they are about to open a potentially dangerous website or file. A warning is displayed and it is up to the user to continue or stop at this point. [...]

The rise of online shopping has opened up a world of opportunity for Internet users. One of the most interesting option is the ability to compare prices almost effortlessly. Price comparison services can be divided into two groups: First websites that display price and availability information for product names you enter, and then browser add-ons [...]

With the popular Bittorrent indexing site The Pirate Bay preparing to go all in on magnet links on the site, users have asked themselves why the operators of the site go through those troubles in first place. The core reason for the site operators is bandwidth and to a lesser extend storage space. Replacing torrent [...]

Rumors of Google Drive, or GDrive as it was named in the beginning, started to emerge at around the same time that the popular file synchronization and hosting service Dropbox opened its doors to the public (that was 2007). All went quiet shortly thereafter and it appeared as if the project had been canceled by [...]

The beta “Consumer Preview” version of Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system could be released on Wednesday 29th February.  Microsoft have announced a “Windows 8 Consumer Preview event” in the city, that is also home to the Mobile World Congress expo that week. This looks like a reasonable time to launch the beta given that [...]

Google Wallet is the name of Google’s recently launched cell phone-based credit card payment system. The system uses Near Field Communication (NFC) to exchange data between the cell phone (that is containing the user’s financial information) and the store. The system has several advantages over physical credit cards, including a potential for greater security when [...]

Avast! has just released the first public beta version of the company’s 2012 security lineup. Interested users can download Avast Free, Avast Pro and Avast Internet Security from the official beta announcement thread in the Avast forum. First thing that users notice is the new installer. Avast notes that the beta versions can be installed [...]

Google has just released an update for the Chrome browser’s stable branch that fixes several security vulnerabilities and adds several new features to the browser. The two most prominent feature additions in Chrome 17 are Omnibox Prerendering and Download Scanning. Omnibox Prerendering basically preloads some of the pages that are presented to you in the [...]

If you are the kind of person who likes to spend time on social networking sites or messaging services like Facebook, Hotmail or Google Mail, you probably noticed that page titles change whenever updates are available on the site. Tab Notifier now uses those information to notify you of updates on those sites. The browser [...]

I have been using the open source encryption software TrueCrypt for a long time to keep my data secure on connected hard drives. The program has evolved over the years, and can now create encrypted file containers, encrypt full partitions and even the whole computer system. TrueCrypt is that solid that its developers need to [...]

As soon as you start using the Internet, your actions are tracked by specialized companies. This not only includes web server logs but also third party tracking through advertisement, social networking scripts and other third party scripts. Google is about to launch Screenwise, a project that allows them to monitor the sites users visit and [...]

Back in 2006 hackers managed to download source codes of Symantec software after successfully gaining access to Symantec’s infrastructure. The hackers managed to obtain Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Norton Utilities, Norton GoBack, pcAnywhere and Norton Internet Security source codes during the operation. The incident came to light only recently, when hackers started to upload code [...]

In case you missed it, we’ve had a great Windows 8 discussion going on here at gHacks in the last couple of days, one that is no doubt set to continue for a while yet in various forms as we look forward to the release of the Consumer Preview (beta) at the end of this [...]

Google has just released a public beta version of Google Chrome for Android. Google’s main goal was to port the speed and simplicity of the Chrome browser to mobile devices running on Android. The beta version is only available for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich devices, and currently only in the following countries: United States, [...]

DHE Drive Info is a free portable software for the Windows operating system that displays extensive information about all connected hard drives and their partitions. It may take the program a few seconds to scan all drives before information about them are displayed in list form in the main application window. Each device is listed [...]

Ever wondered if it was that cold or hot last year as it is this year? Then WunderMap might be your go to weather application, as it offers to take you on a ride back in weather history. All you need to do to get started is to key in a location that you want [...]

Every now and then you may want to make sure that files that you delete on a PC cannot be recovered anymore by other users. This may be important if you are passing on the PC to another user, working on a multi-user PC or system that others may have access to. It may even [...]

Yesterday Martin wrote up his thoughts and concerns about the forthcoming Windows 8 operating system from Microsoft.  I’ve spent much more time with Windows 8 so far, have given talks about and I’m current writing two books about how to get the best out of it, one for complete novices and another for IT Pros [...]

Many notebooks, laptops and netbooks ship with a smaller sized keyboard that lacks some of the keys that are on standard sized keyboards. This often includes media keys like play, pause or changing the volume, but also keys like numlock or other numpad keys. These keys are usually removed because of size constraints. Manufacturers add [...]

Popular web browser plugins like Flash Player or Java are a prime target of malware and hackers. The core reasons are simple: Lack of centralized updating and little to no protection of the underlying system if the plugin has been compromised. Changes have been introduced, but only in select browsers at this point of time. [...]

As a Windows user, I’m keeping a close eye on all Windows 8 development tidbits and leaks that I can find online and offline. Most of what I know comes from the developer preview version of the operating system that was released last year, and leaks that seem to have picked up in pace recently. [...]

If you are like me, you have some tabs open in your web browser of choice that you do not use regularly. For me it is most often program website or service tabs that I want to write about, but cannot at that point in time. It happens that I keep those websites open in [...]

Having a translator at hand can be quite useful when you are browsing the Internet. With users from different social background and countries coming together, there is always the chance that you stumble upon text written in languages that you do not understand. Often your only option to make sense of the text is to [...]

The majority of websites make connections to other domains when you connect them. Examples are a site that is using Google Analytics for web statistics or Google Adsense for monetization, embeds videos from YouTube, or uses a content distribution network. Sometimes these requests are needed to use all of a site’s functionality. Amazon for instance [...]

Last year I picked up an HP Touchpad in the fire sale that resulted in the model, and all of HP’s tablet plans, being discontinued.  Now RIM appear to be doing similiar with their Playbook tablet, with prices being slashed around the world.  You might think then that now would be the right time to pick [...]

Users of the popular Bittorrent indexing website BTJunkie who try to access the site’s content in a web browser are not seeing the usual site layout, but a goodbye message instead. The message states that the site operators have decided to close down the service voluntarily after more than seven years of operation. No reason [...]

One essential tool in a blogger’s repertoire is a screenshot capturing software. These programs range from basic applications to sophisticated tools that offer editors and other features that make life a lot easier. Screenshot Captor is one of those Swiss army knifes in the screenshot taking world. The program supports all the capturing options that [...]

Even though I knew about Reddit for as long as I knew about Digg, I never really used it for a longer period of time. This changed recently when I started to use my account more actively. I personally like two things the most, next to a big list of smaller things. Reddit first and [...]

In the last year I’ve reviewed and owned a fair number of tablets covering just about every aspect of the market.  These have included the monster 12 inch ASUS EP121 complete with a Core-i5 processor and 4Gb of RAM down to my latest arrival, a 7 inch Blackberry Playbook.  But what is the best size [...]

When you search Google you always have the option to open a linked website directly, or to open a cached page of the selected page instead. Opening the cached version may help you if the website that you want to open is not available temporarily or permanently. Google recently made changes to the location of [...]

Google is running yet another design test on their homepage currently. With the frequency of layout changes increasing, it feels as if the search giant does not really know what they really want anymore. As of right now, at least two designs are life for all users. First the single button menu interface with a [...]

I received a new Blackberry Playbook 16Gb tablet today, actually it’s not completely new as it’s two weeks old and was owned by a family member who bought it because prices had been discounted recently here in the UK.  She liked it so much that she decided she’d rather have the 64Gb one and bought [...]

Not every Firefox user likes the new add-on manager that the developers have added to the browser some time ago. Veteran users may recall a time when the add-on manager opened up in a popup window instead of a browser tab. The design changed as well, everything feals bigger and less streamlined in the new [...]

You can uninstall most Firefox add-ons from the addons manager page in the web browser. All you need to do is type in about:addons in the address bar and tap on the enter key to open the page. A click on remove next to an add-on uninstalls it from the browser. You may need to [...]

Mozilla is about to release Firefox 12 Aurora, after releasing Firefox 10 Stable and Firefox 11 Beta in the last two days. It is interesting to note that Firefox 12 is already offered on the Mozilla download website, but not through the browser’s internal updater. Firefox Aurora users who do not want to wait can [...]

Today’s game of the week is called Defender’s Quest. It is more of a long demo game than a full game though, so keep that in mind. Defender’s Quest at its core is a tower defense game with role playing elements. You are still fighting waves of monsters with your towers in every map, but [...]

Remember Clipboard Magic? No? Then you are in good company as the program has not made the news in the last six years. The developer of the clipboard manager has released version 5 of the program after six years of radio silence. Clipboard Magic 5 at its core is a clipboard manager for the Windows [...]

News reached the world-wide-web last week that Microsoft Office 15 had reached the Technical Preview stage, and that a beta would be available this summer.  That’s all we know about the company’s next generation integrated Office suite at the moment except that the company in a recent blog post said that “Office 15 is the [...]

Firefox, like other web browsers, can only display a certain amount of tabs at the same time. This is handled by minimum and maximum width parameters. Once the limit is reached, arrows are added to the right and left side of the tabbar that need to be used to access tabs that are no longer [...]

Remember Soluto, the software that allowed you to optimize the startup time of the Windows operating system? Appears that the developers have moved their application from the desktop to the web. Instead of downloading the program right away, installing it and using it locally, Soluto users now need to create a web account first before [...]

The Add-on Compatibility Reporter add-on for the Firefox web browser was a useful browser extension to force add-on compatibility in unsupported versions of the Firefox web browser. While it was not able to force compatibility for add-ons that were incompatible due to changes in the browser itself, it managed to enforce compatibility for the majority [...]