gHacks technology news » internet browser

Working With Many Tabs In Opera

Martin — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 11:53:39 +0000

There was a time when I used Opera almost exclusively. This has changed with the rise of the Firefox web browser but I do know quite a few users who use Opera as their main web browser. Rarst likes Opera. That becomes apparent if you look at the comments that he leaves here at Ghacks. His article Tweak Opera for large amount of tabs that he posted on his blog yesterday examines and describes some tweaks and settings that Opera users have when working with many tabs in the web browser.

It is a pretty solid walkthrough that unfortunately lacks images to go along with the article. The tips and tweaks are divided into these five subjects:

Give tabs more space
Prevent unwanted close
Change tab logic
Use hotkeys
Show tabs in full screen mode

Most of the tips and tweaks describe Opera settings and options that can be changed to make it easier and more convenient to work with many tabs in the Opera browser. Probably the most useful tip for a “minimal user interface” type of user like me is the description of how to remove interface elements from the toolbar to provide more space for the tabs.

The article is worth a read for all users who work regularly or partially with the Opera web browser.

Tags: internet browser, opera, opera browser, opera tabs, opera tweaks, opera-tips, rarst, tabbed-browsing

9 Twitter Userscripts

Martin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:52:44 +0000

After the success of the IMDB userscripts article we thought it would be nice to write another one that would review some of the best Twitter userscripts out there. Now, userscripts can be loaded into the web browser in various ways. Probably the most popular and straightforward way is to use the Greasemonkey extension for the Firefox web browser. It is however possible to add userscripts to Opera, Safari or the Google Browser as well.

Twitter is basically a way of posting short messages on the Internet comparable to SMS but publicly visible and permanent. It is possible to follow people so that their messages get automatically displayed in Twitter. That’s the basic concept which proved to be very popular.

Nested Twitter Replies [link]

Twitter users can post replies to messages which are by default just displayed like any other message meaning that they are not grouped together. The Nested Twitter Replies userscript takes care of that by grouping the original message and the replies together.

Twitter Trends Explained [link]

Twitter trends are topics of public interest that are displayed in the right sidebar of the profile page. This covers a wide variety of topics from technology to politics and environment. There is no explanation on the topic by default which is changed by Twitter Trends Explained.

Endless Tweets [link]

Twitter displays a limited amount of messages per page. Users need to click every time they want to view additional messages. The Endless Tweets userscript will automatically load the next batch of messages when the user reaches the end of the page.

Twitter Search Results on Google [link]

Displays Twitter messages in Google Search results effectively combining Twitter messages in Google Search.

TinyURL Decoder [link]

The TinyURL Decoder supports dozens of different url shortening services that are being used by Twitter users.

Twitpic Thumbnailer [link]

Many Twitter users post images to Twitpic and link to these images in their Twitter messages. This userscript allows Twitter users to preview the thumbnails of those images.

Twitter Live Updater [link]

The Twitter message pages do not get updated automatically which means that users need to refresh them manually to check for new messages. The Twitter Live Updater will refresh the Twitter pages automatically periodically.

Twitter Friends Bio at a Glance [link]

This userscript displays information including the bio, followers and following count that are usually only visible on a user profile page

Twitter2FB [link]

Updates the Facebook status with the Twitter status.

Verdict: The userscript’s website lists hundreds of Twitter scripts that have been designed to change, add or modify functions and features on Twitter. They can really enhance the Twitter experience for users who regularly write and read messages.

Tags: firefox, greasemonkey, internet browser, messages, twitter, userscripts, web browser

Opera Unite

Martin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:51:42 +0000

Opera has finally lift the veil and introduced the “thing” that would reinvent the Internet. It goes by the name Opera Unit and will be a part of the upcoming Opera 10 web browser. Opera Unite basically offers web server capabilities right in the web browser which allows users to share data and files on the Internet but also to host chat rooms, online applications and even complete web projects. The main difference between Opera’s approach and the standard approach is that Opera establishes direct client to client connections without data being hosted in the cloud on third party servers.

Opera Unite is modularized and comes with so called services that can be installed to extend the functionality. This may remind many users of Firefox add-ons but it is actually a completely different technology that requires more than just clicking on an install link. Currently seven services are offered, they are:

Media Player – Accessing the music collection from anywhere on the Internet.
File Sharing – A way of sharing files directly between users.
Fridge – A note leaving application that other people can use to leave notes on a computer system.
Web Server – Hosting a web server from the local computer system.
Photo Sharing – Share photos without uploading them first.
The Lounge – A chat interface hosted on a computer system.

The Opera team has created a user guide to get users started with Opera Unite. Opera Unite is available as a separate preview release which can be downloaded for all supported operating systems from the Opera Labs website. The download will actually replace the current version of Opera 10 if the user decides to install it in the same installation directory.

Opera Unite is then available in the left panel after installation. Starting the actual home server requires an Opera account. A homeaddress is assigned to every user signing up for Opera Unite in the from “http://computername.username.operaunite.com/” with the user selecting the computer name. The username will be the Opera username.

Once that has been setup the service that has been selected by the user gets setup. Setup of the file sharing module for example requires the selection of a directory on the local computer that will be used for that purpose. Each service that has been activated can then be accessed from the created homepage if the user accessing it has sufficient rights to do so.

The file sharing page on the server is for example protected by a password by default which can be changed in the root home directory. It offers three different access rights which make it possible to allow public access (everyone can access them), private access (only the root user can access the files) or password protected access.

Verdict:

Opera Unite offers something that web browsers do not offer out of the box. The usefulness of the service on the other hand depends largely on the user’s system configuration. If the user runs an home server then it might not be needed to run Opera Unite as well. Users who prefer to access everything from one program might find Opera Unite helpful especially if the developers and users begin to add new modules to the service. Not really a reinvention of the Internet but a nice service nevertheless.

Tags: data, internet browser, opera, opera 10, opera server, opera unite, server, web server

Mozilla Firefox 3.0.11 Released

Martin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:39:51 +0000

The Mozilla team has released version 3.0.11 of the Firefox web browser. The release is currently distributed to all mirror sites but can already be downloaded from various download portals like Betanews or MajorGeeks. The update seems to be a security and stability update if the beta release notes can be trusted. Users are therefor encouraged to update the web browser as soon as possible to fix the security and stability issues that have been encountered in Firefox 3.0.10.

A full list of all 50 bug fixes is available at the Bugzilla website. Cautious users might want to wait until the update has been distributed to all mirror sites so that it can be downloaded either from the official Mozilla website or through Firefox’s check for update functionality. The public release is expected soon.

Tags: firefox, firefox 3, firefox security, firefox upate, internet browser, web browser

Opera 10 Beta

Martin — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:05:55 +0000

The developers of the Opera web browser have just released the first beta of the upcoming Opera 10 Internet browser. The beta was available on Opera’s ftp site for a day and got finally announced by the Opera team officially in a blog post. One of the main improvements is the addition of the Presto 2.2 rendering engine which scores a 100/100 score in the Acid 3 test and adds support for several new web standards to the web browser including web fonts, transparency through opacity and SVG improvements.

The changelog lists many improvements and additions that have been implemented into Opera 10 including a new auto update mechanism that allows Opera to automatically update itself. This feature has to be enabled in the opera configuration. Easiest way to do is to enter opera:config#snapshots into the browser’s address bar and hit enter. The parameter needs to be enabled for the automatic update mechanism to kick in.

Opera 10 comes with a new user interface and several enhancements and customizability options. This includes Speed Dial customizations including the addition of background images, different speed dial layouts or hiding speed dial completely.

Other additions include:

HTML 5 Support
Opera Tab Bar thumbnails (displays website thumbnails when hovering over the site’s tab)
Opera inline spelling checker
Opera crashlogging tool

It is probably best to check the changelog mentioned above to get a full overview with descriptions of the changes.

Tags: internet browser, opera, opera 10, opera 10 beta, opera browser, web browser

Google Chrome 3

Martin — Thu, 28 May 2009 08:42:02 +0000

Google seems to be dead serious to close the “version-gap” to Mozilla Firefox and probably even other popular Internet browsers such as Internet Explorer or Opera in a hurry. The web browser known as the Google Browser was released less than a year ago and is already reaching version 3 which would close the version gap to the Firefox web browser.

Google Chrome 3 has been published on the dev channel from where it can be downloaded and installed on a computer system running a Microsoft windows operating system. The web browser will update existing Google Chrome installations on the system to the latest beta 3 version of it.

There are not many exciting new features in the release despite the jump from version 2 to 3. The release notes list 16 changes to Google Chrome 2.0.180.0 which has been released about two weeks ago. The most notable changes are multiple crash fixes, support for the video tag and fixes to user interface elements drawing improperly on the screen.

Users who are thinking about installing the latest Google Chrome dev release should be extra careful as this release is not intended to be run in work environments. The list of changes do not really make it a necessity to install Google Chrome 3 yet either.

Tags: Google, google browser, google chrome, google chrome 3, internet browser, web browser

Google Chrome 2.0 released

Martin — Fri, 22 May 2009 09:51:58 +0000

Version 2.0 of Google Chrome, known as the Google browser, has been released yesterday by the Chrome development team. The web browser is now officially out of beta. The speed of development is a little surprising for a company that seems to love the beta tag on many of their products. Some think that Google tries to match the latest version of the Firefox web browser as soon as possible to avoid looking inferior to inexperienced users.

The latest version of the Google browser can be downloaded directly from the official Google Chrome website at Google. Users who prefer to use the offline installer to install the Google browser can download the executable here. The web browser comes with several improvements that are not spectacular but useful nevertheless.

The three additions that are highlighted in the announcement are full screen support (with F11), an option to automatically fill out forms on websites and the ability to delete thumbnails in the new tab page which displays the most visited websites.

Speed and stability of the Google browser have also been increased according to the Google Chrome blog. It does seem though that extension support has not been added to the final release of Google Chrome which would mean that it is still only available in dev builds.

Tags: Google, google browser, google chrome, internet browser, web browser

Log Into Multiple Accounts At The Same Site With Internet Explorer 8

Martin — Fri, 08 May 2009 08:30:29 +0000

There was not a way for Internet Explorer 7 users to log into two different Gmail (or Hotmail, Yahoo Mail…) accounts at the same time. Gmail can be replaced with any other cookie based web service that asks the user to login. The problem here is that the cookie storing the information about the login will be overwritten when the second login attempt is made. Internet Explorer 8 changes this behavior by introducing so called session cookies. A user wanting to log into an account a second time (or third, fourth..) could therefor start a new session in Internet Explorer 8 to do so. The new session would write a new cookie that would not interfere with the old cookies that have been written in other sessions.

A new Internet Explorer 8 session can be created from the Internet Explorer menu toolbar which might be hidden on your computer system. The fastest way to create a new session if the menu bar is not shown is to press the keyboard combination [Alt f] [i] [enter]. This will open a new Internet Explorer 8 window in a new session. Opening a new tab or window in contrast would share the cookies in Internet Explorer 8. It is furthermore possible to start a new session from the command line by launching iexplore.exe with the -nomerge parameter.

Internet Explorer 8 sessions are a very effective way of accessing multiple accounts at the same web service at once. Microsoft should think about placing that option more dominantly in Internet Explorer 8 as its current position will most likely not be noticed by many Internet Explorer users.

There is not any comparable option in the other Internet browsers yet. Firefox users can use the Gmail Account Manager to manage multiple Gmail accounts but there does not seem to be a feature available that would allow users to log into multiple accounts at all web services.

Tags: ie8, internet browser, internet explorer 8, internet explorer sessions, internet-explorer, microsoft, sessions, web browser

Internet Browser Benchmark PeaceKeeper

Martin — Sun, 03 May 2009 14:50:30 +0000

Benchmarks can be an appropriate method of comparing different products against each other. Internet browser benchmarks usually calculate the processing speed of web browsers using JavaScript. This method is a good indicator of the speed of a web browser. It fails however to test other important factors like usability, security or correct code interpretations. A browser that excels in JavaScript calculations and executions does not therefor need to be the best in other areas. Still, a speedy Internet browser is something that most users desire and strive after.

Peacekeeper is a new Internet browser benchmark by Futuremark which are probably best known for their video graphics benchmarks 3DMark and PCMark. The benchmark is compatible will all web browsers that support Java and JavaScript. It will extract general information from the computer system including its cpu, computer memory and operating system before starting the benchmark.

The benchmark itself is a series of tests that are conducted in the same browser window. The result is displayed in the end which would not make that much sense unless there would be some sort of comparison available. Probably the most interesting aspect of the Internet browser benchmark is the chart in the end that is displaying the performance of several web browsers when run on four different computer systems.

The chart displays the performance of ten web browsers, including both final versions like Internet Explorer 8 or Safari 4 and beta versions like Opera 10 or Firefox 3.1b3, on four different computer systems. Two Intel computer systems running the Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E8400 and Intel Core i7 Processor 920 plus two AMD systems running the AMD Athlon 64 3800+ and AMD Phenom II X4 940. It is therefor possible to analyse the performance of a web browser running on a local computer system with those run by other users who took the benchmark.

Tags: benchmark, browser benchmark, futuremark, internet browser, peacekeeper, web browser

5 Google Browser Tips

Martin — Sat, 02 May 2009 16:53:30 +0000

Google Chrome – or its Open Source counterpart Chromium – is a relatively new web browser developed by Google. It combines several interesting features and ideas that the other Internet browsers do not offer. This article will examine five interesting features of the Google browser. Some of them can be added to other web browsers – especially Mozilla Firefox – with add-ons while others are unique at the moment. It usually does not take long however before a popular feature gets implemented in other web browsers as well.

1. Resources Pane

Webmasters that use Firefox usually have the Firebug add-on installed which gives them access to information about a website’s source code but also about the elements on a page including their load time. Google Chrome provides these information out of the box. A simple right-click on a fully loaded website and the selection of Inspect Element will open the site inspector. The tab Resources displays the loading time and size of all elements on that specific webpage. Resources are further divided into categories like scripts, images or documents. The total loading time and transfer size is shown that is also divided by the categories. This gives an immediate overview over the elements that slow down the page loading time the most.

2. Resizing Text areas

Text areas on websites are usually placed to give visitors the means to interact with the website or its owner. Contact and comment forms make use of text areas which allow the user to enter text into them. Some websites implement rather small text boxes which makes it unnecessary difficulty to enter a comment or message. Google Chrome offers a feature to resize text areas on websites by simply clicking in the right lower corner and dragging the text are to a larger size.

3. The Task Manager

The task manager of the Google browser provides information about the memory, cpu and network usage of every open tab, the browser engine itself and plugins that have been loaded. The overview is interesting as it gives the user information about high resource sources directly in the web browser. Plugins with a high resource usage can be identified and uninstalled from the web browser or computer system. Even more interesting is the option to kill one of the web browser’s tabs from the task manager window. The tabs work independently from each other which makes it safe to delete tabs.

4. Using Incognito Mode to log into the same service twice with different accounts

Incognito Mode is already available in other web browsers. Those that do not have implemented it already have announced to (likely) add it into one of the future builds. While its primary focus is privacy it can be used to log into the same service with a different account at the same time. This is possible because the active cookies and information do not carry over when starting incognito mode. It is therefor possible to log into services like Gmail twice. First normally and then the second time by starting Incognito mode (Ctrl+Shift+N) and logging into the service again.

5. Browser History

The shortcut [Ctrl H] will open the browser history in Google Chrome. The history is sorted by date. Websites are listed with their favicon and title on the main page. The search form can be used to find terms in the history. These result terms look a bit different. Google Chrome displays dates, titles, descriptions and thumbnails while Chromium displays the same information but the thumbnails.

Tags: chromium, Google, google browser, google chrome, google chrome tips, internet browser, web browser

Google Browser: 11 Short Films

Martin — Sat, 02 May 2009 09:12:21 +0000

The Google browser is not really taking off as Google might have expected even though it is advertised in virtually every Google service on the Internet. That does not keep Google from using unorthodox promotion techniques. You might remember that the web browser was introduced with a comic. Their last endeavor are 11 short films about a browser that are available at the official Google Chrome Youtube channel. If you thought that the eleven short films will be boring praises of the Google browser you thought wrong.

Short films are not for anyone but they surely will reach a small but influential audience which like these kinds of promotions and ideas. Yes, the approach is pretty unique but will it really help to gain market share from competitors like Mozilla or Internet Explorer? That is highly doubtful. What it certainly does is to spread the word about the Google browser. And yes, some of the short films are nice to watch although it comes down to taste in the end.

You can watch all 11 short films about the Google browser over at the browser’s Youtube channel. If you do let us know if you like the idea.

Tags: browser, Google, google browser, google chrome, internet browser, web browser, youtube

Youtube It Firefox Add-on

Martin — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:12:49 +0000

Youtube can be a great source of information. It can for instance be used to find music videos, documentaries and all other kind of audiovisual information. The usual process to do that involves a few manual steps. A user reads, watches or views something interesting in and decides to search on Youtube for it. This can be the new song of a band, a trailer for a movie or a review of the latest hardware gadget. Basically anything except those things that are not allowed on the video portal.

Next step would be to open Youtube, enter the search term and check the results. Youtube It on the other hand makes the whole process easier as it requires less user interaction. The add-on for the Internet browser Firefox adds an entry to the right-click context menu of the web browser. A search for a specific term on Youtube can be initiated by marking text on a website, right-clicking afterwards and selecting the Youtube It link. This will open a new tab in the web browser that is opening the Youtube search results page.

The possibilities and uses are again manifold. It can be used on Amazon to check out a DVD or CD before buying it, on hardware review websites to find videos of the hardware in action or on gaming sites to find trailers and other related content more easily. Youtube It is an interesting add-on for users who use Youtube regularly.

Tags: firefox, firefox-add on, firefox-extension, internet browser, web browser, youtube, Youtube It

Internet Browsers: Firefox 3.0.10 Update

Martin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:40:53 +0000

An update to the Internet browser Firefox has been released a couple of hours ago out of the usual release cycle. It is a security update that is fixing one critical security vulnerability and one major stability issue. Critical security vulnerabilities are classified as those that require no user interaction and allow the attacker to run code and install software on the attacked computer system.

Downloads have already been pushed to the update mirrors and the Mozilla homepage has been modified to show Firefox 3.0.10 as the latest available version of the web browser. Users can also initiate the download from the Firefox menu by clicking on Help > Check for Updates. The release notes only list the two fixes mentioned in the first paragraph.

Our new software updates notification site appnews broke the news more than 4 hours ago. Make sure you check it out if you have not been there before ;)

Tags: firefox 3, firefox-update, internet browser, internet security, web browser

Increase Website Readability With TidyRead For Firefox

Martin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:59:42 +0000

Internet browsers have not seen many advancements in increasing website readability in the last years. Most web browsers provide access to settings to change the fonts, sizes and colors but that’s about it. The rise of add-ons, userscripts and bookmarklets did what the Internet browsers did not: They provided the means to increase website readability.

TidyRead is a brand new add-on for the Firefox web browser that extracts the main content from a website and displays it in an overlay window on top of the original website. It can do that automatically or manually but more about that later. The window will usually display the title, text and additional information like information about the author, date and comments on the page. It basically strips away all the non-content elements like sidebar links, advertisement or widgets that can break concentration easily.

A total of four different themes are available that use the color schemes white, black, yellow and green. The very same options can be used to increase or decrease the text size on the screen and to change the width of the layout from wide to normal and narrow. There is also an option to print the extracted contents.

The add-on will perform the task automatically by default which can be a bit nerve wrecking after a while. The settings can be changed in the extension’s options so that the process can be initiated manually by clicking on the add-on’s icon in the status bar. It is also possible to create a whitelist and blacklist. Sites that match strings in the whitelist will always be displayed using the add-on while those blacklisted will not.

The default color scheme, font size and margin can be defined in the options as well plus there are settings to disable the add-on for https pages, forums and homepages.

Tags: firefox, firefox-add on, internet browser, tidyread, web browser, website readability

Increase Internet Security With Safe SSL

Martin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:17:31 +0000

Safe is an extension for the Firefox Internet browser that increases Internet security quite a bit by visualizing safe SSL connections to the user. We have covered similar security extensions and applications in the past which changed the display of the address bar of the web browser to increase security. Today’s Internet users encounter SSL connections regularly. All trustworthy shopping sites and financial websites make use of SSL to increase the security of their users. Phishing, a form of attack that lures Internet users on fake sites that resemble the original websites, on the other hand is still on the rise mostly because users are not educated enough to be able to identify phishing attempts but also because of carelessness.

Visualizing secure SSL connections might be exactly what users need to avoid phishing websites but also services that are careless about sensible data (that is do not use SSL to protect the connections). Safe will color all tabs that make use of a secure SSL connection so that users of every level can identify them on first glance. It will furthermore draw a visible border in the same color around the screen to make it even easier to identify a website that is using SSL to increase the security of their users.

That visualization of a secure SSL connection should be reason enough to install it. The add-on is very handy for users who feel insecure on the Internet giving them a visual confirmation if they visit a secure website.

The extension offers a second feature that seems to be a bit buggy in the current version. It will display a status bar icon that is supposed to change color when hoovering over a form submission button that is using the SSL protocol. This means it should display a yellow color when hoovering over the login button at Gmail or PayPal.

It should also be noted that the border that is drawn around the screen will reduce the screen estate for the website. This can be problematic for users that run low screen resolutions.

Tags: firefox, internet browser, internet security, ssl, ssl connection, web browser

Youtube: Enhance Youtube Experience

Martin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:24:42 +0000

YousableTubeFix is a Greasemonkey script for the Firefox and Opera Internet browser (and most likley for other Internet browsers who support Greasemonkey as well) that changes the layout of Youtube to provide a better experience for the user. The list of features that are packed into the script is extensive and will change the perception of Youtube tremendously. Users of the Firefox Internet browser need to install the Greasemonkey extension before they can install the script while Opera users can move the script directly into a folder in the Opera directory.

Lets take a look at the default Youtube screen that appears when a user without the script opens a video on the portal.

And now the same page after the script has been installed in Firefox:

The script changes a lot directly on the screen. The video gets resized automatically to fit the screen. Ads and other unwanted elements on the page are removed including watching now, character counter or video annotations. Options to download the video in flv, mp4 format are available directly beneath the video. A click on the video title will also initiate a download of the video directly from Youtube.

The configuration options provided by the script contain several interesting features as well. The user can change the design of the Youtube website drastically. It is possible to remove additional elements from the Youtube page, display none or up to 500 comments on a page, prevent autoplay or autodownload, bypass the age verification (logged in users only) and select the default video format and flash player quality.

Firefox users can download the userscript here while Opera users have to go here instead.

YousableTubeFix is a great userscript for Youtube addicts and users who want Youtube to automatically use a specific video quality and page layout.

Tags: firefox, greasemonkey, internet browser, opera, videos, yousabletubefix, youtube

Windows XP: Default Internet Browser Per User Profile

Martin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:20:07 +0000

One of the main problems that users of multi-user Windows XP systems experience is that the default internet browser is set as a system setting that is affecting all user accounts. If one user decided to change the default internet browser it would affect all user accounts of the Windows XP system.

Default Browser is a small software program that has been designed for Windows XP users who prefer to have more choice when selecting the default internet browser. The software application basically allows each user of the Windows XP operating system to select a personal default internet browser

The application will displayed a list of supported web browsers after start and also display the current default internet browser of the computer system. Supported are a wide range of internet browsers including Firefox, Firefox portable, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari and several additional web browsers. There is even an option to select a internet browser by browsing the computer’s hard drive and selecting an executable manually.

The portable application has to be executed by every user of the Windows XP operating system wanting to select a different internet browser than the system’s default.

Tags: browser, default browser, internet browser, portable software, web browser, windows software, windows-xp

QtWeb Internet Browser

Martin — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:23:19 +0000

A handful of popular Internet browsers make up more than 99% of the browser market share. When you look on the Internet you find lots of articles about Firefox, Internet Explorer and to a lesser extent about Opera, Google Chrome and Safari. QtWeb Internet Browser is an alternative portable Open Source web browser based on Nokia’s Qt framework and Apple’s WebKit rendering engine. While it does not come with many features that you cannot find in another web browser it might still be worth a closer look. The browser has an extremely low resource usage of about 15-20 Megabytes with one open tab which is easily tripled or even quadrupled by most popular web browsers. If you minimize the browser the memory usage goes down to less than 1.5 Megabytes. The virtual memory size on the other hand is about 20-30 Megabytes lower than that of browsers like Firefox.

QtWeb Internet Browser comes with most features that you would expect from a web browser and some unique ones. It comes with a set of application styles that render the look and feel of the web browser and websites on the fly to simulate a Unix or Windows environment. Another interesting option is to move toolbars around including the possibility to place them outside of the browser window.

The web browser comes with a privacy mode and the unique feature to reset the browser settings to their default values on shutdown.

The rendering engine is pretty fast and scores a good 97 points out of 100 in the Acid 3 test. There were not any compatibility problems while testing the browser and it might make an excellent alternative browser. The only downside is that it is currently only available for computers running Windows. The developers have published a comparison chart that is comparing their web browser with the other popular browsers.

Tags: browser, firefox, internet browser, opera, portable browser, portable software, qtweb, web browser, windows browser

Google Chrome Anonymizer

Martin — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:53:48 +0000

Google Chrome is using a client id variable in the file Local State which can be found in the user data folder of the chrome installation which is unique for every Chrome user. Privacy advocates are already warning users that the id can be used to create exact user profiles of a user’s actions while using Google Chrome.

It did not take long though before some users figured out ways to remove or alter the client id so that the collected data was useless for Google. This article is going to show three different methods of editing or removing the Google Chome user id to make sure that no permanent data can be collected when using Google Chrome.

Users can check if the following methods work by viewing the contents of the Local State file when Google Chrome is running. The client id should not be visible in the file if a program has been used to remove it.

Google Chrome portable:

The portable version of Google Chrome was developed by a long term reader of Ghacks. Caschy is running his own (German) blog at Stadt Bremerhaven. The current version of portable Google Chrome can be downloaded at his blog. All that needs to be done is to unpack the contents of the download and run Chromeloader.exe.

A positive effect besides portability is the fact that every user will have the same id as long as they are starting Google Chrome using Chromeloader. The client id in the Local State file should read FA7069F6-ACF8-4E92-805E-2AEBC67F45E0.

Google Chrome Anonymizer:

Google Chrome Anonymizer is a tool that has been specifically designed to remove the client id from the Local State file so that the submitted data cannot be used to identify a user over several surfing sessions.

The software program can be started from any location on the hard drive and alters the Local State file directly before starting Google Chrome afterwards. This means that no client id is transferred to Google when using Google Chrome.

Manual Edit of Local State:

If you do not want to use the portable version of Google Chrome nor the Anonymizer then you could edit the Local State file directly and remove the client id entries manually from the file. The problem with this approach is that Google is creating new client id entries if the entries have been deleted previously.

This means that the user would have to edit the file manually every time before starting Google Chrome. The Local State file can be found in Documents and Settings\Profle Name\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\.

Tags: browser, google browser, google chrome, google chrome anonymizer, google chrome portable, internet browser

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